rrlev: My point about crap in crap out can be taken in so many ways.
I can't speak for every system out there. I have been on CanuckAudioMart for many years and have seen more brands named that I even knew existed. So clearly there are many companies that manufacture for the audio market. I would hazard to guess that some cater towards the budget end of the listeners, and others cater towards the money is no object. And there are a whole lot that fall in between
For example. If you went and look at Pioneer. They generally sell at the big box type stores like BestBuy and 2001 Audio. They offer quite a range of product prices, but are more marketed towards the lower end listener rather than a high end Hifi audio person. You can get receivers with quite impressive looking specs on paper but as your prior posts have shown, they really don't deliver.
Compare a $400 Pioneer with say a $400 Cambridge Audio for playing stereo. The pioneer has on paper 300 watts and all the bells, where the Cambridge is 80 watts, no fancy but a big ass toroidal transformer. Who will sound better? Sadly this seems to also hold true for many Yamaha, Sony, Onkio, Marantz, Denon. All were at one point a great name but have fallen victim to the mass manufacturing, spec driven and not sound and quality black hole. Sure they do have some good systems but as you have said they are priced well above what most people would be wanting to be paying.
If we look to the OP, he is running a set of Axiom M80 and an EP500. I would not put them under the cheapest set of speaker category. I bought my first pair of Axiom M80v4 speakers in 2014 and they were $1300. (now they are over $2600). I don't know what the v2 sold for, but I would tend to bet they were not a $300 pair of speakers. So your comment about a $700 receiver and $300 speakers seems a bit of a puzzler. There is a price point that you simply cannot drop below without having to take a serious sacrifice in quality and or functionality. Sorry, but a new $300 speaker that sounds good doesn't exist. Even the M2 speaker is $600.
So it comes back to my crap in crap out. In my case, the Pre-Amps that I had tried were not living up to the capable performance of the rest of my system, so it really didn't matter that I had a wonderful amp and perfect cross over cables and #10 speaker wire with Axioms top of the line speakers. it didn't sound its best or even all that great as the start of the line in my case, the not up to the task pre-amp caused everything after it to sound sub par.
At no point is that saying your example of you should have a $700 receiver with $300 speakers, but more to the point that perhaps the $300 receiver just isn't up to the task of driving the $700 speaker you have and maybe it's not the speakers that are letting you down, but choosing the right $400 or $500 receiver as the price tag (or spec given by the manufacturer) doesn't mean its going to be better than the one you currently have.
</rant off>
Last edited by MatManhasgone; 01/13/22 03:22 AM.
