Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M100 amp selection

I find that most ( I might even say all ) modern Class D receivers suck in getting a pleasing sound output.

i have an old Nakamichi AV1 that was rated at a whole whopping 100W at 8ohms. When I hooked up the M80's that I initally ordered they absolutely sang at 1/3 volume, and had no distortion up to 1/2 volume when my wife ran in and told me to turn it down.

I had a more modern Pioneer SC1527 rated at 130W, and it sounded rather lacking at -10db (about 9/10 volume) and just got worse sounding but louder at -5db. This 15 years newer and more powerful unit just does not sound nearly as good as some rather old REAL A/B class amp.

I bought an Anthem MCA5ii that is rated at 200W when hooked up with the Pioneer, sounds just as good as the Nakamichi.

My suggestion is don't fool yourself into thinking that a modern receiver in a reasonable sub $3k price range will sound good. The SC1527 went back and I exchanged it for a cheaper SC1227 ($500) just to get the pre-out and now run everything with a dedicated amp. The onboard stuff is crap.

The only reason i am not using the Nak. it doesn't support any of the digital decoding.