ARCAM DiVA AVR280 HOME CINEMA RECEIVER @ Superfi £399.95

i think the june 07 date says a lot as to why its cheap now

Indeed, but It still appears to be a current model that’s highly regarded within the AV community.

i cant see how this can be a good deal tbh just look at whats around now for this same money!
http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...KY-TXSR606-BLK and thats without trying too hard...any audiophiles want to chip in on this one so people dont get too hung up on this one. cheers

Hi,it ain't Denon,Yamaha,etc etc.Its a Arcam,you will prob either love or hate the sound probably.
Certainly a big Fan Club in the Audiophile world for Arcam.Check out in AV forums etc.Go have a listen if you can,everyone as a different perception whats good or bad.Certainly a Kudos name compared to others,if you like name dropping



Cheers BOB

ps you buy a Arcam for the sound/sound quality(this will certainly sound better with music ie CD,than most other makes,so a bonus,maybe one box less) etc,more than the Gimmicks/extra features etc.And maybe Kudos

pps In AV or HiFi,more newer stuff,normally just as more extras(HDMI etc),sound quality might even get worse.

ppps remember this will be good,but it will only be as good as the rest of the system,so get ready to spend some more money on speakers etc.To bring the best out of it.
One more step to skintdom

Great price for such a good amp. Personally I use an Onkyo 875 for my AV and an older Arcam amp for music. To get a very capable amp for both under £400 is a really good deal. Arcams tend to have a warmer, more natural sound than many AV Amps. In my view this is what makes them relaxing and enjoyable to listen to music on, they don't sound at all hard on the ears. The more aggressive sound of something like a good Onkyo does make action films come alive a bit more though.

Bear in mind this is cheap because:

1. It does not process the latest HD Audio onboard such as DTS Master and Dolby True HD (most of the time the Bluray / HDDVD player will do this for you though).
2. It only has 2 HDMI inputs when many people already need more (HDMI Switches are very cheap though).

If I was looking for a dual use amp for music and movies at the moment I wouldn't hesitiate.

From a long time audiophile this will blow away other amps currently priced at £400. Fair enough it's not got the ability to play the latest codecs but that is not everything. In fact it's far from everything. Plus Arcam are an industry recognised name.

The amplification will be of far better quality. The power supplies will also be superb. The DACs will also be a cut above the rest.

For music lovers out there you will still need to spend £1200 on a home cinema amp (a lot less on a dedicated two channel amp) to get as good sound. For movies it has hdmi and will probably sound a lot better than amps with a rrp of £400 due to the quality of the components.

Finally, it looks so much better than cheaper home cinema amps. That's worth some of the cost alone.

This is an amazing deal.

What is this used for? im not sure what are theses

Silver only at that price (black is an extra £100) - silver finish is fine for those who like to relax in 'crimpolene slacks' & wear kipper ties, but for the rest of us, black is the only black in the game.

What Hi-Fi pretty much hated this amp when they reviewed it at the £1200 mark. They basically said it was lacking in features. It's still lacking in features compared to current £400 amps, no HD-Audio, no upscaling, no upconversion, no auto-setup, only 2 HDMIs and it can't even take PCM audio over HDMI! (it has to be over analogue multichannel). I wonder if it can make this up through sound quality?

As always though sound is VERY subjective. If it sounds better than the competition to your ears then it IS better than the competition. Reviews are pretty useless for judging sound quality.

Man oh man, I really don't need this. Must not buy this. Arrrrrgh, so tempting.

Reading reviews, it has great audio performance but misses:

1) HD audio decoding. Doesn't matter at all if your Bluray player can do this (mine can)
2) Video scaling. Matters for playback of non-HD stuff, mainly DVD and SD TV channels. If your TV scales well already (most lower end ones don't), this doesn't matter a jot. Doesn't matter for me, as I have a HTPC doing the scaling anyway.
3) No room eq. This is a bit of a shame, it's a nice feature.


Home cinemachoice gave it 5/5 for sound, 3/5 for features. Seems to be a common theme in reviews, so it basically comes down to whether you need those missing features or not.

Note that it only switches HDMI, no HDMI audio (PCM/Bitstream).

So if you want 5.1/7.1 uncompressed (PCM) or lossless (TrueHD/DTS-Master) audio from Bluray you need a player with 5.1/7.1 analogue out.

If you connect via optical TOSLINK you only get Dolby Digital, DTS or 2 channel PCM.

I don't know either mate but I'd guess if we don't know what it is we don't need one !

Yes, that's a major shame, cos it means you need a bluray player with really good DACs. Other than that, you could go for a bog standard bluray player, no need to pay top dollar at all, and even use the Bluray player as a DVD source.

From what I understand Arcam refuse to do audio over HDMI because they believe there's too much of a trade-off on sound quality.