|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on May 9, 2010 12:19:55 GMT
 Here's the blurb: M1 DAC Musical Fidelity was pretty well the first company in the world to make a DAC. Since then they have an unbroken lineage of top performing, top value digital products. The new M1 DAC is the fruit of our 23 years experience of making top performance DACs. It has four digital inputs; coax, optical, balanced and USB. The M1 DAC will lock on to any SP diff signal at; 32kHz, 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88kHz, 96kHz and 192kHz. The input sampling frequency is displayed on the front panel. The M1 DAC upsamples to 24-bit at 192kHz. This is genuine true upsampling. The M1 DAC has a high quality power supply. Interestingly it has choke filtration on the mains input. This, effectively, is a mains signal conditioner which increases the performance and value of the M1 to even greater heights. The M1 DAC’s UK retail will be about £399. It will be available from early July. M1 Headphone Amplifier Musical Fidelity has a long history of making superlative headphone amplifiers. The M1 HPA pure Class A headphone amp has exactly the same sonic characteristics with headphones as our pure Class A amplifiers with loudspeakers. It sounds fantastic. The M1 HPA pure Class A headphone amp’s technical performance is outstanding. Distortion is incredibly low (less than .0005% across the band) frequency response is ruler flat. Noise ratio is outstanding. In every technical parameter the M1 pure Class A headphone amp is outstanding. Available from late August with a UK retail price of £499 inc VAT. |
|
elysion
Been here a while! 
Team Anti M$ AND Facebook.
contra torrentem
Posts: 2,375
|
Post by elysion on May 16, 2010 19:30:01 GMT
I suppose they're going fully solid-state with the M1-HPA as they did with the V-Can.
It will be interesting to compare the new M1 devices with the current bargains (Neco, AUNE etc.) and if they're still trying to save costs by using cheap/crappy parts.
I can't believe why they don't sell amps in the same quality as those modded by Mike. There're a lot of competitors around today and they're getting better every day.
In the long run MF could get a real problem if they don't improve on the quality of the parts. Why pay a premium for a MF amp just to recognize that you'll need to mod it heavily to get the most out of it while other manufacturers are doing a better job for less money. The Neco amps for examply are almost perfect out of the box and are real bargains.
But we will see – some competition doesn't hurt.
|
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on May 16, 2010 19:58:12 GMT
I hope they "are" going solid state, it would make a nice change from these valve based headphone amps  |
|
mrarroyo
Been here a while!
Our man in Miami!
Posts: 1,003
|
Post by mrarroyo on May 17, 2010 23:52:43 GMT
Are you Mike or Alex in disguise?  |
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 10, 2010 22:32:44 GMT
|
|
mrarroyo
Been here a while!
Our man in Miami!
Posts: 1,003
|
Post by mrarroyo on Jun 11, 2010 0:05:58 GMT
Sad indeed!
|
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 11, 2010 21:34:32 GMT
£499 as well! I just don't understand what MF are doing these days.... they come up with a new amp every couple of years and class it as the best thing since sliced bread.... then comes along another, then another, then another! V1, V2, V3, V8 and now an M1.... everytime a new model is introduced the price is hiked up another £100. We started with the V1 @ £120 and now we have the M1 @ £500. The V1 was Made in England, the M1 is made in Taiwan. I just don't understand all this, the V8 is no better than the V1 (to my ears) yet it cost almost 4 x more than the V1.... you would think things would have got a bit cheaper with their manufacturing base now being located in Taiwan but, no, each version is increasing by £100. So that's the end of their valve headphone amps? We are now looking at a £500 solid state amp with a switched mode power supply? A technological advancement or just another one of these throwaway / disposable, lead free, energy efficient things to please (conform) to the "green" brigade's directives? I think it's a backward step, just as digital TV / Radio is.... I have recently bought a 40 inch LED backlit TV (the slimmest in the world) and the picture quality on "standard" SKY is pretty ordinary, if you look closely you see visible artifacts which cause blurring and blocks..... this is supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread? Have people forgotten just how perfect a picture could be had from a CRT TV on a good strong analogue signal? Here I am sitting watching this "state of the art" TV with picture quality that most good CRT TV's would walk all over..... I am told by a "TV expert" that it's not the TV, I need to "upgrade" to a HD box...... Oh, so the standard digital signal is crap then? Why is it my old 1990's Sony CRT TV looks perfect when hooked up to the same SKY box then? You know what he said?....... "that's an illusion, because the LED is digital it shows up more flaws in the picture".... What a load of bollocks!! Whatever it is I EXPECT a brand new television to have a better picture than a 20 year old one! Don't get me wrong, the LED TV is fantastic (especially via DVD) but close up, on some programs, it is quite noisy. Maybe "HD" will improve it but.... what a rip off! We were lead to believe that "digital" was the way to go..... "perfect picture quality"..... now that digital has been rolled out across the whole of the UK we are now being told we need "HD" to get the best out of that and that will cost you an extra tenner per month thanks..... What next? "super HD"? "extra HD HD"? So, people across the land, have been forced into this digital arena and I guess many many millions have bought a new flat screen "Digital ready" TV and scrapped their old CRT screens.... I bet they are really happy with the "amazing" difference in picture quality  Same goes with radio. I have 4 vintage (superb quality) analogue tuners out in the workshop with a dedicated FM aerial on the roof... the sound quality is absolutely SUPERB.... come 2013 they will be no good to anybody as FM will be a thing of the past.... my vintage Leak Troughline will be a non working museum piece. Why? because we are being forced into DAB digital radio in 2013 (up here) so my entire analogue rig will have to be binned and replaced with a "digital" tuner of MUCH lesser quality (sound and build wise).... this is progress?!! This is "saving the planet"?!! No, this is BULLSHIT.... a polished turd being marketed as better sounding, environmentally friendly and safe to dispose of in a landfill once the lead free solder holding it together collapses as soon as the 12 month warranty is out. "environmentally friendly" = binning MILLIONS of analogue TV's / tuners / radios, some of which have been in service for over 60 years and replacing with inferior quality, mass produced (Chinese slave labour camp sweatshops) plastic throwaway crap that WILL "need" replaced once a year either due to failure or the marketing "pressure" to upgrade to the "latest" technology. We are in very bad times.... back in the day most people considered a TV as an investment and that TV would stay in the family home for, at least, 10 years with the TV repair man coming round when things went wrong. When it finally bit the dust it was given a send off like it was a member of the family! Nowadays things come easy (to quite a lot of people) they have no appreciation for equipment, they use it and abuse it, until the next latest and greatest version comes along, and then bin it without so much as a "thanks for the service you have given me"..... Equipment has become disposable and the value of money is not appreciated by many.... this is fine as long as that equipment is "green"..... it's perfectly OK to bin BILLIONS of pounds worth of plastic and lead free gear every year but don't you dare make a case for your 50 year old tuner or 200 year old barometer (contains mercury).... according to "them" YOU are NOT green  Why can't these faceless lawmakers see what a mistake they are making? I'll tell you why....... "quality and longevity" does not a productive economy make.... these so called "green" laws are designed to make you part with MORE cash on a more frequent basis...... People selling radios / TV's (or anything) would go out of business if you only bought one TV / Radio in your lifetime...... government would also be pissed off as their VAT revenue, etc. would decrease...... Nope, it's all about "renewal" on a yearly basis these days..... the latest Ipod / Ipad ot the latest "HD" TV..... they want you as a repeat customer every year. Fair enough if there was actually an IMPROVEMENT in quality but to pay for so called "improvements" that are actually backward steps "quality" wise and are actually CONTRIBUTING BIG STYLE to landfill overload seems ridiculous to me? Do none of these "Green" eco friendly people have a brain or a pair of eyes? Can't they see it is better to invest in a 500 year old clock over a disposable China made watch? Can't they see that delivering milk to your door in glass BOTTLES is a lot more "friendly" than knocking it out in plastic bottles? What's wrong with these people? MONEY, that's what! It's all about profit, they don't give a fekk about the planet...... Back on topic, I, for one, wont be forking out £500 GBP for a MF M1 HPA. Mike. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2010 23:49:36 GMT
Mike
Off topic for a moment.By "Sky", I presume you mean via satellite ?
Terrestrial DTV is better than via Satellite or cable.With Foxtel via cable,IMHO, even HD doesn't look as good as the best of terrestrial SDTV , other than being widescreen etc. My 25 year old 28" JVC TV still gives a pretty decent picture, and I have been using it with a HD capable STB for many years. Interestingly, when a HD channel is downsampled to view via the old JVC, the HD version is more detailed and better looking overall than the normal SD version.
My Samsung 24"HD monitor does however give a better picture via a DTV card in my PC than my old JVC can. So much so, that when my rental bond is returned, I intend retiring the old JVC in favour of a 37"Samsung full HD, LED backlit LCD TV.
At my preent location where the TV transmitters are obscured by a hill, analogue TV is not watchable via the PC due to snow, but DTV is for the most part great, except for when a member of the family flicks on the fluoros in the bathroom, and very windy conditions. I had expected that I would need a log periodic Digital antenna and a mast head amplifier
DAB is a bloomin' joke due to the incredibly low bit rates being used in the vast majority of cases!
Stereo FM can be very good indeed , but for the most part, it has been ruined by the use of automated shitty MP3 carts, and the apparent need for commercial FM stations to make their station sound the loudest on the FM band ! :oF
Alex
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 8:29:25 GMT
A T.V. engineer I knew told me that "old-fashioned" C.R.T. T.V.'s fed by a good strong signal had far, far better picture quality than any of the L.C.D.'s or Plasma's. The only problem was because of the slight curvature of the screen, once you got up to really large sizes, people viewing from an angle got a distorted view, and the larger the screen the more square on you had to be to get the full quality. But like for like he told me that C.R.T.'s had much better P.Q.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 12:58:18 GMT
Too right! Our main set at home is 25 inch Sony CRT, it is at least 20 years old, there are two, younger, 21 inch CRTs in the house. All have nice clear pictures. The new LCD/plasmas do not equal their pictures, in stores or in freinds homes, they really are pants in comparison. What's the point in Blueray etc when you only have cacky tv to watch it on  |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 13:19:25 GMT
In my front room, I have a 37" LCD tv and the blocks that come down via cable are measureable with a ruler.
It is awful, I agree. Maybe one day, the technology will evolve but it's not good at all. Blu-Ray is super and even upscaled DVD but for TV, cable is crap.
Radio is plain nasty. Gritty, horrible sound with compression delived via MP2. One day, this country will wake up to the future.
The M1 box looks like a V8 sprayed black.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2010 15:18:44 GMT
I feel a Little Pinkie with SMPS bypass kit coming on |
|
elysion
Been here a while!
Team Anti M$ AND Facebook.
contra torrentem
Posts: 2,375
|
Post by elysion on Jun 12, 2010 16:20:51 GMT
499£ is an impertinence... it costs more than three Neco Mosfet V.2 amps and I'm quite sure the Mosfet is the better amp... Maybe street prices will be lower, but for me the MF adventure is already over. I have enough MF amps (V2+V3, X10-D, 4x V-Can) and we have no MF distributor in Switzerland at the moment. I won't sell my remaining MF amps beside 1-2 of my V-Can's (I've already sold my V1 to Mike), but I won't buy any new MF amps. There are too much better alternatives around that are also a lot cheaper. Still I'm curious how the new M1 HPA will sound, but even if it does sound good it doesn't justifies the big money you have to spend for one. Probably they are still using cheap caps/components with the M1. Maybe the name "M1" is also a bit unlucky, because there was also a " M1" that was a total failure. Today's throw-away-society is a real problem. That's the reason why a lot of products are "cheap" and get broken after quite a short time. I don't think LCD technology is bad, but there's a lot of crap on the market. Most LCD's are of twisted-nematic type, the better (S-)IPS and (P/M-)VA panels cost a lot more. LCD are IMO great for computer use where you are sitting directly in front of the LCD panel with a very short distance between you and the LCD. I'm almost sure they are not as optimal for TV use when you are a couple of meters away from the TV. Twisted-nematic (TN) panels are not suitable for TV-use because of their angle dependence. Most LCD-TVs use TN-panels though... The LCD in front of me is a Samsung 26-inch TN-panel with pulsed backlight. It was cheap and absolutely OK for computer use, but I'd rate it as crap for TV use in a living room. The build quality could be better, the plastic stand of this panel isn't very stable at all. Even if you have a good panel, you have to adjust it accordingly to get the most out of it. For better displays a good colorimeter can do miracles. We have a very good high-end LCD at work which has hardware calibration and is delivered with a top-of-the-line colorimeter. This display features 14-bit per channel color depth (for a total of 42-bit color depth). Cheap panels have 6-bit per channel (almost all notebooks also only have 6-bit per channel LCDs). Your graphics card usually has at least 8-bit per channel, but today craptastic panels use only 6-bit to get LCD monitors even cheaper. BTW: The 42-bit calibrated high-end panel had a price of about 5000CHF including the colorimeter. The gamut of this display is so wide that we can simulate the whole ISO-coated-v2 colour space easily. The backlight isn't the usual CCFL or LCD stuff... they use true fluorescent tubes with a very accurate 5000K(elvin) colour temperature output. IIRC it's a MVA panel. Have a look here if your are interested in such high-end monitors. The S-IPS panels that Apple uses in it's higher-end iMacs are quite good. We have calibrated them with the same Quato/X-Rite colorimeter and those S-IPS panels cover also most of the (but not the whole) ISO-coated-v2 colour space. Not bad for an iMac panel... I use of of these iMacs at work and before that I had the Quato panel in front of me. I have no real reason to switch to the Quato anymore if I have to do colour adjustments for digital/flexo/offset-printing. Both panel deliver very accurate results if they're calibrated right. |
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 12, 2010 18:00:57 GMT
|
|
leo
Been here a while!
Team wtf is it?
Posts: 3,638
|
Post by leo on Jun 12, 2010 19:48:19 GMT
I'm just watching Hi-Def on a 46inch LCD Sony Bravia, looks crystal clear to me, standard def does look quite fuzzy in comparison on TV's over 40inch.
Personally couldn't go back to CRT, our older Panny CRT had a decent pic but it was just too huge and bulky
Regarding the M1, it should be very easy to disconnect the smps, you'll find majority of amps will be using crappy smps now unfortunately , sticking it in the same case was a bad move though imo from MF, they should have done it external
|
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 12, 2010 21:24:37 GMT
Regarding the M1, it should be very easy to disconnect the smps, you'll find majority of amps will be using crappy smps now unfortunately , sticking it in the same case was a bad move though imo from MF, they should have done it external The V8 was a total flop for MF, it should have given them the message that people didn't want to spend "that much" on a headphone amp..... they seem to have lost touch with what's going on. The NECO amp, and loads more, at a fraction of the cost providing serious competition and what do they do? Fit a SMPS and increase the price by another £100.... it's not going to be a big seller  V1's and V2's sold in their hundreds of thousands, the V8 (as far as I'm aware) sold less than 1,000 before it was phased out. Musical Fidelity made a loss last year, their first for MANY years. I think their biggest mistake was introducing the "fine tuning" service which, basically, sent a message to their customers that the product they had just bought was not as good as it could be and for another few hundred quid they would bring it up to scratch..... Just imagine how you'd feel if you forked out mega bucks on their A370 power amp to be told it could be improved for £899 or forked out £399 on the V8 headphone and then informed it will cost you an additional £189 to get it "fine tuned".... absolutely RIDICULOUS!! Fair enough with the likes of Graham Slee who will charge you a fee to upgrade your old version of a Solo to the latest version, that makes total sense and is a good idea.... but to introduce a new, all singing / all dancing, amp to market claiming it is the best thing since sliced bread and THEN saying to the customer..... "oh, sorry, in actual fact, to get the best out of it we have to fine tune it"........ eh? That will have lost MF a LOT of friends. I have been a supporter of MF from the early days when Anthony's idea was to provide good quality sound to the masses at a fair price.... he achieved it too with the X-CANS and X-CAN V2 series of headphone amps.... they were also MADE in the UK (London) at the Wembley HQ.... The past few years they have just lost the plot, IMO.... their production base is now in Taiwan (nothing wrong with that) and production costs are a LOT cheaper over there.... you would think they would be passing those savings on to the customer but instead they have almost quadrupled the asking price of one of their headphone amps. Fair enough if the latest amp sounds four times better than the first and fair enough if they want to capture a more "wealthy" audience..... I, personally, would have thought that overseas production would have resulted in better products at a better price to the customer (with bigger profits to MF)...... seems MF want their cake and eat it too.... Again, fair enough but they have now become a "speciality" producer clearly targetting wealthy customers.... considering the current financial climate I think it would have been more prudent for them to go back to their roots.... "music for all at an affordable price"...... They have been a real success story (in the UK) it would be a shame to see them go out of business..... at their current rate of knots the end may not be that far away The "V" series was an attempt to get back to basics and they have had good success with the V-DAC (The V-CAN headphone amp went down like a lead balloon)..... I really HOPE MF can get back in touch with their "massive" customer base but it will require a lot of rethinking at MF HQ. |
|
leo
Been here a while!
Team wtf is it?
Posts: 3,638
|
Post by leo on Jun 12, 2010 22:28:27 GMT
Hits the nail on the head doesn't it? Its sad to see when a lot of these places just seem to loose the plot .
Seems such a shame the original X-can's and V2 was phased out if they had such a big following.
|
|
elysion
Been here a while!
Team Anti M$ AND Facebook.
contra torrentem
Posts: 2,375
|
Post by elysion on Jun 13, 2010 1:50:29 GMT
Sad to see MF in the current condition. But they have made a lot of mistakes.
The good thing is that a lot of very good alternatives are around. And with Neco even a top alternative from UK. Although I think that products from China/Asia are good (and still are getting better), I like to have also European built equipment. Neco does already what MF should do.
Meier Audio is somewhat like MF. Meier Audio amps are built in Asia and sold for big money here in Europe. I don't own a Meier Audio amp, they simple cost to much for what they are delivering IMHO.
Some of the Meier Audio features like the crossfeed filter and a switch for low or high impedance 'phones are still interesting though.
|
|
|
|
Post by charlie on Jun 14, 2010 13:22:01 GMT
The IPod/DAB generation will never know just how good analogue can sound. I remember listening to the 6.30 Saturday evening live concerts that used to be on Radio 1 in the 70's over a good hifi system with roof aerial. The sound was stunning and far better than from vinyl at the time especially on bass guitars with each note being well defined. Recently I have just refreshed my turntable with a Goldring 2500MM and the better vinyl sounds gorgeous through my MF X-150 yes even compared to CD's on my MF3.2.
To me the biggest mistake MF have made over the last 3-7 years is lack of continuity of product line I picked up my 3.2 CD at a bargain end of line price but then last year had the problem of finding a matching amp. 3 series then well gone x-150 range discontinued, so in the end had to buy on ebay. If MF saw the prices these "affordable" amps are going for on ebay then they may realize where they have gone wrong.
Mike where you may have gone wrong on the TV is simply the size of TV you have bought and the viewing distance. The SD signal just does not have enough pixels to display well on a 40" HD set at close range. I have just bought a half price Panasonic 32" G10 set and the picture on SD is excellent provided the sharpening is not set too high. This set does have a matt surface IPS rather than TN panel which is not as sharp on HD but smoother on SD which mots programmes still are. Samsung TV's however are incredibly sharp on HD and perhaps then too revealing on SD. Try cutting down the processing and sharpness on the HD signal to smooth it out
|
|
elysion
Been here a while!
Team Anti M$ AND Facebook.
contra torrentem
Posts: 2,375
|
Post by elysion on Jun 14, 2010 16:05:44 GMT
The IPod/DAB generation will never know just how good analogue can sound. I don't see the current situation only negative. The majority of people want "cheap" products and doesn't know what quality really is. They get those "cheap" products and maybe that's just what they deserve...  I think this was the same years ago. It was possible to buy crap in the 50's, 60's, 70's or earlier. It was always up to the buyer to make the decision. The real problem today is our throw-away-society. I can understand it somewhat regarding computers: It doesn't make sense to build for eternity as the technology in the box is usually obsolete six months later and the life-cycle of computer products is somewhere between 3-10 years (usually). But I'm not sure if those very fast innovation cycles are really a good thing. Introducing a system in a corporation always takes some time and education of the people using it also takes time. Very often you have to replaced a system with something "better" just as you have completed its introduction. Many people already have problems to follow todays fast "innovation" cycles. The big question is: Is this really "innovation" or does the "innovation" partially kill the progress with the "innovation". Regarding audio products, I can't see a big problem because we still have the choice to buy top-notch equipment. It can be a real pain to find really good equipment though and it was/is always a question of knowledge/experience and/or money. DAB could be better than it is at the moment. The situation would be a lot better with the maximum possible bit-rate and high-quality DAB-tuners. Today you find mostly cheap DAB radios and good hifi-tuners with DAB/DAB+ are still seldom. The low bit-rates used by radio stations are simply a shame. DAB has also a strong competition through streaming media over the internet (at least for stationary use). It's also the same with LCD's: There are great LCD panels available. But they cost a lot more than the cheap products for the mass market and LCD's aren't perfect for every purpose. The invention of the transistor radio was comparable to the introducation of the DAB: First the prices and the quality are going down... then it takes a very long time to get the quality back where it should be. Really good products are always a niche market. It almost seems that most people like to be cheated... |
|
|
|
Post by PinkFloyd on Jun 14, 2010 20:42:46 GMT
Yep! Nail on the head mate.... they have opted to go for "revolution" instead of "evolution" so every new product is heralded as "different" from the last.... IMO, they should stick with one design and see it through to fruition through many years of research.... constant chopping and changing ("revolution") is not the best way forward |
|
|
|
Post by Defecitve Audio Component on Sept 11, 2010 19:43:58 GMT
No impressions of the sound? all I could find was this passage in the users manual:
"To prevent possible harm to the environment please separate the product from other waste to ensure that it can be recycled in an environmentally safe manner."
|
|
|
|
Post by dejanm on Sept 12, 2010 8:13:20 GMT
Did somebody had a chance to listen to this new MF baby ?
|
|
|
|
Post by dejanm on Sept 12, 2010 8:35:05 GMT
Maybe a couple of comments on this off-topic .... I was looking very closely to this Samsung when I was searching a big screen to buy. My conclusion was that it has a really good picture with BRs and with HD broadcasting. But if you feed in SD signal, it shows terrible digital artefacts. So it seemed to me that this unit is appropriate for people who are either spending most of their time watching BRs or really do have excellent HD reception. I do not believe though that anywhere in the world the second is the case - although the infrastructure is getting better. Therefore I went for Pioneer LCD, 46 inch. Concerning the comparison with older CRTs ... you should pay attention that you are probably not comparing the screens of the same size. LCD or Plasma do also have excellent picture when the panels are 28 or 32 inch large. The things are getting more critical when we are talking about 46, 50 or even larger sizes. To provide such a large panels simply CRT technology was inappropriate. These CRT would be so huge and inpractical .... and new panels look so sexy although, like in this Samsung case, do not provide always what the customers would like to have. But have a little patience. The infrastructure is improving, more and more channels are emitted in HD and then most of these new panels will provide very good picture. This Samsung as well .... So the advice to get a HD box is actually a must for this Samsung. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2010 9:52:39 GMT
Maybe a couple of comments on this off-topic .... I was looking very closely to this Samsung when I was searching a big screen to buy. My conclusion was that it has a really good picture with BRs and with HD broadcasting. But if you feed in SD signal, it shows terrible digital artefacts. So it seemed to me that this unit is appropriate for people who are either spending most of their time watching BRs or really do have excellent HD reception. I do not believe though that anywhere in the world the second is the case - although the infrastructure is getting better. Therefore I went for Pioneer LCD, 46 inch. Concerning the comparison with older CRTs ... you should pay attention that you are probably not comparing the screens of the same size. LCD or Plasma do also have excellent picture when the panels are 28 or 32 inch large. The things are getting more critical when we are talking about 46, 50 or even larger sizes. To provide such a large panels simply CRT technology was inappropriate. These CRT would be so huge and inpractical .... and new panels look so sexy although, like in this Samsung case, do not provide always what the customers would like to have. But have a little patience. The infrastructure is improving, more and more channels are emitted in HD and then most of these new panels will provide very good picture. This Samsung as well .... So the advice to get a HD box is actually a must for this Samsung. dejanm Sorry, but I would have to disagree with you about the performance of the Samsung LED backlit LCD 40"TVs. My finances restricted me to the earlier series 5000 Samsung, and I am not aware of the problems you are describing. The quality of the SD picture seems very dependent on the original resolution. SD that is sourced from original HD material can look very good indeed. It can also be very dependent on the broadcaster itself, and the quality of any links that they use from their main feed.I have been using HD STBs for many years with my older JVC 28" CRT TV. I get better reception using the Samsung's own tuner than with a Bush HD STB, or an older DGTEC HD STB. The Samsung's internal HD tuner is however a smidgin less sensitive than the tuner in the Bush HD STB. I live in an area below a hill, where most people have to use fairly high masts and higher gain antennas. In the end of the rented house where my AV room is, I am unable to access the outside antenna. Signal level is so low that it is impossible to watch analogue TV. However, with rabbit's ears placed in the window behind the curtain, I am able to satisfactorily receive DTV on all local channels.The fluoro in the nearby bathroom does however upset reception on one channel momentarily when switched on. I use quad shielded RG6 cable to the rabbit's ears with a low noise MHA designed for outside use, about 2 metres from the rabbit's ears. HDTV is also very watchable with this setup, although a little more affected by EMI on occasion. Again, I would reiterate that this is very good digital quality TV with excellent audio, where analogue TV is completely unwatchable due to both low signal strength and severe ghosting. Alex P.S. Digital Audio from the Toslink of the Samsung STB to my modified Silicon Chip DAC is absolutely superb, with a fabulous soundstage on many programs. It is markedly better than either STB, and clearly has a much lower noise level, as grain is not noticed on low level ambience like it is on either HD STB. |
|
What the hell is the world coming to? 
