Tom Norton

Some audiophiles combine their home theater and 2-channel systems. If they have a modest AV receiver, but want to improve the sound of their system, especially for 2-channel playback, one possibility is to use a separate, quality stereo integrated amp to drive the front left and right channels, with their best 2-channel sources connected directly to it. The receiver's front left and right preamp outputs are then connected to one of the line level inputs of the integrated amp for home theater use. This can be made more direct, with less chance of messing with the calibrated home theater volume levels, if the integrated amp offers a fixed-level, pass-through input (independent of the integrated amp's volume control) to which the receiver's front channel preamp outputs can be connected.

Yamaha's flagship may be the new RX-Z11, but it hasn't forgotten about those of us who like our AV receivers to be more or less affordable. Case in point, the new RX-V3800 at $1799. Offering 140Wpc x 7, it also has HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio decoding, iPod compatibility network connectivity via an Ethernet port, and Yamaha's traditional two front "presence" channels. There's also on-board video scaling up to 1080p.

Pioneer also introduced three new Blu-ray players, all of them manufactured in-house (last year's Pioneer players were made by Sharp). All of them are 3D capable. The non-Elite BDP-140, not shown, at $199, can play back SACD via its HDMI output (and of course CD and Blu-ray as well!). The two models shown, the Elite BP-52FD and the Elite BDP-53FD (the latter available in November for $500) are loaded with the features shown in the display card. My only disappointment is that they do not have a coaxial digital output, but are limited to HDMI and optical. None of the players includes multichannel analog outputs or component video outputs, the latter deletion mandated for all players released after July 2011, the former an industry trend as HDMI becomes more widespread.

Pioneer showed its new, high-end BDP-09FD Blu-ray player ($2200, November). It's full Profile 2.0, performs all the latest audio wrinkles, and also incorporates some of the highest-end audio components to be found in any Blu-ray player.