Beautiful Day

Firstly, I’ll let you know that I did listening tests, going between Denon and Azur several times. I used Kef Cresta speakers. I don’t like a subwoofer as it spoils sound quality in my opinion. My 5.1 system is setup so that all speakers are full range.

I have to say that listening to the Denon was disappointing in my opinion. I thought that the bass was quite muddy, and my general impression was that the amplifier, while fully featured and capable, was lacking in speed and elegance.

Initially, I was drawn to the Denon because of its features. This was my first mistake. I was thinking “Wouldn’t it be great to just run one HDMI cable to my projector instead of Component + Composite + HDMI”. I was thinking “Won’t it be great to upscale Wii to 720p, and have very flexible video switching.” I was thinking all these features would make things easier and better, but actually, nothing could be further from the truth.

Denon is a complex beast, and while I don’t have direct experience, many have commented that it’s menu system is difficult to use. Denon also is a capable amplifier in that it has plenty of power.. but you have to notice that for example, they have a square transformer (this is what I noticed when I was looking inside the amplifier) rather than a toroidal, which is often regarded as being better at producing cleaner power for later amplification stages.

So, I have to say, when they first hooked up the Azur, it was absolute bliss. The sound was so much more accurate. I was listening to a very nicely recorded Jazz piano. On the Denon, the individual key presses were not very clear, but with the Azur, the sound was placed so clearly and accurately, it was a pleasure to listen to. The bass reproduction and control exerted by the Azur effortlessly produced what I can only express as a deeply calming listening experience, while the Denon had me struggling to hear the music clearly.

I even second guessed myself. The first day I listened to them both, I just couldn’t believe how much of a difference there was. A day later I returned and had them hook it all up again. I was convinced in the morning that the Denon was the way to go. Denon has support (at least the one I was looking at) for the latest HDMI 1.3 specs, which include Deep Color and also the high quality audio streaming via HDMI cable (rather than coax/optical 5.1 Dolby Digital).

However, this isn’t a big issue. The Azur model I was looking at has a 5.1 pre-input, so it is future compatible with any A/V decoder.

In the morning of the second day, I was ready to buy the Denon. I’d printed out a bunch of notes I’d made including specs and so on, and got to the shop. I was really close to buying the Denon.

And then I listened to it again… and then the Azur, and it was like going from hell to heaven in about 30 minutes. The Azur is such a pure and simple design. It doesn’t do HDMI audio (a bit of a pain, but heck I don’t think I’ll have a player that does that within the next 5 years anyway). It doesn’t up-convert from Composite to component or HDMI. BUT- why would you want to any way? How much money do you think they can invest in up-conversion circuitry inside the Denon units? Half the cost? I’d rather have the purity of the original signal then some tacked on feature. Everyday usage is exactly the same, whether its one or three cables… so in the end, the Azur was the obvious choice.

Generally, I think that if you are not an audiophile, you might be happy with the Denon and you will probably be attracted to its 100 of features you will never ever use. But, I say, do your ears a favor and give them space to grow and enjoy a sound produced by excellent engineering and a fundamentally simple approach to audio equipment.

Firstly, the Wii was initially set up using the supplied cable - analog audio and composite (yellow plug) audio. Upgrading to a cheap chinese import component cable, even though only a change from 480i to 480p, made a huge difference in the image quality. I’d highly recommend anyone with a capable TV or PJ get a component cable for the Wii.

I’ve been fairly happy with the Panasonic projector so far. The sharpness issue was a bit off-putting at first, however generally the image quality and brightness has been good. I was a bit annoyed because there was actually a promotion run earlier in the year which included a free bulb with the PJ at the same cost I paid, but unfortunately I didn’t know about it at the time of purchase. I guess it always pays to call around and research about the final price. I spent so much time just figuring out what projector I wanted, that by the time I came to purchase it I just went to the first shop that seemed to have a good price. Bargain hunting is always like that though - you could probably always do better.

Finally, the projector does seem to have one technical glitch. A widely reported issue regarding the AX200 (and some previous models) is of frequent fluctuations of brightness. This issue presents itself I’ve found primarily in Eco-Mode. However, tonight for the first time I’ve experienced the problem in Normal mode. So, I’ve flicked off an email to Panasonic technical support to find out what they have to say about it.

All in all, for the price I paid, I don’t really expect this projector to last more than 2 or three bulb replacements anyway. Its an organic LCD panel which will degrade fairly significantly after 3000/4000 hours, and in 2 years I’m sure I’ll have more wisdom and experience to make my next successful purchase.

Overall, the ball is in Panasonic’s court right now, to resolve this technical issue.

Thanks for reading and have a great day.

I could have afforded a 1080p projector, however there are a number of differences worth considering:

• Most of the stuff I could be watching on mainstream TV in New Zealand will be 720p or less in terms of broadcast resolution. Any DVDs that I have or borrow will be 720p or less. Most (but not all) movies that I have on my computer are 720p or less. So, having a 720p resolution projector makes more sense than 1080p at this point. The next projector I buy will be 1080p however (once the market for 1080 settles a bit).
• On the plus side (for 1080p), thats where the new technology is. So, 1080p projectors will generally have better statistics and performance (for a huge price too, don’t forget!). 720p projectors are a bit older tech, and use older LCD panels (and are thus a lot cheaper! ^_^). However, in practice, this quality difference is not really noticible unless you compare side by side and actually have 1080p material in the first place.
• 720p projectors (from what I’ve looked at) are generally brighter than ther 1080p counter parts. Case in point, the 1080p projector from Panasonic is 1600 lumins, vs the 2000 lumins of the AX200. So, you pay more for 1080p, but it isn’t as bright. Brightness adds a lot of versatility to placement and usage.
• 720p projectors are far cheaper than their 1080p counter parts, especially in New Zealand where all electronics is about 2 times as expensive as overseas.

1080p projectors are still getting better and better. I expect that 720p projectors will get better, but have generally got to the point where they won’t see much more development.

There was actually only one major reason to go for 1080p and that was photography. I’m actually quite keen to use my projector for displaying photography. Given that my camera is a 40D, it takes pictures of a resolution approximately 3500x2500 or something in that ball-park. With 720 dots vertically, portrait photographs are very cramped up.

However, on the other hand, an increase of resolution wouldn’t really resolve this problem directly. I’m actually planning to project onto a 120” screen finally, so this may alleviate some of the problem.

And really, my eye-sight is not that great, so 720p is more resolution than my eyes can pickup without wearing glasses. Thats the real case in point for me!

In comparison to other 720p projectors, we have a few from Epson which look good, and the Sanyo PLV-Z5. The Sanyo looks good, too. However, it is no where near as bright as the Panasonic. I suspect the Panasonic is more of an all-round general projector, wherease the Z5 is better for cinematography. One really nice thing about the AX200 is the SmoothScreen technology. Looking at images from both projectors really was a tie-breaker for me - the SmoothScreen equipped AX200 just looked so much clearer. People have commented that the Z5 is a sharper projector, but even if it is, I’d actually still prefer the “clarity” of the SmoothScreen technology.

All in all, if your looking for your first projector and:

• Don’t want to spend a whole heap of money
• Don’t have much 1080p material
• Want to use it for gaming and computers
• Want to use in ambient light conditions

The Panasonic AX200 is the projector for you. After spending several weeks research, looking at image quality of most of the major 720p units, this is my conclusion. As for 1080p, the Epson line of Home Cinema projectors look really really nice, but they are hell expensive in NZ - almost twice the price as they are in Japan.

(I wanted to mention one thing about this projector. On all modes, you should turn “Sharpenss” to as low as you can put it. The sharpness filter is very bad and causes a lot of ugly artifacts, especially when you are projecting a computer user interface. I was actually contemplating returning the projector because of the bad blooming effect, but once I turned the sharpness all the way down, this problem was much less of an issue.)