Bloated bass and the panasonic digital receiver

your dad wasn't at least worth Rotel, NAD, Integra, Marantz or similar? Unless you have circuit city stock, *tsk tsk* :D

just teasing you of course, but what concerns me is "party mode" - is there some kind of stereo/direct/2ch mode? or is that what you're speaking of?

So you had another amp in there before that "wasn't bloated in the bass", correct?.
Assuming a swap out from your other amp to the Panny, and all things set relatively the same, I'd assume you're panny isn't so strong to control whatever speakers you're running, probably full range no doubt, yes?
If it's not bass modal problems from your set up/room, I'd say you have a lack of power, or too much bass level gain. I'd want to know measurements at certain frequencies in relation to 1Khz, compared to other amp setup you were using, to define "bloated bass" a bit more.
You need to do trial and error. Check the trebble and bass boost setting to make sure, as with dynamic range settings, EQ's etc. Also, subwoofer and crossover settings if applicable, the works. Really, there's only so many variables if your rig was set up correctly in the first place(i.e, flat frequency response overall).good luck

Dmoffitt- The party mode is feeding 4 channels of stereo. I'm basically biamping my speakers { piega p10's.} This makes it 200wpc, which is more than the Belles i had before. I never noticed this bass bloat before. I was told the bass of the philips can sound this way also. Maybe i'm just turning it up louder now that i've got 200 wpc and noticing it more? I guess i need to get the rives cd to test my room.

Have you tried it in non-party mode?

I'll try that today and get back....

Did you experiment with speaker placement? Are they too close to the walls or corners or both?

The XR45 does not output 100wpc, it's more like 70wpc. Also the amp does require about a week of running in for it's tonal balance to settle in. You need to tell us more about what kind of load the Piega's present in the bass region. Does it work best with a high current, high damping factor amp? If you're not matching SPL levels in your comparison, then your results can be very misleading. Also, party mode has no effect on sound quality.

The Panasonic XR45 is a marvelous value at a little over the $300 street price. It's a strong sonic performer in an all digital system competitive with anything I've heard for less than $1,000.

The most experience I've observed concerning the new Panny Digital Receivers is over at www.audiocircle.com. Check out the digital domain forum and the BolderCable manufacturesrs forum. There are lots of folks there using the Panny XR25 and XR45 for HT and 2-channel using "party mode".

Is it possible that the Panny is not happy with the load provided by your "big rig" speaker? If I remember correctly, the Panny is going to be more happy with an 8 ohm speaker.

I'll caution that, as always, these highly hyped "product of the week" might be very good values, but they generally don't hold up to truely hi-end products. I owned the Panny SA-XR45 and it was a very good reciever for $300, but it didn't hold a candle to my "real system"!!!

Enjoy,

TIC

I've got the new xr50 model. Speaker placement is 3.5 ft from front wall. The piega's are said to like high current/power. They dip to 4 ohms. That's prolly the problem. Like i said, i'm giving this to my father pretty soon. I'm waiting for the release of the new concerto integrated. I was using the Belles 250i integrated before this and it sounded much better. I think it's a good amp but not a replacement for a high quality 2 channel amp.