Louis' Ramblings

Niro REFERENCE

For a while I have been looking for a new stereo receiver (and for that matter a new TV, but that is still a ways out into the future). I have a couple of desires, but primarily I wanted decent 5.1 fidelity, compact design, as few wires as possible, and the ability to use optical coax and RCA cable inputs. I would prefer it did not have an integrated DVD player.

I was immediately interested in the Niro 1.1 Pro. The problem with it was that it had a DVD player I did not need, and it had no digital inputs, which meant that it could only do 5.1 off of the internal DVD player. Since the internal DVD player does not have a DVI or HDMI port it will not fit in with my eventual HDTV upgrade plans.

Niro demoed two new products at CES, the Niro 1.1 Reference and Niro 1.1 Movie Mouse. I assumed there were improvements to the receiver, and hoped they would would add digital audio in. Unfortunately no one examined one up close, and in retrospect it looks like they were actually demoing the new speaker arrays on the old receiver platform (probably with modifications). The announced release date came and went, and they released the Movie Mouse with some adapter for the old systems, but it was clearly suboptimal (you had to manual switch the cables every time you wanted to use it), which made me fairly optimistic the new receiver was going to do what I wanted (if they were minor changes they would probably not be delayed).

I was checking their Japanese site earlier this week (when I want something I get a little obsessive about keeping track of release dates) and saw a whole new line up that looked truly awesome. I managed to find the translations on their english sites staging page. They had specs for the new Niro REFERENCE system, and they are exactly what I want. They ditched the CD player, improved the speakers, added multiple digital inputs, and added support for simultaneously connecting the Movie Mouse and the regular speaker. They also added flashrom support so that the receivers will work with new speakers, and they can improve their spacial effects algorithms. There are also two lower end designs, the Niro 400 and Niro 600 They officially rolled them out today, shipping August 6th!!