Disclord
900 Club - QQ All-Star
Does any forum member own the Aphex AVM-8000 SQ Decoder? It was, as far as I know, the last SQ decoder made, being released in 1986. In addition to SQ, it also had a Cinema mode. The weird thing about it is that it's a gain-riding logic decoder, not a crosstalk cancellation type like the Fosgate Tate II. Also, it's an Octahedral SQ decoder, with 8 outputs for Lf, Cf, Rf, Rc, Rb, Cb, Lb, Lc and the phase shifters in the SQ section were a precision 10 pole design. Stereophile reviewed it in 1986 and it was rated as "unacceptable" for SQ decoding because, in an attempt to hide the audible effects of the logic, it only applied 10db of gain riding, meaning crosstalk was easily audible, and produced very poor SQ results. In the Cinema mode though it was rated highly, apparently using greater logic action. Aphex replaced it the next year with the ESP-7000 for movies, which dropped the SQ mode and was a true crosstalk cancellation/matrix multiplier design. Unfortunately, the Stereophile review has no pictures of the AVM-8000 - it was tested along with the Fosgate 3601 and Shure HTS-5000. The Shure was the recommended decoder and the Fosgate 3601 was rated rather poorly.
So has anyone seen this odd Aphex SQ decoder or owned it?
So has anyone seen this odd Aphex SQ decoder or owned it?