In reply to:
Point I’m trying to make is that my Bose speakers woke the hell up when I drove them with my new AVR. I was driving them with a POS 5.1 receiver that claimed 120 watts per channel, DTS Dolby, blah, blah blah……I bought a H/K 7200 and let me tell you, night and day difference. The Bose system can’t hold a candle to my second zone Axiom/Outlaw system, but still, big difference with the new receiver.
mdrew, I agree that the receiver can make a difference, but to a point. This issue is most likely due to the power, plain and simple.
A friend of mine also bought a Sony HTIB with 4 satellite speakers, centre and self powered sub, all in the 'computer speaker' size range or smaller. The receiver is about three quarters the size of his recently purchased Denon 3802.
When we first swapped the Sony HTIB unit for the Denon, his speakers actually woke up, as you put it. The Sony unit did not have the proper power to beyond its meagre capabilities even with the speakers it was sold with. The volume quit increasing at the 30 mark with 50 being the upper limit on his dial. He would typically turn the Sony up to 45 when he watched movies to get whatever sound of the system that he could but the sound was degraded and on the verge of distorted (not unlike the sound of trying to tune in a radio station that is just off the mark). This is really not surprising at this volume setting on his Sony. Heck, I cannot even fathom turning my Onkyo 797 up to 90 on the 100 scale. I'm sure it would go into clipping. Anyway, this was of course very unsatisfactory performance for his $900 system (he owned it for 2 years!). After sitting through a single movie at our place, he decided, and with his wife's hearty approval, that he would replace his HTIB system and sink his money bit by bit into a more quality setup. He was happy with the Denon powering the Sony speakers for a couple of months but he starting searching for speakers almost immediately. His comparison of his Sony speakers vs. my small Tannoy Revolutions from my office was dismal. Even my wife's Altec computer speakers sounded more full and less tinny. So the search was on. Now he owns the Denon 3802 powering Tannoy Saturn S6s and the S6c centre, the SVS PCi 16-40 and just ordered 4 QS8s, all slowly purchased over 2 years.
The receiver does indeed make a huge difference, but once you hit a point of quality, you don't get much in the way of improvement (sonically) beyond that. There were no audible differences between his Denon and our Onkyo when placed head to head.
