interference). Interconnect cables are specifically designed to carry your fast, pristine, high resolution signals, including the ground reference half, so they sound much better communicating this ground reference. Remember that every signal, both audio and video, has its very amplitude, instant by instant, defined with reference to the ground, so if the ground reference itself has poor fidelity then the signal itself will also necessarily, as a consequence, have poor fidelity.
      If a given particular other component in your system employs a 2 prong IEC power jack and power cord (as the AVR600 itself also happens to), then you're in fine shape for that component, since the ground connection automatically is not being made via the power cord, and will automatically be made via the interconnect, so you'll get the best sound with no worries.
      In contrast, if a given particular other component does have a 3 prong IEC power jack, for a 3 wire power cord, then you my friend have, for that component, a bad beggar's choice, between lousy sound and potential danger. You get lousy sound if you use only the power cord as a reference ground connection, by clipping the ground wires of all interconnects. Or, you also get lousy sound if you do as many people do and use both ground connections, both the interconnect and the 3 wire power cord, at the same time. You are making this sound lousy for two reasons: both because you have created a bad ground loop (two or more wires carrying the same ground between the same pair of chassis, thereby forming a closed loop); and also because for part of your ground reference communication you are employing the very imperfect power cord and house wiring.
      The only way to get optimal sound in this beggar's choice situation is to lift the ground of that given other component's 3 wire power cord, by using one of those commonly sold 3-into-2 cheater plugs. This tactic gives you much better sonic quality because it eliminates the sonically degrading ground loop, and also eliminates the sonically inferior power cord and house powerline being employed as a ground reference communicator for your fast, pristine signals. However, this tactic, though commonly used by many people, does have potential danger for hazardous shock or fire, if some particular things should chance to go drastically wrong in that given other 3 wire component. And because of this, neither we, nor Arcam, nor any manufacturer can endorse you following this tactic. Thus, safety considerations create a configuration that degrades sound, and prevents you from getting the best sound from your system, and prevents anyone from recommending that you employ this tactic to get better sound.
      If you ignore our safety advice, and do employ a cheater plug to get better sound, the best sounding cheater plug we have yet found is the premium luxury Pass & Seymour 210-GCC75, which sells for the ridiculously high end price of 69 cents, and can be purchased only at the most esoteric shops, e.g. at every local True Value hardware store (this plug employs conductors and dielectrics electrically and hence sonically superior to the many other cheater plugs).
      Also, to achieve the ideal single wire path ground connection along each spoke to the hub, without creating sonically degrading ground loops, there should be only one interconnect ground wire between any component and the central star ground hub (the AVR600). For example, one SP/DIF coax interconnect achieves this, or one HDMI cable achieves this, or one (and only one) monaural analog interconnect cable achieves this. But if you employ any combination of these three types of cable connections, between any two components, say between your player and the AVR600, then you have created an external ground loop outside the AVR600, and that will, by the laws of physics and electronics (again, not the AVR600's fault), degrade the sound of your system, and prevent you from hearing the ultimate sonic glory of which the AVR600 is intrinsically capable.
      Thus, using as an example the connection from your silver disc player, if you want to hear the absolute pinnacle of sonic performance actually inherent in the AVR600, you would manually plug in only one cable at a time between your player and the AVR600 - either the SP/DIF coax, or the HDMI cable, or one analog interconnect (with all the other analog interconnects, simultaneously used for plural channel connection, having their internal ground connection cut open at one end).
      Please don't misunderstand. I'm not telling you that you must suffer this inconvenience of manual cable changing from your player, nor even that you should. It's just my duty to inform you fully, so you are fully cognizant and have your eyes wide open, as to the fact that there are detrimental sonic consequences if you create external ground loops. It's then up to you to make the mature choice from the tradeoff between convenience on the one hand and hearing the very best possible sound on the other hand.
      Note that, now that I've armed you with this foreknowledge, it's very easy for you to experiment, to find out for yourself which tradeoff is more important to you. First, simply connect all possible cables you might be using between your player and the AVR600, including SP/DIF coax and HDMI and plural analog cables, and listen only to the SP/DIF input. Second, simply unplug all the cables except the SP/DIF coax, and listen again to the SP/DIF input.
      If you hear a sonic improvement, then you and your system are indeed sensitive to this degree of sonic perfection, and you can decide, based on how much improvement you hear, whether it's worth the inconvenience to you, to manually change cables in and out. We hear this sonic improvement as sounding more open, airy, spacious, relaxed, naturally breathing - instead of the more closed in, forced, tightly constrained, collapsed sound we hear when there are ground loops.
      If you don't hear a sonic improvement, then you and/or your system are not sensitive to this degree of sonic perfection, so you don't need to worry about it. Note that competing surround receivers, with their intrinsically inferior sonics, will not reveal this sonic improvement as clearly as the AVR600 can (or they might even hide it entirely from you).
      What do I personally choose to do? I connect only the SP/DIF coax, between my player and the AVR600, and simply use it 99% of the time. For me, hearing the AVR600 at the absolute pinnacle of its sonic capability is such an amazing experience, so addictive, that I gladly live with only this one connection to my player. And it's not really a sacrifice in any other way. The few times I really want to hear the lossless HD soundtrack from a Blu-ray disc, I simply add the short HDMI input connection, and then remove it when I am finished. Also, the D/A converter in the AVR600 is so superb that I have no need for using the analog audio outputs from my player. And, when playing SACD discs, I get just as good surround space (and often even better fidelity) by bring the disc's CD layer in via the SP/DIF coax and then using the AVR600's superb PLIIx surround re-creation, rather than bringing in the disc's multichannel SACD layer via plural analog coax interconnects (with their plural ground loops) to the AVR600's multichannel direct inputs.
      If you have plural components feeding the AVR600, it's fine to leave each and every one of these connected to the AVR600 all the time, and conveniently use the AVR600's input switching to choose among them. This is OK because each different component is a different spoke of the wheel, with the AVR600 as the hub. The important mandate, to avoid ground loops and the consequent sonic degradation, is that each spoke of the wheel contain only one ground interconnection, only one ground wire, not plural interconnections with plural ground wires, between any given component and the AVR600.
      You should also beware of creating external ground loops between other component pairs in your system. For example, we like the look of an analog component video connection made directly from the player to the video display. But we never use it, because its 3 wire system creates bad plural external ground loops between the player and the display, ground loops which don't even involve the AVR600, but which nevertheless degrade the sonic quality of the player's audio output to the AVR600, thereby still degrading your overall system sound.
      Also, beware of creating sonically-degrading external ground loops among 3 or more components. For example, if you do leave your video display plugged into your surround processor (the AVR600 or any other) all the time, for convenience in seeing the OSD, and also for convenience leave your player always connected to your display (either directly or indirectly, say via a switchbox or outboard video processor), then you are creating a giant, sonically-degrading ground loop ring among 3 components: your display, your player, and your surround processor (this ring goes from your player to your surround processor, from your surround processor to your display, and from your display back to your player - and vice versa as well).
      Incidentally, some players (including the superb Esoteric DV-60) themselves intrinsically sound better when they themselves are not connected to any video display (the display's video ground seems to contaminate the player's ground baseline reference via this video connection, which in turn contaminates the player's audio ground baseline reference, thereby necessarily contaminating and sonically degrading the player's audio output to your surround receiver). The AVR600 is so superbly revealing that it reveals the sonic improvement in the player's own intrinsic sound that results from simply breaking this video connection from player to video display. Again, this is not the fault of the DV-60 player nor of the AVR-600; the contamination problem is created by certain kinds of connections external to these units, and laws of physics and electronics dictate that signal degradation will occur from this external contamination, and it's actually to the credit of both these units that they are so superbly revealing that they sonically reveal this externally-caused signal degradation. To get around this, when we are doing extended music listening and want to hear all components sounding their very best as they play through the magic AVR600, we simply temporarily disconnect our video display from everything (from the player, and from the AVR600, and even from the power connection to the wall socket).
      "But Peter," you might protest, "when you completely disconnect the video display this way, you have turned your A/V system, with the AVR600 as its hub, into an audio-only system." Exactly. That's precisely one of my chief points. The AVR600's sonic performance is so pre-eminent that you should also use it in perfectionist audio-only systems.

Using the AVR600 in A/V and in Audio-Only Systems

      As we've already established above, when used as the hub of normal A/V system setups (with their myriad plural connections), the Arcam AVR600 gives you better audio (and video) performance than other surround receivers, and better audio than high end A/V separates - and that's true no matter how you have the AVR600 connected and permanently leave it connected (so long as you connect the competition the same way). So, if that's the level and kind of superiority you seek and want, you'll get it from the AVR600, and you should feel free to connect the AVR600 as you please, with as many multiple connections and ground loops and video signals permanently connected as you please.
      But the AVR600's intrinsic sonic capabilities go far beyond this. In fact, the Arcam AVR600's sonic performance is so superb that it can surpass the sound I get from my perfectionist high end audio-only system components in the next listening room. That's why we say that you also want to buy the AVR600 for a perfectionist audio-only system, for the best sounding music listening there is, period (especially when driving an array of 7 full range loudspeakers).
      So, if you have an audio-only high end system in the next room, you might want to buy a second AVR600 to serve as its hub, and you'll be surprised by the improvements you'll hear. Alternatively, to save yourself a lot of money, you might want to sell that audio-only system in the next room, and instead use your A/V system (assuming it too has high quality loudspeakers) as a sometimes audio-only system, whenever you are doing extended music listening and want to hear the very best sound.
      Of course, that other high end, audio-only system in the next room sounded good in part because it did not have a video display connected, with all the attendant sonic degradations from external ground loops and video noise contamination (mandated by the laws of physics and electronics). Now, when you listen to that audio-only high end system in the next room, you of course want to hear it performing at its best. So ask yourself this: would you deliberately sabotage its sonic performance, effectively tying one hand behind its back, by connecting an unneeded video display into that system? Thus, by exactly the same logic, why tie one hand behind the back of your A/V system? When you want to use it as an audio-only system, and hear it at its very best, especially via the transcendent sonic capabilities of the Arcam AVR600, untie its hand too, by simply completely untying the video display, thereby temporarily turning your system into a true audio-only system, with the very best possible sonic performance, for the best sound you have ever heard. And, if you're still grumbling at the thought of this slight manual labor, think of all the money you saved or made by selling all that expensive audio-only gear in the next room, now that you're hearing even better sound from the AVR600.
      If you do want to maintain two complete systems in separate rooms, an A/V system in one and an audio-only system in the other, you really should strongly consider getting two AVR600s. At the very least, when you get your AVR600 for your A/V system, give it a try first in your audio-only system. If you set it up optimally as we discussed above, you'll be amazed at what you hear there. And, if perchance your audio-only system has merely 2 loudspeakers, with 2 channel electronics, you simply must hear what the AVR600 can sonically achieve with 7 full range loudspeakers, in a sonically optimized audio-only configuration. The title of this section is Optimizing Setup, and the AVR600's intrinsic full musical magic is optimized and best heard via 7 loudspeakers. The AVR600 deserves 7 loudspeakers, and you deserve to experience what the AVR600 with 7 loudspeakers can do for your library of recordings, 99% of which are probably 2 channel. You already have a huge monetary investment in this 2 channel library. The AVR600 with 7 loudspeakers can make this large investment pay off anew, and pay you a whole new round of dividends.
      The AVR600 with 7 full range loudspeakers, in an audio-only system, brings you a whole new world of musical experience that 2 channel electronics with merely 2 loudspeakers cannot even hint at or approach. Incidentally, 5 (or even 4) loudspeakers is better than 2, to give you some semblance of a live concert experience, but to hear the optimum AVR600 magic you should employ an array of 7 loudspeakers. With a 7 loudspeaker array, the back surrounds not only supply surround hall ambience, but also make the performers up front pop, giving them a solid 3D palpability and believability; the side surrounds (directly at your sides) are surprisingly crucial for making the front performing stage wide and deep, thereby giving the whole stage performance more reality (with only 5 loudspeakers you'd miss out on this reality); and the center front is valuable for dialing in just the right amount of center fill for the front curtain of sound, and the optimum presence/immediacy for any soloist.
      Look at it this way. With the money you'll save by substituting the AVR600 for those expensive high end separate electronics in your dedicated audio-only system, you can now afford to get 7 high quality matched full range loudspeakers (or 5 more of the same kind you now have 2 of). Furthermore, the AVR600 with 7 loudspeakers will make that huge investment in your present library of 2 channel recordings really pay off, bringing you rich musical enjoyment and surround concert hall thrills that you never imagined lay hidden in all those 2 channel legacy recordings.

      Arcam's new AVR600 marks a huge advance over the previous state of the art, in all sonic parameters, and also boasts video superior to other AV receivers. It's human nature to believe that the state of the art, at any given time, is as good as things can ever get. But when we experience something that, like the AVR600, goes far beyond what we have heard (or seen) before, it expands our horizons of what is possible, and it literally re-defines the state of the art.
      You want to get the AVR600 if you want bass that is deeper, more powerful, and higher quality by far than any other receiver (and than virtually all separates), so much so that it virtually obviates the need for conventional subwoofers. You want to get the AVR600 if you want the effortless loudness and authoritative control that sounds as though you had a dedicated 300+ watt monoblock power amplifier directly at each loudspeaker. You want to get the AVR600 if you want trebles that are more extended, airy, quick, articulate, detailed, and delicate than you have heard before. You want to get the AVR600 if you want sonic transparency that brings you realism and realistic subtlety such as you have never experienced. You want to get the AVR600 if you want surround space that is 10 times larger and much better defined and more believable than you have ever heard before.
      You want to get the AVR600 for your system that plays only films, and for your system that plays only music, and/or any mix of the two. You want to get the AVR600, whether you have 7 loudspeakers, or 5, or 2, to experience the best magic your system can deliver. It doesn't matter what you have in your present system or how much it costs - just try putting the Arcam AVR600 into your system, and you too will become an amazed convert.
      Performance is everything. Any questions?


(back to table of contents)