The Most Advanced A/V Receiver on the Planet: Sherwood Newcastle’s R-972
We’ve had a lot of success at Sherwood since our company’s inception in 1953. We developed the world’s first digital-read-out tuner, the first all-silicon solid-state receiver, the world’s first computer controlled tuner, the first receiver with DTS and more. Many of our products have been hailed for their performance. When one of our now departed audiophile publications reviewed our Micro CPU digital tuner, they needed to revamp the scale on their charts just to document its performance. Tom Norton and company at UltimateAVMag.com named our Newcastle R-965 receiver one of the world’s dozen best for the last two years. Even Mr. Analog once called our R-945 receiver the finest he’d ever had in his home. As deserving of superlatives as these components were, with our new R-972 receiver we’ve erupted onto new ground. Never before has Sherwood, or any
other brand, shoehorned a $13,000 Professional Room Equalization system into an audio/video receiver.
But our inclusion of Trinnov’s Optimizer in the Sherwood Newcastle
R-972 is only part of the story. The 972 maintains the Newcastle brand’s reputation for exceptional audio performance and adds contemporary creature comforts like: full support for HDMI 1.3b; an Advanced Graphical User Interface (GUI) for user setup and control; a multi-brand, preprogrammed and learning
remote control that communicates with the 972 via IR or RF and can operate the entire associated system from anywhere in your home; scaling and deinterlacing of all incoming video to any of several High Definition resolutions including 1080p; support for the lossless audio tracks now available on selected BluRay and HD-DVD titles; XM Radio Connectivity; USB capability; RS-232 two-way communications port; advanced multi-zone capability and more. One can even add piano black end caps for a more Uptown appearance or rack adapters to properly fit the receiver to a professional equipment rack.
Get the basics right; Make it easy to use
Our Newcastle engineers have been tasked with simple but exacting goals. Get the basic performance right. Make the receiver easy-to- use. For the audio path, they insisted on the same circuit topology that earned our ’65 series audio components rave reviews worldwide. With 100 Watts RMS per channel from 20 Hz to 20kHz with no more than 0.02% THD they succeeded admirably. Noise levels are exceedingly low. S/N is rated at 105 dB.
HDMI’s latest 1.3b standard is fully accommodated. Video from the R-972’s 11 inputs (4 HDMI, 3 component, 4 composite/S-video) can be scaled by Silicon Optix Reon video processor to user selected standards including 1080p. The R-972’s dual 32-Bit TI audio DSP chips
provide complete audio control including native decoding for Dolby and DTS latest lossless formats.
With a 4-gang FM tuner and XM Radio connectivity, over the air broadcasts are fully supported. The R-972 even has a front panel USB input for use with appropriate hand-held devices.
The R-972’s ease-of-use fully achieved our engineer’s objectives. The receiver’s advanced Graphical User Interface makes system setup a breeze. For typical operation, the 972 uses Newcastle’s unique Dual-Mode™ preprogrammed and learning remote con-
trol. With the remote in the RF mode, the R-972 can be operated from anywhere within the typical home and translation circuitry built into the receiver outputs IR commands for complete system operation. Control via the R-972’s rear-panel RS-232 port is also available.
The R-972 also supports such advanced features as: Input renaming; Adjustable audio/video synch delay by input; automatic digital/analog signal polling; front panel convenience input pack including USB, optical digital plus analog andio and video; automatic set-up; headphone output; Cinema EQ; installer custom memory; and more.
Dual Mode™ RF+IR remote.
Loading...