Ayre in the Air! Don't dread the Dreadnaught :)

[Mike Osadciw]

I'm a two channel lover as well. Glad to be spending time here with some fellow Canadians who love two channel just as much. Although, I admit I do run home theater as a pass-through. I'll post the HT in the HT Thread.

My system comprises of:

- Ayre K-1xe with phono stage preamp
- 2 Theta Dreadnaught 5x200 power amps (in two channel mode, I use only one channel from each amp as monoblocks, the rest of the channels are used for home theater)
- Meridian 508.24 CD Player
- Dunlavy SC-IV/A speakers
- Transparent MusicWave Plus BiWire speaker cables
- Transparent MusicLink Super interconnects
- Transparent PowerLink Super power cords on amps

Fully balanced input through output. After years of listening to a wide variety of equipment, I can say that I'm satisfied with the sound of this system

[Suave]

Hello Mike - it's great to have a guy like yourself join our growning community! I'm sure that as the number of members on this forum continues to climb, it's just a matter of time before guys will be asking you to calibrate their TVs. I'm planning to upgrade one of my TVs later this summer/early fall to one of the new 3D Panasonic plasmas - perhaps I will be the first to ask for your calibration services

It looks like you've got a pretty high performance 2-channel system. I've listened to the Meridian 508.24 CD player before - it's probably one of the best sounding players in the world!

I'm sure we'd all love to see a couple of pics, if you have a moment to post.

[Mike Osadciw]

I did not make it to CES to see the 3-D buzz...but I saw early prototype at Panasonic Hollywood Labs in California in 2008. The results were very cool...some improvements were needed, but from what I am reading, it appears to be working out ok... but then, my eye can be a bit too critical at times. Certainly let me know when you make your new purchase

The 508.24 was a blind buy for me. I really can't recall why I chose it. I think I was looking at a Wadia 850 or 860... and I bought it on the position of Stereophile at the time rather than using my own ears...something I have never done up to that point. It's a nice player and I'm happy with the sound. Two issues: 1) I have the limited remote and 2) it sometimes takes a moment to 'start' the song clipping a fraction of a second off the first note when skipping tracks...

[Suave]

I didn't go down to CES this past January either, but I did see the Panasonic 3D plasma demo here in Toronto at the end of 2009. It was the same setup that they showed at the 2009 CES, with some software and firmware upgrades.

It wasn't flawless, but it looked pretty spectacular. The picture had the sharpness and details of a full 1080p picture (each eye got the 1080p resolution). The 3D effects were not the "in your face" kind of 3D, but rather added a great depth to the picture.

I'm dying to see how this translates into home products this spring/summer!

[SoundGame]

Interesting about your 3D impressions Suave. I saw Avatar on IMAX 3D and though I was captivated and pulled into the movie by the 3D, I found the image a little lacking in sharpness. You say you found the Sony demo to have all the 1080p sharpness that would be expected from a 3D picture. Could you confirm whether that the 3D image was pound for pound as clear/sharp as a non-3D 1080p image?

[Suave]

SoundGame - the question is - are you saying that Avatar wasn't as sharp as other movies at the theatre or 1080p movies that you watch at home?

I've noticed something similar (in general) when I bought my first Blu-ray player and started watching movies at home in 1080p. Since then, every time I go to the movies, the picture lacks in sharpness - the sharpness that I'm used to at home just isn't there. This is due to the fact that the picture at the movie theatre is blown up to fit such a huge screen. Of course a lot of movies are still shot on film (which has a much higher resolution than 1080p), however the screens at the movie theatre are so big that by the time the film is blown up to the size of the screen the picture doesn't look very sharp.

The demo I saw was from Panasonic, not Sony. Clips from various 3D movies (including Avatar) were shown on a 103-inch Panasonic plasma. Although I wasn't able to make a direct comparison between 2D and 3D video during the presentation, I'm tempted to say that the 3D picture was super sharp - just as sharp as a 2D 1080p picture should have been on a size of this size.

[SoundGame]

Actually Suave, I'm not saying Avatar was less sharp then what I see on my home setup (it was) and I understand the size difference but what I'm saying is that I've been to some of the pure digital projection theaters to see movies like Watchmen and the clarity of the larger screen picture was unbelievable. I personally found Avatar in 3D to be less sharp than the large 2D digtal projection theatres. I saw Avatar twice in 3D, once on IMAX 3D and once in a regular 3D theatre. The IMAX was the better result; however, even the IMAX came short of what I've perceived in digital projection theatres.
What I'm asking is with all things held equal, the same movie, both on Blu-ray players and sets of equal quality, would the 2D version on the same set appear sharper with better colour and contrast than the 3D version, perhaps on the same set?
Are we giving up anything in terms of absolute video quality to get the 3D experience?

[Suave]

To be completely honest, I've never really compared the quality of the picture of a 3D movie to a regular movie (at the theatre). It's only every several months that I've watched 3D movies and I suppose I enjoyed the additional 3D experience, rather than trying to dissect the picture . I can say however that the last few 3D movies that I watched did not appear to have a significant loss of sharpness or colour compared to regular movies - not that I noticed anyway.

Perhaps the reduced sharpness in Avatar was done purposely - much like certain filters are added to films. This could have been done deliberately to provide an easier blend between real life video and computer animation. I suppose the only way to find out for sure would be to watch a 2D version and then a 3D version of the same movie. I guess when Avatar comes out on Blu-ray in 3D later this year... we'll finally get a chance to do so.

[Mike Osadciw]

apparently we won't see Avatar on 3-D Blu-ray this year. that's according to Fox.

pics for the above still to come.

[Suave]

Yeah... different sources reported that Avatar will be released on different dates but it sounds like there may not be a concrete release date just yet.

I'm not that concerned thought since I watched it at the movies pretty recently.

It looks like the first 3D title will be Monsters versus Aliens, to coincide with Samsung's 3D TVs.

Have you guys noticed how many commercials there have been on TV for new 3D movies coming up lately? Alice In Wonderland, Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, Piranha 3D, How to Train Your Dragon... just to mention a few.