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JBL SDP-55 Audio/Video Processor Review
- Thread starter amirm
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I’d disagree on DIRAC only being important for more than 2 subs.
In fact, DIRAC does well with bass management, but you still really need a MiniDSP for optimal multi sub alignment/tuning.
DIRAC really shines in multi-channel calibration. I could not believe the difference coming from my Marantz pre-pro. Literally night and day, both in tone/clarity and that seamless “bubble” of sound that Atmos is capable of. DIRAC is simply far more advanced than Audyssey, even compared to a pro calibration which I had done. My DIRAC calibration was done by me and I’m not advanced at it.
Then I got a UMIK and it was another decent step up. And a verifiable one because I can A-B on the fly.
Now, a Denon with DIRAC will likely be pretty close. I do think room correction is one of the most critical differentiators in these units.
By the way, I had an early production 55 that had a very, very high noise floor. It even seemed to pick up interference from my cell phone occasionally (or some other interference).
I had it replaced under warranty and the new unit is much, much quieter.
I wonder if the unit Amir had was plagued with similar issues.
Oh wicked, I’ll run it back and check again. I’ve used it maybe 3 times, and know about 5% of what I’m doing in it lol.
So turns out it was a -12db tone from REW (as @Sancus posted). So instead of looking for 105db I should have been looking for 93, which would have been volume 78 for “reference level”.
Tested with Dirac on vs off too, and Dirac is indeed eating up about 3.5db averaged (not including subwoofer where it’s higher). I’ll always be using Dirac however, so I won’t consider the “no room eq” measurements.
I guess then the only question is what level are most movies mixed at? Are most UHD discs gonna be 0db signal? Or is it widely dependent on the movie?
For the sake of testing I listened to a scene from 13 hours yesterday at 82 on the volume, and while it was quite loud, it was enjoyable. I’d routinely watch movies at -5 on my Yamaha AVR before which was post-YPAO, so I believe that was -5db in relation to the THX reference.
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Most films on disc peak at around -3 to -0.5 but reference level is always set on the assumption of 0. The volume setting on your Yamaha is quite high too but as you are finding out reference volume in most setups is whatever produces a 105dB peak in your room with your speakers and amps. 78 seems a touch high but within the realms of normal (Unlike 90).
Can anyone speak to the reliability of these units? It's only a 1 year warranty right?
Curious if it's worth it to save $1700 and get a new one and hope any repairs are under $1700 or if I should just buy a new one.
Curious if it's worth it to save $1700 and get a new one and hope any repairs are under $1700 or if I should just buy a new one.
Any unit failing within a short a period of time should I would not invest in again throwing good money after bad.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #328
I don't see SDP-55 in the pricelist anymore. Seems to be replaced by SDP-58. Processor prices fall like a rock when they are discontinued. The cost of the SDP-58 though has gone up to $6,900.
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Unless it's a dire need, wait until Q4, when Storm's Dirac ART exclusivity runs out and everyone else's ART strategy+abilities come out.
That advice applies even if you don't plan to use ART. I suspect the resale value of AVR/Ps that can run ART will stay high, but anything with Dirac that cannot run ART will fall off a resale value cliff.
Is that worth potentially paying thousands more for though instead of $3600? With inflation and price increases it's a bad time to wait for things, though I would like ART to be promised by JBL... Just don't want to get caught after another price hike.
Unfortunate that everyone is going to have to work on their own implementations and everything besides Trinnov seems built with no overhead for additional processing in the future.
That's a fact! The last couple years have been hell for those of us with less than unlimited bank accounts.
The SDP-55, SDP-58 and Monolith HTP-1 all use the same DSP, if I'm not mistaken. The Monolith guys believe they can get ART running on it, and MDS advertises that same DSP card as capable of handling 24 channels, so presumably there should be some margin left. For the HTP-1 there might be the option to upgrade to a card with 2 of the same DSPs for only a few hundred US$, I have no idea if the JBL processors have an economical upgrade path.
Dirac did say (during one of the interviews) - that an AVR capable of DLBC, should be capable of ART...
And we have already seen, with the StormAudio ART capable devices, that lower powered devices can be accommodated by limiting the number of "helper" speakers... so the issue is not going to be one of processing power (although some manufacturers may try to hide behind that!) - but one of the manufacturer opting to integrate ART. So the real issue may end up being marketing departments who think ART is another good way to upsell people to the latest model.
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Yes, but that's secondary to what I wrote. So to put it another way, let's take three hypos:
Scenario A: SDP-55/58 gets Dirac ART. Resale values will likely hold steady, or maybe tick up slightly, given that it has become a little better than peer units. This is of course what should happen given the promises with which these units were sold, but in reality who knows.
Scenario B: SDP-55/58 don't get ART, but a successor model does: supply goes up in secondary markets as people upgrade, with depressed prices for both.
Scenario C: Only SDP-58 and newer get ART: SDP-55 tanks in value,
As an aside, $3600 sounds very high for an SDP-55 IMO. In the last couple months two of the more expensive AVR versions sold on eBay for well under $3k.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #335
That's the main issue. That is not much discount for an item that is discontinued.
Over here in the antipodes the MSRP is AU$13,000 and you are unlikely to find them used for anything less than AU$8000+
And no, exchange rates don't account for it! (yes the local distributors seem to make more margin than in the USA...)
Maybe I'm mistaken, but it seemed like a fair price considering it had the 8k HDMI 2.1 upgrade, Dante service, and XLR ground service performed on a new unit that was an open box.
Are there other changes or would this now effectively be an SDP 58?
New video by Taylor Wall
photos.app.goo.gl
Anyone else having crazy issues like this using the JBL with a Nintendo Switch? When the switch turns off there are crazy noises that, when turned up, seem to be really bad for speakers and my ears.
Seems like the SDP 55 is broken with Dante still, as updates, different adaptors, clock leaders, cabled (HDMI and Ethernet) don't seem to fix this. Even if the Nintendo Switch sends out some little blips, is it seriously encoding this crap correctly and Dante is just accepting it as valid input instead of noise?
Plugging all the devices into the JBL fixed this issue somewhat, but there are other issues with ticks every 10 seconds after being 30 seconds into a song, or a white noise/scratchy screetch briefly when something starts playing. Crazy to think that studios use Dante, or perhaps it was crazy to trust a consumer device with this.
The Dolby SDP564 didn't have this issue with digital or analog output.
Analog output doesn't have this issue, but one of the primary reasons for getting the JBL SDP 55 is future board upgrades, Dante, and Dolby Volume. The board upgrades don't seem to fix things, Dante seems broken, and Dolby Volume settings were removed and replaced with presents.
Incredibly disappointed with the typical troubleshooting done by Harman, they should be asking for logs for intermittent issues, or a video, and they just ask what equipment I'm using and tell met to reset everything that kind of fixes some of the issues for maybe a day.
...And Audinate needs to test switches and give some suggestions for good ones to use that have PoE. Or just send moderately high bandwidth signals constantly even if it's silence just to prevent EEE or other things from interrupting.
How old is your SDP-55? I had weird issues like this back on original 1.1x firmware in 2020. 1.2x shortly after release resolved those issues and haven't had issues since.New video by Taylor Wall
Anyone else having crazy issues like this using the JBL with a Nintendo Switch? When the switch turns off there are crazy noises that, when turned up, seem to be really bad for speakers and my ears.
Seems like the SDP 55 is broken with Dante still, as updates, different adaptors, clock leaders, cabled (HDMI and Ethernet) don't seem to fix this. Even if the Nintendo Switch sends out some little blips, is it seriously encoding this crap correctly and Dante is just accepting it as valid input instead of noise?
Plugging all the devices into the JBL fixed this issue somewhat, but there are other issues with ticks every 10 seconds after being 30 seconds into a song, or a white noise/scratchy screetch briefly when something starts playing. Crazy to think that studios use Dante, or perhaps it was crazy to trust a consumer device with this.
The Dolby SDP564 didn't have this issue with digital or analog output.
Analog output doesn't have this issue, but one of the primary reasons for getting the JBL SDP 55 is future board upgrades, Dante, and Dolby Volume. The board upgrades don't seem to fix things, Dante seems broken, and Dolby Volume settings were removed and replaced with presents.
Incredibly disappointed with the typical troubleshooting done by Harman, they should be asking for logs for intermittent issues, or a video, and they just ask what equipment I'm using and tell met to reset everything that kind of fixes some of the issues for maybe a day.
...And Audinate needs to test switches and give some suggestions for good ones to use that have PoE. Or just send moderately high bandwidth signals constantly even if it's silence just to prevent EEE or other things from interrupting.
Not sure, got it from a guy who had it sitting new in box in his basement for maybe a year.
It does have the Dante board upgrade and the newest firmware.
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