And that's just the Pre-Amp / Processor. Big bugger, weighs in at 16.4 kgs but I'm getting ahead of myself.

     Over the years (26 to be exact) we've sold many brands, Sony, NAD, Harmon Kardon, Rotel, Onkyo, Akai, Teac, Denon and just about every other manufacturer ever sold in Australia and for one reason or another we tend to drift from one to another. Usually the reason stems from a change in direction from that particular company (remember 20 years ago when Akai and Kenwood were regarded as Audiophile quality?) Today, the perception of quality is mainly due to the advertising budget of that particular company (for example - a lot of people are under the impression that Bose is a good value for money product). So when we started to look for a third major electronics brand for our store, Marantz and Yamaha being the others, one of the last products we looked at was Sherwood, they just don't spend any money on advertising in Australia so the general view is one of a cheap, department store, product. Whilst researching other brands such as Harmon Kardon and Denon, we found that a large proportion of their products are actually manufactured by Sherwood for them - in fact, according to Sherwood's web site, they manufacture around 30% of all A/V receivers.

     To cut a long story short, we bought Sherwood's top of the line A/V unit, the P-965 pre amp/processor and A-965 power amp. for a test and soon realised that, although Sherwood does make some budget models, their "Newcastle" range is as good or better than any other brand within that price bracket!

For full specifications go to

 http://www.sherwoodusa.com/nc_cat_hts.html

     First, the pre amp. It has all the usual processing requirements, Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic IIX etc. and a lot of really good stuff like 192kHz/24 bit remastering of Legacy PCM material such as CD's, relay switching for the component video inputs, bass management of the 7.1 direct input for SACD and DVD-A, built in phono preamp and other goodies. A nice touch is the ability to switch 3 component video signals (most other units under $6000 only switch 2) and the fact that they're relay switched (no video degradation as per ********* brand). It comes with 2 remote controls, the main one is a learning / pre programmed unit with LCD display and ten zillion functions, the second remote is more basic being for the zone 2 operation as the processor can send an A/V signal to the second zone independent of the main room. The P-965 is one of the few multi room devices that can send a digital audio feed to the second zone - very handy. The video feed to zone 2 can also be outputted as S-Video. A Phono preamp is also included for those of you who still play those 12" black flat thingies.

  These are the two supplied remotes (looking very much like a Marantz on the left and a Rotel on the right - hmmm wonder why?). The main remote is so good, we're looking to bring them in as a separate item for stand alone sales.

  On the rear panel is a USB and RS-232 port for field upgrades via the internet plus the adoption of a third party control via touchpad's.

  When listening to music, there is a Pure Audio button which deactivates unnecessary sources (DSP, Video Circuitry etc.) thereby cutting off the influx of extraneous noise.

     Whereas most of these features are available on most other A/V products, there's not many that has all of them in the same unit. With 7 digital inputs, 2 digital outputs, 6 Video inputs and a bloody good AM/FM tuner, well that's not quite true, the FM tuner is superb but the AM tuner (as in just about every unit these day's) is fairly abysmal with a frequency response of 80 to 2.3 kHz, although I can't remember the last time I listened to anything except the football scores on AM radio, this pre amp / processor does everything any techno head could want in the foreseeable future and yet is simple enough to operate for dyslexic alcoholics like me!

    Now for the really good bit.

    This is the A-965 Power Amplifier - 7 channels of almighty grunt with a capital G and it's a massive 32 kgs. We all know that Watts ain't Watts (just read an old Onkyo brochure and you'll figure that out)  The spec's on this unit is 100 Watts X 7 channels, all channels driven into 8 Ohms from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, Yamaha's RX-V2400 is rated 120 Watts per channel so we figured, as they were sitting next to each other during the test, that we'd have a "grunt off". Feeding into a set of Paradigm Studio 100's we let rip the Missy Elliot "This is Not a Test" disc and, much as I love Yamaha, it just wasn't in the race once we turned up the volume  - the Yammy went all harsh and trebly on us whereas the Sherwood felt like it could go on forever without distortion or "pushing", OK how would the Marantz SR-8300 go?  it's rated at 120 Watts  per channel. Same result, it got harsh at the upper volume levels, although not as bad as the Yamaha.

     To get things in perspective, the Yamaha retails for $2990 and the Marantz $3990 so one would expect a better performance from the Marantz. Based on this criteria, you'd expect the Sherwood combo to sell for around $6990 to $7990  -  in the US it sells for three times the price of the Yamaha and 1.8 times the price of the Marantz (retails there are Yamaha US$999, Marantz US$1700 and Sherwood Combo US$3000. The current retail in Australia is only $5990 which makes the A-965 / P-965 at THE bargain in Australian home theatre.

     As you can see from the photo, the power amp consists of 7 separate amplifier modules and two massive toroidal transformers, so when all channels are driven, the output is still 100 Watts, the Yamaha RX-V2400 drops to around 55 Watts per channel when all channels are driven and the Marantz 90 ish Watts.

     Musically, the Sherwood and Marantz are very similar at normal to loud levels, when concert levels are required, however, the Sherwood bolts it in. Again, with the movie sound, it's almost impossible to separate the sound from the Yamaha, Marantz and Sherwood at normal listening levels, the subtlety, tonality and separation on all units are superb, when the going gets tough though (loud and dynamic) again, the Sherwood runs away with the accolades and superlatives.

Bottom line - we love it (don't buy a Rotel RSP 1068 / RMB 1075 without trying the Sherwood - I know the Rotel is cheaper but just screw me for a better deal on the Sherwood). We reckon it's the buy of the year, the only problem is I know the importer and if he thinks he can get more money for this combo. he'll up the price. Fortunately Ray is computer illiterate so he's unlikely to ever read this review.