One of our customers recently bought a Ferrari. It's not a new one, but the chap still virtually had to sell a kidney to get it. Anyway, he got his new pride and joy home and decided to take it out for a spin round his local village. As he howled through the back lanes, he noticed one of his mates up ahead and decided to pull over, so that he could show off his latest acquisition. He rolled to a stop and reached intuitively to press the button for the electric windows. There wasn't one. Instead his hand came to rest on a little chrome handle - yes, his lovely new Ferrari had wind down windows! Horrified, our customer made a quick phone call to the Ferrari dealer, and was told that the Ferrari is an out and out performance vehicle, built by out and out enthusiasts, who view excess weight in the same way as Jamie Oliver views a chicken nugget. In other words, electric windows may be convenient, but the motors that drive them are heavy, so the designers left them off this particular model to save weight and maximise performance. After all, the garage owner argued, people who buy Ferraris are only interested in performance, not convenience, aren't they?! Is he right? I suspect not - I'm a fan of motorbikes (much more exciting than Ferraris any day!) but I doubt that I would buy any bike that didn't have an electric start, a clock, and a fuel gauge. Call me a big girls blouse if you like, but my argument would be that we're in the 21st century now, so I don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect manufacturers to give me performance and convenience. Likewise with my Home Cinema system, which is based on a top quality HD projector, fed by Arcam's superb DV79 DVD player, via a single HDMI cable. It is jaw-droppingly brilliant, but I have been facing a dilemma, because I want the performance this setup gives, but I also want the convenience of being able to run other sources (e.g. Sky HD / PS3) down the same cable to the projector. Unfortunately, my current amplifier (the excellent Arcam AVR300) doesn't have the ability to switch HDMI inputs, so I've been tempted to stray further down the 'convenience road' and go for one of the 'all-singling all-dancing' multi-upsampling Japanese Home Cinema amps. The trouble is that every time I take one home for the weekend I come to the unavoidable conclusion that they are all (yes, even the expensive ones!) significantly outperformed by the amp I already have. What I need is a Ferrari with electric windows - and here it is! Introducing the all new, HDMI switching Arcam AVR350 This receiver may look identical to the existing AVR300, but it is actually significantly better in two major areas: Firstly it has the all-important HDMI switching capability, so you can feed an HDMI DVD player plus Sky HD into it, then feed just one lead on to your plasma / LCD / projector (hurrah!). Secondly, the pre-amp stage features ultra high performance Burr Brown OP2134 op amps, plus Arcam's FMJ 'Mask of Silence' technologies, resulting in a marked boost to performance. In fact it's fair to say that the correct way of looking at the AVR350 is to view it as a cross between Arcam's Flagship AVP700 and FMJ AV9 AV processors, grafted onto seven AVR300 amplifiers. Which of course is interesting, because the Arcam AVP700 retails for £1400 on its own, so you could say that the AVR350 is rather good value for money!
And if you did, I'd have to agree, because I've just had my first proper listen to an AVR350 and now.............
I'm going to buy one!! |
