Dynamic Duo

摘要

As a home cinema enthusiast with £3000 burning a hole in your pocket, you have the option of choosing either a massive AV receiver or a separate AV processor and multichannel power amp to douse the flames. Arcam has just made the choice that much simpler with the launch of its new £1400 AVP700 processor and £1600 7-channel power amp combo, a duet that looks remarkably like a stripped-down version of its high-end AV8/P7 two-boxer. Indeed, while this might be enough to fool the red tops, in practice any resemblance is no more than skin deep. Instead, the AVP700's bloodline is traceable to Arcam's AVR300 AV receiver with its 400-series Crystal processor handling both Dolby Digital EX and DTS-ES decoding, full bass management and a 0-220msec lip-sync delay. It also includes the same FM tuner and analogue board, albeit populated with higher quality parts and fed from an altogether superior PSU with improved regulation and screening.