Test setup
Contents
Ascendo provided us with a 7.1 system. Initially we play with a Marantz 8000 series AV receiver with Atmos and DTS-X. The source is an nVidia Shield and a Sony blu-ray player. Later we will also test on our own Illusonic IAP8. Just to see if that has a lot of influence. And yes, the Illusonic sounds better… it als has to considering the price difference.
In our setup we play via XLR cables because we do not have an AVB switch. We wonder if that would sound better. In theory it should because then you completely exclude the preamplifier. So it’s an even more pure signal. In this case the Illusonic doesn’t have to do anything, because all processing and equalizing happens in the Ascendo’s. So we’re not loading any processing on to the Illusonic. Except for decrypting the blu-rays. However, because the Illusonic still emits an analog signal, there is an audible difference between the Marantz and the IAP8.
Furthermore, we use the Optoma UHZ65 4K laser projector and an Adeo screen in this test.
