HDMI 1.3 receivers

[TheMoose]

They will hit the stores soon, some as early as this month.
The ones I've heard about so far are,
Denon AVR-3808CI

Denon AVR-4308CI

Sherwood Newcastle R-972

Onkyo TR-NX905

Sony STR-DA5300ES

They range in price from $1500 to $2500 & are mostly in my price range, I would like to see if any other HDMI 1.3 receivers are going to be released soon & if AVR is planning any reviews on them.

I've been waiting 2 years to upgrade my Receiver (6 year old Sony V444ES) until HDMI 1.3 receivers came out & they are Almost here!

[kennyt]

Moose,

You do realize to truly take advantage of the HDMI 1.3 spec you will need a display capable of this as well right?? Oh, and a source... read Blu-ray/ HD DVD.

Ken

[TheMoose]

Originally Posted by kennyt

Moose,

You do realize to truly take advantage of the HDMI 1.3 spec you will need a display capable of this as well right?? Oh, and a source... read Blu-ray/ HD DVD.

Ken

Yes I do realize that.
While my Sony 70" XBR2 is not 1.3 compliant my Playstation 3 for games & Blu-Ray is & at least I will have the uncompressed audio.
I'm not expecting to replace my TV anytime soon but the 1080p video is already awesome & I'm looking forward to the new audio as well.
To say nothing of being able to get rid of 60%-70% of the wiring clutter in my AV rack!!

[tomsavini]

A did some searching without finding anything;

As of now I use a Toshiba XA2 HD DVDplayer. I set the player to put out the sound in PCM using HDMI. Then my Lexicon pre-amp will recieve the sound in digital PCM.

have anyone testet sending out the sound on the HD audioformats in bitstream vs sending it out in PCM?

[kennyt]

It is my understanding that when you send the audio via bitstream, you are sending it only as DD or DTS, using the multichannel PCM allows for uncompressed sound, and yes, I have compared the two. Even in a simple receiver system the difference was huge. More air, clearer sound and better dynamics. Switching back to bitstream made the whole thing sound compressed and dull. There was no need to switch back and forth, one time was all it would take most anyone to appreciate the difference.

[Craze]

Questions on these nexgen 1.3 receivers:

I am looking for a receiver that can switch HDMI sources to 2 different rendering zones. Ideally I would have 5.1 (small family room where their is a bunch of gear) in one zone and at least stereo in another room (bedroom). Some of these receivers have 4 HDMI in and 2 out, does that mean one can control and watch different sources simultaneously and switch at their leizure or ?

I aslo would like a 3rd zone for just stereo music that I can pipe around ceiling installed speakercraft speakers within the house and outside...

Is there a product(s) on the market that can do this? I cannot get a straight answer from anyone in high end electronic retailers who just want to sell me $50K worth of components and complexity...