Popcornhour A-110 reviewed on Whathifi.com March issue

[Sharro]

Hi Everybody,

Just registering and starting a new thread is not realy my way of being but I guessed this is one exception.

I'm an avid reader of Technology and Hi-fi magazines and just a few hours after I had sent a request to a Portuguese Computer magazine to review Popcornhour A-110, I bought the March issue of What Hi-Fi and bingo:

http://whathifi.com/Review/Popcorn-Hour-A-110-1TB

I do not own one for the time being, but after having my computer disconnected from my lcd for "familiar" reasons, I've been "surviving" with a dvd player and recently the Playstation 3, useless to say that none meet my expectations on either compatibility or ease of use.

Subtitle support is of most importance for me.

It had been a long time since I last read about Popcornhour and then it was not available in Portugal.

While I was wandering through the internet for an MKV compatible device you can guess what I've found , since then I've been reading and gathering information has much as I can and I've pretty much decided to get an A-110 with a 1tb drive, still there are comments in the What Hi-fi review that I need the help of this forum:

The paragraph that starts with "Arduous to sift through large music collections" as they make comments about the audio quality and video quality through USB that I have no idea if they have been solved by any firmware update as they don't mention the firmware tested.

Thank you all for any input.

All the best,

Sharro

[chris57]

Music is terrible to browse through unless you use the Music Jukebox. Firmware updates have made browsing quicker and you can also jump now to a file number but to get alphabetical and shuffle you need the Music Jukebox.

Surprised about the review it is not very detailed and tells you nothing about the expansion that you can do. It also doesnt mention that the PCH has a DTS license whereas the HDX doesnt, they cream themselves about an SD card slot though.

[Sharro]

Chris,

Many thanks for your reply.

I have noted the music browsing issue.

Still, my main concerns were:

Quote:the first time we played our test files on it was from a USB hard disk, and we were very surprised to see a marked loss in quality compared with the HDX-1000.

Trying the same external HDD on the HD Digitech proved that the problem lay in the delivery via USB rather than the player itself, and sure enough, when playing the files through the Ethernet connection or from the Popcorn Hour’s own hard drive, we could see no discernable difference between it and the ’1000.

and

Quote:Music delivery is still disappointing though, with tracks lacking musical gusto.

Could any audio oriented user confirm/deny this ?

The USB issue they mention is not important for me as I'll be using network and drive playback but it could be important for other users.

All the best,

Sharro

[SirNickity]

I really don't understand how that's even possible. What difference does it make where the content comes from? If the bandwidth from source to PCH is fast enough to deliver the bits, they're still the same bits... I've only used USB once (I stream over the network), but I didn't notice anything at all out-of-place.

Same for music. Using the optical digital output, it sounds exactly like every single other digital output sounds, regardless of device or cost. That's the convenient thing about digital delivery.

Can't personally speak for the analog outputs. I've heard people say they're functional but not great, and I've heard some say they sound perfectly fine.

[Sharro]

SirNickity,

Running a simple search for "audio quality" and sure that audio (mp3 and Flac are "my" formats) is decoded by PCH, my concerns are real, it seems that the audio decoding of PCH leaves many users disappointed.

I had plans to have this connected to an AV receiver but audio quality is of most importance for me.

My doubts is if this something that could be corrected by a firmware update or is hardware related and no solution will ever exist.

All the best,

Sharro

[Trollslayer]

(03-20-2009 06:46 PM)Sharro Wrote:  SirNickity,

Running a simple search for "audio quality" and sure that audio (mp3 and Flac are "my" formats) is decoded by PCH, my concerns are real, it seems that the audio decoding of PCH leaves many users disappointed.

I had plans to have this connected to an AV receiver but audio quality is of most importance for me.

My doubts is if this something that could be corrected by a firmware update or is hardware related and no solution will ever exist.

All the best,

Sharro

If you have raw output on a digital port (HDMI or optical) then nothing happens to the stream, that's the point.
I've known people claim a big difference in video quality by changing a HDMI cable.

[Sharro]

SirNickity,

The PCH converts mp3 and flac to PCM before sending to hdmi or optical, only the formats that can be decoded by an AV receiver can be sent as RAW.

All the best,

Sharro

[chris57]

That is exactly what SirNickty is saying though.

If you select RAW is passesthrough the audio untouched so it passes mp3 and FLAC rather than PCM. You have to have an amp that decodes FLAC or mp3 for RAW passthrough. If you as the user select Anaologue PCM then it will convert to PCM but that is your choice.

[Trollslayer]

Fair point, I ripped my music to WAV to save any problems - it's only 100GB

[chris57]

Of course im thinking that there's a setting for FLAC and mp3 that enables this option to either simply passthrough or to decode to analogue, there isn't in SETUP.

[Sharro]

AFAIK there is no AV receiver decoding FLAC and the model I'll get doesn't decode mp3.

[SirNickity]

Nah, I didn't mean to imply that the PCH would pass an MP3 or FLAC bitsream. I only meant that the decoded PCM itself would be nearly impervious to defect if played through the digital outputs. I have never used the analog outputs, so I can't speak of the DAC/op-amp quality, etc. This was the point I tried to make above.

I suppose it IS possible for the decoding itself to be done incorrectly or poorly. That, however, would be correctable in software, as MP3 and FLAC are not natively supported by the Sigma. Ergo, they would by necessity be decoded via software running on the GPCPU, and thus subject to improvement. That said . . .

Admittedly, I have only done a little casual audio playback on the PCH because I prefer the AppleTV's interface for music. The PCH's interface is dreadful, but I've never noticed there to be any glaring deficiencies in regards to decoding the bitstream itself.

To put this in perspective... I'm a musician, I tinker in a fairly-well-stocked project studio, I snub my nose at "mass consumer audio products." My iPod's library is in 128Kbps AAC, which sounds "good enough", but I can tell it's not a CD. To the point: I am picky about audio quality. I have not sat down with a glass of wine and my Shure in-ear monitors to really scrutinize the audio quality, but playing a few files on the living room HT, it sounded A-OK. Take this for what it is.

For video, I have used the AppleTV, a WDTV, and the PCH A110. Hands down, without a question, I prefer the A110 for video playback. Again, in the spirit of disclosure, I've never done a side-by-side comparison in terms of video quality with the same display and the same media on all three, but I have spent a fair amount of time staring at the screen. It looks as good as the source and display can look, to me.

[stephen50g]

Personally I play a lot of Flac files and have had no problems with quality

[Sharro]

Ok.

Million thanks.

Ordering mine :-)

I will certainly search here for my doubts.

All the best,

Sharro