Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Question about cables!

Oh, by the way, there were concerns raised in this forum and elsewhere regarding the Pioneer receivers' relative lack of "power reserve." Well, the final kick that cleared my doubt and helped me decide to go for the 45TX is here:

Hifi News (UK) - Comparison of Reveivers

They measured and compared the US$1000-ish receivers from Pioneer (VSX-D2011 = Elite 45TX), Rotel, Sony, Onkyo, Yamaha, and JVC in this article.

Sushi, the link you gave was very interesting. Some, of course, might be misguided enough to think that some of the other items shown in the Parent Directory(e.g. Elisa Bridges)were more interesting than the power output plots of the Pioneer receiver. Certainly nearly 140 watts continuous at 8ohms with 5 channels driven can be considered to be fairly adequate. In fact I'd suspect that if an audiophile attempted to drive all 5 speakers(plus sub)at the continuous level of about 110db PER SPEAKER that this would allow, the result might be a dead audiophile lying in a pile of fallen plaster and shattered glass.

Of course, many of the complaints about the Pioneer related to 4ohm operation, which Hi-Fi News didn't show, but I can't imagine that there would be that much difference. Note however the usual silly subjective comments of their listening panel; apparently you'll have to do without "the widest sense of space or atmosphere", but have courage nevertheless.

Looking at the Sony 333(essentially the DA4ES)graphs, I'd be satisfied with that, too. While brief transients might momentarily require high output in all channels, there wouldn't be a continuous requirement.

Incidentally, 75 feet of your 27ga video cable should be no problem; the attenuation would be just a bit over 1db and should have no effect.

In reply to:

---

Of course, many of the complaints about the Pioneer related to 4ohm operation

---

Yes, but according to the 45TX threads in the AVSforum, it does seem that Pioneer has (silently) implemented some updates on the over-current protection circuit and/or firmware in recent production batches.

In reply to:

---

Note however the usual silly subjective comments of their listening panel

---

LOL Yeah, the only thing I was interested in was the power plots.

In reply to:

---

Incidentally, 75 feet of your 27ga video cable should be no problem; the attenuation would be just a bit over 1db and should have no effect.

---

Thanks for the encouraging words, John. But I guess what I really want to know is how exactly the calculated "1db loss" will (or will not) manifest on the image. Is that loss mainly in higher frequency signals? If so, will I see any visible loss of contrast in high-spacial-frequency regions of image (i.e. loss of image sharpness)? If it is uniform 1db loss over a wide frequency range, then will I see any general loss of image contrast???

I am still a bit worried, because 1db is about 12% attenuation in voltage (10 to the power of 0.05), and a 12% decrease in image contrast may be readily visible! In other words, our eyes are much more discerning than our ears.

WOW!!! My Axioms have already been delivered around noon today. I think it is one day earlier than scheduled! Too bad, right now I am in DC for a conference till Wednesday. LOL

Hey Amy, you should probably have an option of Ground Shipping available (with a price discount), in addition to the automatic FedEx 2-day air. I do not think everybody needs it delivered in 2 days. Or, did I miss something here???

I just returned home safely, and everything except for the HSU (delivery scheduled tomorrow) has been delivered!

Time to open the boxes...!!!

Okay, my 75-feet Mogami component and S-video cables have arrived. The 27-gauge coax wire used is much thinner than I imagined -- the individual wires are of less than 1/8" outer diameter. The component cable is configured as approximately 3/8" x 1/3" flat cable. These cables are very flexible, which is nice for on-wall installation; but their thinness got me a bit worried.

So, I very briefly tested them by simply swapping the cable from the DVD player to the projector. Since I do not have a component video switch box, Joe I could not do instantenous A/B comparison. I compared the images both in motion and still-paused.

Bottom line: At least under these conditions, I could not tell any difference whatsoever in image quality, with either the 75-feet cable versus a much thicker and shorter (6-feet) Acoustic Research component cable.

So far so good... one less thing to worry about (although something bad may still happen after I actually on-wall install these cables).

Thats great that at 75 feet there was no drop in video quality. Did you say it was a FLAT cable for component? Do you have a chance to actually compare a DVD image through a DVD player in a PC via computer cable to your projector and see if there was any difference in video quality on component vs computer RGB?
I might have to go long with my video signal but I will need to find a place that will spec maybe 50 feet of computer analog 15 pin cable. Or just go with about 40 feet of Digital Coax for sound and place my HTPC closer to the projector.

Saturn

Saturn,

No, I have not tested how DVD materials look like on my Yamaha when fed by a PC via RGB or DVI-D. Also, please note that I only tested the 75-feet cable with 480i souces; I do not currently have an HD source, or even a progressive DVD player! (or, is the X-Box progressive when connected with the component-out dongle???)

It is not a real "flat" cable. Because the manufacturer simply put together three 1/8" coax wires side-by-side parallely to make a tri-wire component cable, the entire cable has a rather "flat" shape (approximately 3/8" x 1/8" cross section).

As for your situation, I believe that as far as you use a coax-based RGB cable (rather than the usual twisted pairs), you will be fine with a 50-feet of analog RGB run. At any rate, I do not think there is any fundamental difference in picture quality between the analog RGB and the component connection. The signal bandwidths etc. are identical; the only difference is that the component connection carries Y/Pb/Pr signals, which is a simple linear transform of R/G/B signals.

By the way, I understand that DVI-D will not support a long cable run, correct?

In reply to:

---

(or, is the X-Box progressive when connected with the component-out dongle???)

---

I believe it does but you probably have to tell it to do so somewhere in the setup menus.

Semi, you were correct. You can enable/disable 480p/720p/1080i in the X-Box's "video setting" menu.

So, I am happy to find myself having a progressive DVD player. But, boy, is not X-Box's hard drive loud!!! In fact, it is much noisier than the Yamaha projector's inevitable fan. It is way too noisy to sit there as an AV gear, in my standards.