It works just as Echowars said it would.
Here is Ron's review, as posted on another site.
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FedEx delivered it on time yesterday. When I arrived home it was waiting. Had to spend a little time finishing up some patch work in the kitchen after installing recessed lighting and then off I went to the cave.
Read through the directions, decommissioned the Marantz and activated the Kilpsch. The red and green LEDs lit up like a Xmas tree.
Here is a short list of what I used for testing;
- Pearl Harbor (dts/dd)
- Moulin Rouge (dts/dd)
- T3 (dd)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (dts/dd)
- Cirque du Soleil: Alegria (2-channel CD)
For this testing secession I set all speakers to small. Calibrated with the supplied test tone and a Rat Shack Sound Meter ('C' weighted / Slow Response). Everything was calibrated at reference and all my testing was done between 0 and -10 depending on the movie.
First in was T3 and the crane sequence. Everything was very crisp, detailed and extremely enveloping, sounded excellent. Bass was a little weak but a bit of tweaking fixed that. The front sound stage was extremely seamless, something not so noticeable with the Marantz.
Next up was Pearl Harbor (dts and dd). I ran the second disk of the 4-disk set and played the sequence where Rafe McCawley's plane goes down during the Doolittle raid. This sequence has decent bass but the ensuing gun battle between the planes crew and the Jap's has excellent pistol definition and surround usage. Very impressive. Overall, it sounded like the Marantz only a bit more detailed and crisp.
Now, came the true test...Moulin Rouge. One of, if not my favorite film. I've seen this movie 40+ times and know it like the back of my hand. Every detail, every scene, every song. Sad but true I know. Anyway, right off, at the DVDs start-up menu I heard details in the music I'd not heard before. This movie sounds beautiful in both dd and dts so I ran though "Your Song" and "One Day I'll Fly Away". "Your song" sounded about the same between the two processors. But, "One Day I'll Fly Away", there were details in Kidmans voice I'd never heard before. Very lifelike, almost as if she was standing right in front of me singing live, it was awesome. Very detailed, very enveloping and the vocals were very solid.
At this point in the game I was starting to doubt myself. How can two processors that decoded the same information, sound different? How? So, I went back and played some more. Sure enough. The differences are there, subtle, but noticeable.
I turned off the surrounds and center only running the mains and sonosub for some 2-channel playback. Played a couple songs from my Alegria CD. Sounded about the same with a bit more detail in the high end. Other then that, it sounded like the Marantz.
Now that I've rambled on I'll sum up my experience, pros and cons.
The BIGGEST improvement, no more audio 'pop' when the audio drops out during layer changes or when navigating a DVD. I've had this problem every since I added the Adcoms. The Klipsch also provides more detail and crisper highs over the Marantz. Bass response was the same after some tweaking, just a little weak out of the box. The overall sound field was also a bit more enveloping. I noticed this on every movie. Nothing major, but enough to take notice. Overall, I am very impressed with both the dd and dts sound fields. I did not tweak the 5 band EQ at all, nor did I run any dsp modes.
The unit itself is small, very small. Only one button (power) graces the front of the unit, everything else is done via the remote. The remote is very well laid out, kinda cheap feeling but works well. The down side, it's not backlit. Klipsch dropped the ball here. Everything done via the remote and its not backlit. A minor compaint in the grand scheme of things I suppose. Menu navigation is very easy as is setup and tweaking. The LCD display is very easy to read and 6 leds light up either red, green or off. They are bright and there is no option I've found to dim them. I'll need some static-cling window tint for those. The red LED shows full range to speaker, green is anything above 120Hz and if the LED is off, no signal to speaker. Very nice feature.
As of now, I am extremely impressed with this little box. I walked out of the theater last night with a BIG smile on my face. At this point it's a keeper and will replace my Marantz SR5000 receiver as the pre/pro in the Driftwood. It's got a few short comings, but over all for the price paid, it cannot be beat.
Hope this helps and I apologize for the long running time. More will follow as I get more tweaking time and testing in.
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Cheers,
Russ