Is it time to upgrade your AV-system?

With CEDIA 2018 now finished, we are getting bombarded with new products. Just a couple of days ago, both JVC and Sony caused some stir in the world of AV with their newly announced home theatre projectors. If keeping up with all the new and improved AV products is doing your head in, you’re not alone. The question to ask is, is it really necessary to forever update your AV system? Are we really talking about an improvement, or are we just buying into the next marketing trick?

The life cycle of electronics is extremely short these days. Do you need to upgrade? The answer to that question is sometimes ‘yes’, sometimes ‘it depends’, but more often than you would be led to believe it’s ‘no’. 

Considering we are a retail store, earning our bread and butter from selling you the latest and greatest in AV, you may be surprised to get this answer from us. But when we visit our customers to have a look at their existing system, people appreciate it when we tell them that they can take it in steps, or that part of their system is still very usable. It builds long term relationships with our clients. In the end, we both win.

For most of us, building our AV set-up is a gradual process. It’s not that common for people to purchase their final set of speakers right away. No, for most of us it’s a progression from the affordable to the excellent. Taking the next step in the process is often a question of budget. But how do you know what technology to hang out for?

Apart from taking the next step up in our pursuit to audiophile excellence, the other reason why we might consider an upgrade is the promise of something that has to be better than what you currently have. When brands release new or updated products, it’s common to throw around added features and new technologies that we all ‘desperately need’. But when is the right time to jump.

Here are a few thoughts.

The latest update on a run-of-the-mill AV receiver is rarely a massive leap forward. Often, we are talking about incremental changes that in some cases could be argued whether they are actually an improvement at all. If you consider that AV receivers product life cycles are in many cases less than a year, it just becomes a little crazy.

Upgrading your AV receiver in our book is a balancing act: Do you need model XX5 when you purchased model XX4 6 months ago? Of course not! But in the long run, all these little changes do add up over the years and chances are that if your current AV receiver is 6 or 7 years old, it’s time to start thinking about renewing it. This time-frame is a very good guideline, we have experienced. As we said, it’s a balancing act and you will be either spending unnecessary money or compromising your set-up if you go overboard either way.

The key guideline is to upgrade for new technology that is actually worth spending the money for; like an upgrade to Dolby Ultra HD or Atmos when your current receiver still runs Dolby Digital. There is a good chance (although there are exceptions out there, of course) that the latest streaming app that has been added to the new generation models is not worth the upgrade. An upgraded HDMI version on the other hand is something that your system will benefit from.

But, we get it. Good AV gear is not what you call cheap and you do want to spend wisely. So as for some money pinching tips, and with a locked down budget, we often recommend going for the higher end unit of a discounted range that is on its way out over the latest and greatest model at a premium price. The extra power or the pre-amp output in the higher-end model might be something that comes in extremely handy and actually really can benefit your system. We highly recommend revisiting our AV receiver guidelines blog for the specs that matter in an AV receiver.

As a word of caution, we should point out that we are clearly talking about the popular run of the mill AV receiver brands. When it comes to audiophile grade amplifiers separates and high-end AV receivers like Arcam, they tend to have a slower turn-over and the story might be very different there. The wheels of the marketing machine turn at a much slower rate and when a new model is released, chances are, there’s a good reason for it.

Apart from keeping up with the ever-changing technology, it does make total sense to upgrade your AV receiver if you upgrade your speakers in that sense that you don’t want an entry level AV-receiver to power a quality set of speakers.

Talking about speakers, speaker technology in itself has not changed very much in recent years. What was a good set of speakers 10 years ago, is still a good set of speakers today.

When ELAC announced their Debut 2.0 series earlier this year, it came as a surprise to just about the entire world. I mean, the Debuts were only a few years old and probably amongst the most celebrated budget speakers around. To just about everybody’s surprise, turns out there was still room for improvement (No, we’re not being sarcastic. The improved cabinet, the new crossovers and the front-ported design make utter sense.)

But here’s what: If you have the first series ELAC Debuts, there is absolutely no need for an upgrade. The first series Debuts were awesome budget speakers a year ago, and they still are today.

What has changed over time is the amount of speakers we use in our home theatre set-up. If you haven’t got a 5.1 speaker system for your home theatre yet, that is an investment worth making. If budget is a consideration in the process of taking the next step up in your speaker system (of course it is), start with the LCR speakers as a team, the surround speakers can be tackled at a different stage if needed. As with AV receivers, buy the best speakers you can afford.  That said, obviously, there is no need to upgrade simply for the sake of aesthetics or because the new ad tells you to

Another way to significantly upgrade your speaker system set-up is to add an additional subwoofer. Rather than swapping your SVS PB2000 for a SVS PB16 -as much as we love the PB16- we actually recommend keeping the PB2000 and adding another one for a dual subwoofer set-up. It is one of the best ways to provide an entirely new listening experience. We’re not necessarily talking about more bass, but about better bass (see our earlier blogs on this topic).

We’re not telling any secrets if we say that obviously we are not talking about wireless speaker technology. If that’s the road you want to go down, clearly, things are changing at a very rapid pace and whether to purchase or not will probably depend on other factors than taking the next step up in your search for audiophile nirvana.

Just last week the Yamaha MusicCast 50 landed in our store. While MusicCast as a wireless speaker solution is not new by any means (although improvements to the technology are constantly made through upgrades), the fact that MusicCast is introducing surround speakers is new, as is the introduction of voice-command (Alexa enabled). The wireless industry is a fast moving one for sure, and you’d better put on some very fast boots if you want to keep up with where things are heading.

What we do want to stress though, is that a stable local area network is make or break in a wireless set-up or even simple streaming. Routers are notorious in calling a halt on playing nice unexpectedly, even if there is ‘nothing really wrong’ with the things in the first place.  While we realise that spending money on a new router is not the ‘sexiest’ item to put your hard earned dollars toward, if your internet is not stable, the wireless and streaming road is going to be paved with frustration. No matter how wonderful the other AV products you just added to your set-up.

As for a blu-ray player, if you are still using a DVD player, it’s time to upgrade. If your current player is slow and unreliable, it’s time to upgrade. If you have 4K, Atmos or UHD on your wish-list, it’s time to upgrade. If you’re keen on streaming media services like Netflix and Hulu that were not included in early models, it’s time to upgrade.

Blu-ray players these days don’t have to break the bank and while we are still getting over Oppo leaving the market, many brands do decent products and eventually the dust will settle in this department too. We just recently added a brand new Pioneer UDP-LX500 4K Blu-ray player to our showroom (first in NZ, folks!) and the Panasonic DP-UP9000 is not far away. Do I hear some cheer?

So how about your display? Between OLED, QLED , Dolby Vision, HDR 10, and Hybrid Log-Gamma, it’s a bit hard to get a good insight on what is going on, what’s worth the jump and when it’s simply time to sit back  and roll your eyes at the latest hype in TV technology.

It looks like 4K/UHD and HDR are here to stay. Prices for technologies like OLED are dropping. But TVs are very much in a league of their own when it comes to trends that come and go. Do we recommend that you rush out and buy a new 4K TV?

Generally speaking, if your TV works and you’re happy with it, don’t worry about upgrading. That said, we have also seen big investments in new fancy televisions or projectors go wonky when people insist on sticking with their outdated AV receiver. Television technology is evolving at such a fast rate that if you go for the latest and greatest in that department, you need the AV receiver that keeps up with that.

But back to the state of TV’s. At this stage, the majority of TV shows and movies are still not in 4K resolution, HDR or any other widespread change in content that would “require” a new TV. It will happen eventually and when it does, 4K TVs will be even cheaper than they are now. And they’re pretty cheap already.

But we are now at a point where if your TV is due for an update, you can most likely find a 4K TV that suits your needs, budget, and will indeed be worth it – not just for the short-term buzz of having a flashier set than your neighbour, but as a mid-to-long-term investment in a higher-quality viewing experience.

That’s because 4K TVs usually deliver better picture quality, with any source, than non-4K models (for reasons that have nothing to do with resolution). This is especially true with HDR models.

So to jump or not to jump, that’s the question. Here’s our take: If you have an old Plasma TV; jump. If you want a bigger size TV; jump. If you don’t have a local dimming LCD; you may want to consider a jump. Bottom-line: it depends on what you have and whether you are happy with it. But if you decide you are due for an upgrade, go for a 4K HDR TV. Just an additional word of advice on the shopping for an 4K HDR TV:  go for the brightest TV you can afford. The reason for that is that for a TV to be able to truly “show” the impact of HDR, the TV needs to be bright, very bright. 5,000 nits is what you should aim for.

So to jump or not to jump, that’s the question. Here’s our take: If you have an old Plasma TV; jump. If you want a bigger size TV; jump. If you have don’t have a local dimming LCD; you may want to consider a jump. Bottom-line: it depends on what you have and whether you are happy with it. But if you decide you are due for an upgrade, go for a very bright 4K HDR TV.

Unless you are one of the home theatre projector fans amongst us. If that’s you, the budget will be a big decider. Things are changing at a fast rate at the moment in projector world.  It’s all very exciting to see True 4K is on the verge of becoming achievable for most of us. Finally!

Does it mean you should throw out your 1080p projector. Not yet, but you probably will be in a few years. Anything that is not 1080p on the other hand  is in need of an update. We find that even a 4K enhanced projector is a big step up from a plain old 1080p projector.

Some projector models’ life cycle is getting as ridiculous as the AV receivers, especially when it comes to small baby steps taken forward in some of the upgrades.

As we mentioned earlier, both JVC and Sony just announced new models to be available by the end of this year/ beginning next year (exact dates are still tbc, but late Spring/Summer has been suggested). JVC we saw coming: despite the fact that their e-shift projectors are excellent products, customer demand was for true 4K. Sony on the other hand was still riding sky-high on their current already native 4K models.

But here’s what: just as we recommended in regards to AV receivers, with a budget set in stone, now is the time for scooping up a model that just a few weeks ago was sold thousand(s) of dollars above what it is retailing now. If a projector was out of your budget two months ago, chances are that it’s come down in price quite a bit today and for the exact same budget, you will get a much better projector. Something to think about.

Unless of course it is the latest and greatest that will be available in a few months that you are after. Either way, you’ll win!

On a final note we have this to say: no amount of upgrades is going to fix bad speaker placement or a lack of calibration. So here’s our advice: enjoy the dream, enjoy the planning and have fun with your set-up. Keep your eyes wide open for the marketing hype when you decide to jump into the next upgrade, but at the same time don’t hold on to (a part of) your outdated gear to an extend where it’s compromising its performance either. Oh… the excitement!