At 3k this preamp/processor is over priced.
Yes, it is Theta. Yes it can be upgraded. Upgrades are not terribly cheap from Theta. There is no telling how much future components will cost.

Unless you have 3k to 5k to spend on this processor, I would advise the Sony TAE9000 or the Act-3. Sure the Sony is not upgradeable (However it is software upgradeable), it is still a fine unit. The Act 3 is hardware upgradeable, but costs $500 more than the Sony (with the bass management option).

Just my thoughts in a nutshell. 2 Stars for lack of value.

INCREDIBLE SOUND,BUILD QUALITY,FLEXABILITY.

NONE

DOES EVERYTHING PERFECTLY.SET-UP FLEXABILITY INCREDIBLE,SELECTABLE CROSSOVERS ETC. ONCE DIALED IN SOUND WAS FANTASTIC. NO OPERATIONAL FLAWS LIKE IN THE GOLDEN THEATER.HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Similar Products Used:

B&K GOLDEN THEATER

Performance on all home theater type sources from Dobly Digital DVDs to HBO and local cable

Somewhat difficult learning curve regarding set-up of crossover frequencies and such

This piece of gear is formidable in both it's processing abilities as well as it's set-up process. However, anyone who can comprehend the English language and is willing to spend some time with this unit will derive great listening pleasure. Thankfully, it can also be used right out of the box to great effect. The unit offers three crossover types: Butterworth, Linkwitz-Riley, and Phase Perfect. You can choose different topologies, frequencies and slopes for each and every speaker in your system. Bass can be sent to just the sub, just the main, center, and surround speakers, or to all speakers and the sub. I have listened to quite a few action movies with this unit, ranging from Saving Private Ryan, T2, Ronin, True Lies, Desperado and the like. All were delivered in their full sonic glory, from the highest highs to the lowest lows. I have not used the piece as much for music though. Although from what I've experienced it performs quite well in this arena as well. If asked whether it is better for movies or music though, I would have to give an enthusiastic nod to movies. I am using the unit with a Sunfire amp, Def Tech BP2000TLs, CLR 3000, BP2004TLs, and a Velodyne FSR15 sub. I have no complaints and neither does anyone who's heard it.

Similar Products Used:

none

My product review on The Theta Casa Nova.
I requested an audition to hear The Casa Nova at Progressive Audio in Columbus, Ohio. I am from the Toledo area and it took me 3 1/2 hours to get to the audio shop. I met with Michael Rice, who talked with me for nearly an hour concerning my home theater needs, before setting up the equipment of my choice. He gave me a complete tour of his establishment and briefly discussed every processor on hand, which included The Sunfire Theater Grand, The Theta Casablanca, The Lexicon DC-1, and The Theta Casa Nova. He also had a Krell Audio Video Standard on display, which I did not audition, due to it being out of my price range.

Progressive Audio is one of the leading Theta dealers in Ohio, if not the country. They had just about every Theta product in spades. Meaning that if you wanted to audition your favorite component such as a Theta Pro basic III or a Generation V digital to analog converter, they had it on display and set up for audio and video. Moreover, Progressive Audio had other manufactures equipment readily on hand for your inspection and review. I was really impressed.

Considering I am interested in The Casa Nova, I will compare The Casa Nova with The Sunfire Theater Grand, The Theta Casablanca and The Lexicon DC-1. This is just my opinion based on my observations. For best results, you should go and audition them yourself. Hopefully you can find a dealer that has the resources as Progressive Audio, who can afford to have all of these great processors on hand.

The Theater Grand is pretty. But it is not in the same class as The Casa Nova. The Theater Grand reminded me of a well built receiver that requires external amplification. Don't get me wrong here. When I say well built, I mean WELL BUILT. The Theater Grand has balanced inputs for all channels, that require lots of electronics to sound right, and sound right it does. However, The Theater Grand cannot be configured to handle different types of listening environments like The Casa Nova. The Casa Nova for example has excellent bass management capabilities. Depending on your room, you can set up delayed sound frequencies for all speakers. With this capability, you can shape a difficult room setting more accurately and achieve better sound from just about any speaker arrangement. I will say this about The Theater Grand. This thing is loaded with features. At the moment it is the most complete processor on the market. If you still have a bunch of old records, this is the processor to get. It had the best remote of all the processors I looked at and is very easy to set up.

The Lexicon DC-1 is an old work horse that has a very good reputation for sound. It is not as well built as The Casa Nova. The Casa Nova's front face plate is a 3/8" thick piece of solid metal that weighs 8 pounds and cost $400 to replace. The box is regit and heavy. The rear panel of The Lexicon did not seem to be as durable or well built as The Casa Nova's. The on screen display of The Lexicon DC-1 did not seem to be as user friendly as The Casa Nova. However, up and running, The Lexicon sounded wonderful. Finally, both of these processors are a tweekers dream, but The Casa Nova is a little more refined. The Casa Nova blows The Lexicon away in shear upgradeability. You can have The Casa Nova anyway you want. You can even change the color of the exterior box if you want from silver to black or a combination of both. Even the power supplies can be changed out by unplugging them from a card and popping in new ones or a more powerful ones.

The Theta Casablanca at this writing is in the process of a software upgrade. Right now The Casa Nova has better menu driven software than The Theta Casablanca. But that is as far as it go. The Theta Casablanca has more room in it to do just about anything. To me, a standard Theta Casablanca is a little better sounding then a full blown Casa Nova. But when you add the superior D/A's to The Casablanca it blows everything else out there away. The Theta Casablanca is very heavy, almost 50 pounds, and very well built. It is in a class by itself. If you can afford it, buy a Casablanca. I don't think you can go wrong here. I will probable get The Casa Nova due to cost considerations.

I was told that The Casablanca paid for the research and development of The Casa Nova, making it a little more refined in the software department. The high demand in sells of The Casa Nova will fund the advancement of The Casablanca.

I hope my review helped someone. Get out and listen to The Casa Nova. I would love to hear what you guys and gals think.

The Casa Nova is a wonderful sounding unit with a great feature list, but it is very difficult to use and set up, and I experienced numerous problems with it.After a two day loan and trial, I ordered the unit and waited 4 weeks for it to show up. I then used it for 10 days before returning it to the dealer.

The unit sounds wonderful, slightly better than the Proceed AVP and on a par with the TheaterMaster Encore. It is musical with few artifacts, images cleanly, and I did not find it bright at all. The new 24/96 DVD audio disks played flawlessly using my Pioneer DVD-414 as a transport. Hookup is easy with many inputs and outputs, including balanced connectors. Because all of the hardware features of the unit are on removable daughter-boards, this unit may not be obsoleted for a long time: you can just remove outdated features and replace them with new ones!

However, I found the unit relatively difficult to use and others in my house refused to use it on those grounds. I suggest that you have your dealer set it up for you. Setup is accomplished through complex multi-level menus with so many options (which are not documented well) that it is difficult to decide what to do. The unit has six buttons on the front panel which activate "inputs" (actually separate configurations), each of which can have any mapping of inputs to outputs, separate settings for surround sound and other options, and a specific name. It took me a long time to realize that I didn't *have* to use each button to map to a specific input.

During use, people are frustrated by the fact that some toggles (like late night viewing) are only reachable deep down in the setup menus. Also, there is no clear indication which input jack is being used on the LCD display or screen, so sometimes the unit does nothing because you don't know it's set to the wrong input jack.

All of this contributes to a feeling in use that the unit isn't "finished". I also noticed some lack of clarity on the dialog, but that may have been due to the fact that I'm temporarily using a center channel speaker that's not well matched to my left and right front speakers.

In addition, my unit had some unacceptable problems. The keys on the remote and front panel "bounced", causing many triggers for each time I pressed them. It made setting values to exact numbers very frustrating. Also, the unit would crash regularly during setup operations, and needed to be turned off and on. Finally, values that it saved into its flash memory would magically change, for example I had set the name of an input to "DVD PLAYER", and two days later it was "PVD FLAYER C". Also, I have two VCR's but the unit's internal on-screen display would only lock onto the output of one of them, even though my TV had no problem with either. My dealer helped me to address the crashing by theorizing that it was electromagnetic interference and giving me ferrite beads to put on the power cords. They also suggested that I make sure everything (including the cable connection to the house) was properly grounded. These fixes didn't solve the problems. I returned the unit to the dealer.

I have to commend the dealership, Bay Area Audio in Cupertino for its dedication and the great way they tried to make me happy. I really recommend them.

I'm going to try to buy my second choice, the Proceed AVP.

I got a few e-mails concerning not elaborating enough on the sound of The Theta Casa Nova. This is a follow up to my original post.
If you've had the chance to listen to The lex DC-1, I would say The Casa Nova sounds about the same, if not a little better. You could hear a pin drop between dialogue, on The Casa Nova. It's that clear. The Casa Nova has good resolution without audible noise and distortion. But that comes without saying when you are talking about a $4000+ processor, with high quality digital filters. Keep in mind also that the amplifiers and speakers play a huge part in the final outcome. The dealer had this thing driving a train of Krell monaural monsters, which in tern were pushing the fabulous B & W 800 Series speakers. You can't get much better then that.

Theta specializes in digital encoded audio and has become good at it over the years. What they have been doing is taking other manufactures products, such as Pioneer, Phillips, Lexicon, just to name a few, and improving upon there research. For example, Theta took Pioneer's excellent sounding CD/laser disc player and improved upon the clocking, tracking, platter mechanisms, shielding, and power supplies, to create what is now known as The Voyager Video Transport. Other then their D/A converters, I think The Casablanca is really the first product Theta created from scratch. And the Casa Nova is the direct decendent, with similar sound qualities and features, at a lessor cost.

The Casa Nova sounded equally impressive with music. It can be configured as an analog or digital preamplifier, with outstanding realism. I think you got the best of both worlds with this unit. In my opinion, It's a good choice among what's out there for now.

Hope this helps.

Best sound I heard yet, Built to last nearly forever, & the Ultimate in flexability

A manuel that lasts forever

My last day with my Acurus ACT3...I turned on the VSR with the ACT3 via analog hall mode watching TV through the stereo, turned it off...did something, came back, put in a Laser Disc, turned on the ACT3 with the rest of the stereo equipment with the VSR off, pushed A/V 1 input to pick up the Audio/Video signal from the Laser Disc, the ACT3 goes to A/V 1 input for about 15 secs. then turns by itself to VSR input..."The VSR is off you crazy machine"...pushed the A/V 1 input button again...then per instructions from Acurus themselves via E-Mail twice and "Yes, I did read the instructions" pushed the Audio input to pick up the RF mod. for the conversation of the Laser digital to 5.1 mode...the ACT3 turned off the video for the TV...pushed the A/V 1 input again, then the audio 1 input again...sat and watch my last Laser Disc on this crazy automatic machine. Turned it in for the Casa Nova, plug most of my Video equipment to this fine machine, including its own RF mod. input, turned it on, put in a Laser Disc..."WOW!!!" the machine reveals all the inputs...let see I want number 7 (there are only 6 inputs settings but the RF is over to the right of them), turned on mode...I want 5.1...HURRAY, it works, it works, Freedom from the Automatic machine...I am in control, it is no longer the Outer Limits "We will control your TV", and my rears are making sounds again...I can hear them (I was told by Acurus to turn my rears down because I told them I not like the sound quality of their analog modes, this didn't improve the sound). Every mode sounds great on this machine, I am now replaying my favorite Laser Discs to rehear them. Thanks Theta, you saved my laser Discs from the grave. The sear vastness of this machine...the modes within modes, the professional feel and control. I am in love. Oh...I found out that there will be an updated DVD hz for this, a future upgrade. A Grand "5" for this half computer via sound processor.

Similar Products Used:

Trade up from the Acurus ACT3 and tested the Aragon Soundstage

Phase perfect cross over option! Detail in the music(you can hear the singer breath) Looks!

Not a truly balanced output.

I have been overjoyed with this unit. Music is unbelievable in stereo or CS.

Movies DTS/DD are at an all new level. I have never heard a unit that could make the sub actually harmonize with the mains but this unit does.

I was reading reviews on this a month ago and never thought I could afford it. I went ahead and spent the extra money and believe me it's better than you could imagine!

The crossovers are by far the most advanced availiable!

If you are a music lover who also enjoys home theater this unit is made for you!
Home Theater is flawless also but the music is amazing.

Only thing that can touch this piece is the 861 by meridian
or the CasaBlanca by the great Theta!

Try this piece out you wont be let down!

I dont want to be rude but golden theater cant even touch this product. Stereo on the Theta is Incredible only Cal Labs new pre-amp is close. If you have alot of money get the CasaBlanca 2 for the price of a car? Or you can get it's son Casa Nova!

Give it a try!

E-mail me if you have any specific questions.

Nathan

Similar Products Used:

None!

Flexibility, sound quality

Setup process is pretty complicated

After the move from MSB DAC for my Audio Alchemy pro transport to Theta improvement was kind of unbelievable.
Soundstage is huge, localization of stereo effects also
is excellent so even in 2ch mode this processor sounds better with the movies than my previous Yamaha w/5ch.
Configuration that I've ordered is pretty standard without
Circle Surround and also I decided not to order video switching card. It costs $400 and according to Bryston such boards create lots of high frequency noise. For video-switching I've got DVDo line doubler for $550 which has 3 inputs and also improves video quality.
So I'm quite happy with my Theta although at the very beginning I was little frustrated with a setup process.
I guess in a year 2000 it's a must for such level of music equipment to have dedicated software which can guide through the installation process. It's not a big deal to hit stupid buttons on the device to achieve this goal.
The break in period was about 1 month and after that highs are not too sharp anymore and bass is much deeper.
Now I'm using Quad amp for stereo channels and Parasound monoblocks for the rest 3. I'm going to replace Quad with smth better and it's interesting whether smb tried Theta
in combination with Bel Canto's digital power amps?
Casa Nova is really nice product and I'm not going to move to smth else in near future. From the upgrades for this unit I'd like to see maybe some additional anti-jitter/ upsampling board to squeeze 100% from it's already excellent performance.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha

I made a mistake in my review regarding the price - I paid $4550, not $3550 (I wish :)