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Why are AVRs and AVPs so expensive?

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techsamurai

techsamurai

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in regards to atmos "killing" home theater... this is an exaggeration but you can readily see how if some people found 5.1 setups to be painful then how is 7.2 going to entice them?

qv. why is soundbars gaining popularity? its not because they do 7.2 channels...
Exactly, 5.1 is 6 speakers and will bog down most homes.

Atmos is 7.2.4 which is 13 speakers unless you do patmos (partial atmos and a gorgeous beautiful Greek Island). By the way, Atmos means steam in Greek and I guess Dolby was visualizing sound rising through the air.
 
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And let's remember there were these 1000 USD Denon Pro AVPs that also did analog video processing (composite, component, s-video), and some of them even did upscaling/converting to HDMI. I still think that big audio companies are just lazy, and without competition. Similar to Google today. New Denons are even worse in measurements, so they really optimize on one size fits all and spend all their time reducing their costs, while raising costs for customers.
I think this is spot on. Greedy fuckers. I wonder who buys all these AVR's. I mean they launch new ones all the time. I don't know any friends or family, that doesn't have either; multiple years old gear, a soundbar, none at all.
 
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TonyJZX

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i dont think its 'greedy companies' per se... they would love to sell a 100,000 x $1,000 units vs. 10,000 x $2,500 units...

BUT i mean these are multinationals who have tested what the market will bear and brands like Denon Marantz are clearly targeting a more 'luxury' audience.

This has parallels with other industries who are seeing their products get more expensive to make AND the market seems to be shrinking to some degree so therefore their only choice is to then target an even more exclusive and wealthy enthusiast market... so the person who ends up buying their product is a true 'believer' and not someone who is just 'dabbling' in this hobby.

I also think if you dont see your friends getting into these sorts of things then that's just anecodotal.

The people are out there. Even in my limited workplace I have seen very avid photographers, very avid car enthusiasts... and of course, home theater people AND 2 ch audio people.

If I go to my local gumtree craigslists then I also see a fair few high end pieces for sale.. in these trying economic conditions.

Saying that there's still a fair bit of entry HITB spec units from Denon that all of you here wouldnt piss on. You know the ones with spring clips and the thin gauge steel and plastic front plates and loose feeling volume knobs... and the front composite inputs as if they are doing you a favor...

But obviously these markets are getting killed by BT pills and soundbars and RGB party speakers and... you know the stuff...
 
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Of course they are. Why would they launch new ones almost nearing smart phone rates. They are not really accomplishing new things nor built better than the last one.
 

bungle

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Denon Marantz are clearly targeting a more 'luxury' audience.

That is good term for them. Something that you expect in airline shopping magazines. Side by side with ear lights and stuff. Stuff that nobody needs.

On good sound production side new DACs are disrupting 2.0. When these companies start to add eARC, then the AVR space will shrink even more (when codecs, thats the end of AVR - room correction is already available). People are also approaching this from Pro audio side. The HDMI and codecs is the only thing that keeps AV(R/P) somewhat relevant. Everything else you can find elsewhere, better and cheaper.
 
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voodooless

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A not-so-costly AVP Is the Canton Smart Connect 5.1
3 HDMI plus 1 eArc
Dolby Atmos and all DD/DTS protocol
BT and Google Cast capability

In EU It costs 650€. I bought It in last Black Friday for 500€
No room-eq means these things aren’t very useful. If they would just offer at least 5 simple PEQ’s per channel these things would be killer devices. The hardware should easily accommodate this.
 

Snoopy

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Lots of money goes to design, development, manufacturing, fancy chassis., License fees for codecs, Dirac etc.. streaming software if it's not developed in house, and that still costs Money.

But I still went from 2.0 -> 5.1 (before Atmos ) back to 2.1 .

I'm fine with toslink from my TV and airplay2 for my movies and TV shows. I don't really care that much anymore as long as it sounds alright enough.

With roon I get all the DSP I need for my music listening and with HouseCurve for iOS I get something like " Dirac " for cheap.

I hope we will see more stereo units with hdmi and Dirac like the NAD M10 , or lyngdorf tdai.
 

TonyJZX

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this is kind of me

i've got to the point that a set of large bookshelfs and a chinese class d and a sub $200 dac is close enough

i dont even like most of the movies that come out now

i dont watch fta tv nor do i listen to radio... its hard to after working in tv and radio here

a medium grade avr with commodity speakers really gets you 90% there
 
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techsamurai

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i dont think its 'greedy companies' per se... they would love to sell a 100,000 x $1,000 units vs. 10,000 x $2,500 units...

BUT i mean these are multinationals who have tested what the market will bear and brands like Denon Marantz are clearly targeting a more 'luxury' audience.

Yes, I remember them distinctly saying that in a presentation and it has stuck with me. That's a very dangerous thing to do for Marantz and Denon. Sure, you can position yourself as Rotel or Anthem but doing so means that your sales will be much lower.

They are no longer going to be competitive in the sub $2,000 market. In the $2,000-$3,000 range, their current offerings will no longer be leaders.

I'm not sure how their offerings compare in the over $3,000 market and it doesn't matter at that point. I guess their gambit is that the industry will follow suit but is it realistic to try and sell the equivalent of a $3,000 55 inch OLED TVs these days? The A95K could do that but it had all the features and was the de facto best TV. Still the Samsung S95B outsold it to a massive extent just because of its lower price.

We are all just waiting for a S95b and that'll be it.
 

jaakkopetteri

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No room-eq means these things aren’t very useful. If they would just offer at least 5 simple PEQ’s per channel these things would be killer devices. The hardware should easily accommodate this.
What makes it even worse is that it has three fixed EQ "profiles" without any further description... it's like they're showing off that they can do PEQs but don't want to
 

Vacceo

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I guess that the basic problem is the cost of entrance to the market. I don´t know how easy it is to get an agreement with Dolby, DTS or Auro, but quite probably, not something you do filling an online form. VESA presents the same issue for HDMI. I think those two elements are what ultimately makes AVR´s an element that, considering the massive amount of hi fi manufacturerers there is, only a few produce.

I really hope there is a pressure in the industry to move decoding to pure software services that can output data in a variety of means. Room EQ is already there as Dirac shows. Trinov could easily switch to pure sofware as their units are, essentially, computers. The move towards streaming of sources also helps this diversification.

With those elements out of the way, any manufacturer could design what is essentially, a multichannel preamp that could get the source decoded and eq´d wired or even wireless, send it to a DSP, a DAC and and amp (all those, elements with a great variety of component manufacturers). A single eARC should be more than enough for visual content, and that sounds far easier (and cheaper) to implement than a whole HDMI board.
 

Jbrunwa

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Consolidation has reduced competition in the market. There are only a few core platforms from which many different brands are designed. There are only a few independent designs. All the rest are just customizations of the OEM board.
 

Vacceo

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Consolidation has reduced competition in the market. There are only a few core platforms from which many different brands are designed. There are only a few independent designs. All the rest are just customizations of the OEM board.
The other part is, I guess, cost of development. Due to the amount of subsystems, innovation in the AVR/AVP seems to be more expensive than in very consolidated parts such as amps or dsp´s.
 
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techsamurai

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The other part is, I guess, cost of development. Due to the amount of subsystems, innovation in the AVR/AVP seems to be more expensive than in very consolidated parts such as amps or dsp´s.

But what qualifies as innovation?

Does support for Bluetooth count as innovation?
Can Wifi today be considered an innovation?
Is going from 7 to 9 speakers an innovation?
Can AudysseyXT32 be considered a huge innovation over AudysseyXT?

On the amplification side, nothing has changed for the past 20 years so there are no innovations.

Multiple subwoofers is an innovation but not sure we need 4 of them. If someone needs 4 or 8 or 16, just split the signal. I don't need to pay for that.

Different Room Correction and DSP is an innovation.

As I pointed out, my SR8002 had 71 more inputs than the Cinema 60 and 51 inputs more than the Cinema 50. Most of them were gold plated and needed boards to connect to. That's easily 20-30% of both those models' cost to manufacture.
 

Vacceo

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But what qualifies as innovation?

Does support for Bluetooth count as innovation?
Can Wifi today be considered an innovation?
Is going from 7 to 9 speakers an innovation?
Can AudysseyXT32 be considered a huge innovation over AudysseyXT?

On the amplification side, nothing has changed for the past 20 years so there are no innovations.

Multiple subwoofers is an innovation but not sure we need 4 of them. If someone needs 4 or 8 or 16, just split the signal. I don't need to pay for that.

Different Room Correction and DSP is an innovation.

As I pointed out, my SR8002 had 71 more inputs than the Cinema 60 and 51 inputs more than the Cinema 50. Most of them were gold plated and needed boards to connect to. That's easily 20-30% of both those models' cost to manufacture.
Cleaner designs that reach 100 db SINAD or more consistenly would be an innovation. If putting all the components together in a box were that easy, DIY-ers would be making AVR´s and that does not seem to be the case.

No innovation for amps in 20 years? Hypex and Purifi are have flipped the market in the last five years, so...
 
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techsamurai

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It should also be noted that all AVRs and AVPs are archaic designs.
We've seen that with Room correction - Audyssey and other software focused on a single speaker correction whereas Dirac took all speakers into account. Sony is taking it to the next level by creating phantom speakers.

The same goes with the DACs and amplification as all AVRs and AVPs treat all speakers as equal even though everyone knows that there's a very important hierarchy in surround sound.

Center Channel - the biggest compromise for almost all home theaters especially outside a dedicated home theater)
Left and Right
Surrounds
Atmos

As far as I know, the Center Channel has the same DAC as the Atmos speakers which are usually in-ceilings and that's absurd. Do the Atmos speakers need a DAC or can all 6 share one DAC from the 2000s? :) I'm joking but the point is valid - there's no excuse for a center channel having the same DAC as an Atmos speaker. The same goes for the Left and Right channels as we use them for music and sound matters more than movies there as you can pick up details like Herbert Von Karajan.

Same goes for power - the in-ceiling speaker don't really need the same power as the Left and Right Channels with their 2-3 bass woofers dipping into 3 ohms. If a scene is loud and all speakers are driven at same level, I'd hope the Center is getting 100 watts, the Left and Right are getting 150-200 watts and the rest 30-40 watts apiece.
 
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techsamurai

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Cleaner designs that reach 100 db SINAD or more consistenly would be an innovation. If putting all the components together in a box were that easy, DIY-ers would be making AVR´s and that does not seem to be the case.

No innovation for amps in 20 years? Hypex and Purifi are have flipped the market in the last five years, so...

I agree and hopefully they will change the game. But there's really no AVR under $3,000 that has Hypex and Purifi that I know of.
 

Vacceo

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The individual parts that form an AVR are probably dirt cheap by themselves. It is the implementation of every subsystem what makes it get expensive. I still think what limits the choices for the user is how restrictive decoding is. HDMI also requires licenses and VESA compliance, but they seem to have a more open user policy.
 

bungle

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It is the same thing as always. Video codecs and audio codecs. All proprietary licenses. Same on HDMI and especially HDCP. Those techs are limiting beyond imagination. There is no innovation. It is purely winner takes it all type of thing. System that feeds itself only to benefit few. The barrier of entry was already mentioned. An exclusive club.. The system that cements itself. While digital itself is great, what it brought with it, is bad for everyone (else).
 
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Jazz

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They do a lot. I think they are hidden bargains as even some lower models perform very very well. IC, DACs, and amps in AVRs have come a long way. While audiophiles dick around with expensive components chasing nebulous performance abstractions, regular people get within millimeters of actual good to excellent performance with a carefully researched AVR purchase and same with speakers. Saving $1000 to $4000+ dollars.
 
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