Receivers — ToneWinner AT-2700

The AT-2700 is an integrated AV receiver made by Guangzhou Tonewinner Electronics, a Chinese company whose firmware and software are written by its own engineers. Supported formats are Dolby Atmos with TrueHD, DTS:X with DTS Master Audio, plus earlier Dolby and DTS formats, and its decoding tops out at a 5.1.2 layout driven by seven built-in amplifier channels.

Key specs that matter

Rated output is 120 W RMS per channel into 8 ohm for 1 percent distortion, one channel operating, 1 kHz, and the maker also gives 200 W into 4 ohm and a maximum undistorted figure of 150 W into 8 ohm. THD is listed at 0.02 percent or less in direct mode, with 0.05 percent quoted as a general figure. Noise sits at least 90 dB below signal, A-weighted, response spans 10 Hz to 20 kHz within +1/-3 dB and overall gain is at least 40 dB. Rated impedance is 8 ohm. The case measures 430 mm wide, 149 mm high and 391 mm deep and weighs 11.7 kg. The supply works on 110-115 V at 60 Hz or 220-230 V at 50 Hz.

Engineering and use context

Speaker layouts range from 2.0 to 5.1.2, and three subwoofer jacks allow a 5.3.2 arrangement. Pre-outputs let the receiver act as a standalone processor for external amplifiers. Video passes through HDMI with four inputs and two outputs, HDCP 2.2, 4K at 60 Hz with 4-4-4 RGB on 18 Gbps bandwidth, Dolby Vision and HDR10, plus ARC and CEC for automatic input selection. Other inputs include one coaxial, one optical and three analog, and a built-in wireless audio receiver. USB drives up to 128 GB and TF cards play APE, FLAC, WAV, MP3 and WMA with folder browsing, and track lists can be shown on a phone or TV. Each channel has a parametric EQ of 5 to 11 bands, inputs keep separate EQ memories, lip-sync can be shifted by up to 1000 ms and a dual-core DSP from ADI does the processing. RS232 and a Tonewinner app cover control, and an audio-video matrix allows subgroup output. The maker quotes a gross shipping weight of about 13.8 kg and supplies the unit for home theatre use with sources such as Blu-ray players, set-top boxes, PCs, projectors and phones.

Pairing

The rated impedance points to a speaker set of the same nominal load for the front, centre, surround and two height positions. The three subwoofer outputs can feed Tonewinner powered models such as the SW-1000, and anyone planning more height channels later can use the pre-outputs with a separate multi-channel power amplifier.

Alternatives

The Tonewinner AT-2900 is a larger receiver in the range, adding 14-channel decoding for 7.3.6 or 9.3.4 layouts, HDMI with six inputs and eARC.