Help an audio ignoramus set up his Arcam AVR280 with new Sony UBPX800M2 player

You’re right! That Arcam will sound better than any current budget or even mid level avr for music. I had, still have in the garage, an avr300 and it trounces my current NAD as a basic amp but without room correction etc it’s in the garage. I did try a top of the line Yamaha separate avr and again the arcam was better.

 

Back in the day I really was interested in Arcam AVRs. They always were well regarded and well reviewed. But at that time Arcam was out of my price range. I eventually bought a used Anthem AVM30 and really enjoyed that. Then the whole HDMI thing happened and I went with an Onkyo 805 then 885 and 886 prepros. Needless to say the Onkyos could not compare to the AVM30 especially with music. Then I went on a long journey of preamps with HT Bypass.

 

It is a good unit, but I guess you guys are right. The manual was a little vague about this. I'm not sure why it has two HDMI inputs (including one designated for SAT) with no audio. The analog 5.1 sounds great to me. I honestly don't know how much better the Sony would have sounded with HDMI, but I'm not prepared to abandon my current system just yet for the sake of a handful of specially formatted Blu-rays.

 

Your Sony cannot output a native multichannel mix through optical (most players won't do that). It will be a downmixed stereo output. If you are hearing something on the surround speakers, it is because the receiver is now upmixing the downmixed abomination back to 5.1. Two channel guys freak out at the thought of adding another adc/dac chain unnecessarily to a DAC's analog output right? This is on the same level of lousy to a multichannel connoisseur, because it is no longer the original multichannel mix that was on your bluray or multichannel sacd.

DSP setting on your reveiver should be set to "straight" mode (that's what Yamaha calls it...not sure what Arcam's equivalent vocabulary is). In straight mode, no upmixer, etc will be active. The receiver will just let the native 5.1 mix through granted your player can send the native mix through....It can all happen only through HDMI.

Before you get in the weeds, do a factory reset of both the arcam and the sony. After the factory reset, upgrade the firmware on both to the latest. This will resolve any weird minor glitches that may have happened over years of usage...and then it should be fairly straightforward man...

 

I think we've determined that my old Arcam can't handle HDMI audio, just the video signal.

For the amount of grief that I've gone through to hear the 5.1 mixes on this not inexpensive box set, I think Virgin owes me some DVDs that I can actually play.

 

?!?!?! It is impossible that your receiver cannot handle hdmi audio?!?! That would be extremely bizarre....Call the dudes at arcam and threaten them that you will be initiated into the Yamaha way of life if they don't help you over the phone. Ask to be transferred to the main tech support guru over there (not the hourly wage dude answering calls and reading from the manual). Once you threaten them that you will go Yamaha, they'll respond immediately. All the small fish are very scared by the thought of grand King Yamaha's sky high technical aptitude putting them out of business

 

I agree with your mindset. If you are not prepared to abandon your current system and invest in a new AVR just for a few discs I'd suggest returning the Sony x800. The Oppo 80 is a great player and in combination with the AVR280 is I'm sure a nice sounding combo.

 

This unit was a very early HDMI capable AVR and we were only used to having DVI previously. Arcam had the two inputs there for video switching only which was a DVI hang over. Believe it or not it was cutting edge at the time and the avr350 shares this capability! The first DVD players with HDMI also were video only. Remember at this stage I don’t think HDMI was even capable of transmitting SACD signals.

It’s easy to look back and wonder what was going on, however, at the time this made sense.

I think I’m more surprised that blu rays now have surround mixes that can’t be transmitted over optical/coaxial cables.

 

You may want to look at the Panasonic DP-UB820 for blu rays? It maybe a similar cost to the Sony but has 7.1 multi channel analogue out! No SACD/DVD-A unfortunately.