Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Ordering Receiver Today -- Any Last Advice?

If you are going to bring in speaker power requirements into perspective, then you need to look at what cross over point you are planning to run the speakers at.

Set them at 100hz you will need significantly less power of the receiver than if you try to run them at 40-50hz.

But I have also questioned why a pre amp costs the amount that it does. There must be other parts savings inside the units that bring the cost of a receiver down other than supply and demand quantity adjustments.

I'd pick the 'heavier' one, ha!

TAM

Yep, very relevant point about the crossover. Probably 80 Hz, but might like to toy around a bit. You must be right about the costs of a pre. It is a "premium" product, with a different, smaller market base, as you noted. But there must certainly be a real parts premium as well, and also vitally an engineering and design cost component too. Diminishing returns, as usual. The tech changes so fast that one expects to upgrade processors more frequently than the comparative stability of amps and speakers, the latter justifiably taking the lions share of budgeting. For this generation, a receiver, and an older model at that, is the cost-viable path, even though separates really speak to my sensibilities on division of function.



Hard to argue with that!

I have a Yamaha CX-A5000 Pre-Pro that I bought last year(very impressive). The unit itself cost more than Yamaha's top of the line AVR. There are some extra features along with a balanced power supply and outputs, yet does it sound better than the AVR? Other than having separate power amps to plug in to with more power, honestly, I am not really sure. At 30 lbs. it is heavier than a lot of AVRs yet, I suppose because so few companies actually manufacture them anymore, I guess they figure they are sold to audiophiles who insist on separates and are willing to pay extra.

This was the first separate that Yamaha has introduced in years but I am told it did very well since along with the their newly introduced line of AVRs, they are going to introduce a successor in the fall with all the latest features(HDMI 2.2, DTS-X, Dolby Atmos etc. etc.).

casey:

I agree with you observation of 'honestly, I am not really sure'.

I found out decades ago that I was unable to differentiate between decent electronic components, cables, wires or power cords. Over the years, nothing has been able to change my stance on that.

Speakers yes, but all of the other stuff no. But that is just cynical old me...

TAM

I have an opportunity to do an objective measurements based test once my HT is finished. Good speakers with good AVR vs high end 2ch amp. Will there be audible differences in my room? I will guess yes. The plots will tell the story.

In an untreated room the differences are negligible in most cases. When you can hear the recording's acoustic space (ie RT60 and early/late decay ratios are in check) a couple DB difference becomes audible. At HTS they did an amp evaluation. There were differences. I'm too lazy/busy to wade through all the pages and pages of the results thread.

Actually, there is a little bit of a story as to why I bought this particular Pre-pro at the time. I have always been somewhat of a Yamaha fan, however, I had the rare opportunity of comparing the one I eventually purchased to the latest incarnation then of a $12,000 "Anthem D2 Statement" unit. Have you ever wondered why when you walk in to a mid-high end retail electronics store the so-called "high-end"(high priced) equipment is generally set-up in a dedicated room all by itself? Normally, a comparison like this would never occur(or even be allowed), but, since I had a long time friend who managed the store, with all other things being equal in the set-up(same amps, speakers, source equipment material, etc.) after some substantial listening time, if there was any meaningful audible difference between the two, I certainly couldn't hear it.

I could never spend $12,000 on a piece of equipment anyway, but ultimately at $2500, the Yamaha was more than able to hold its own against something that was almost 5 times the cost.

Hi All --

Order is placed. Decisions with two good choices are tough. Went with the Marantz.

Thanks so much to those who contributed thoughts &/or a vote on both sides (or the middle). Learned several things, had a nice discussion, & it helped me think through the decision.

Now the fun part!

Cheers - DSQ

PS -- Enjoyed the discussion on separates vs. receivers as well.

Casey - thanks for the thoughts & it seems like you picked up a great sounding unit.

Serenity - will look forward to reading your thoughts on this question after your tests.

TAM - cynical or not, the opinion is reasonable and balanced and experience-based, as usual.

It does seem from prior posts that you do still place a tangible value on having large dynamic reserves of clean power. This seems pretty non-controversial, despite common assertions (any or all of which you may simultaneously agree with) that i) amplifiers will generally sound similar when operating inside their limits, ii) many real uses (esp. with efficient speakers) employ much less power than most people generally guess, and iii) appreciable volume increases require huge (not just incremental) gains in power, due to our logarithmic hearing response (as John emphasized). So, although more power is a very typical (and maybe one of the biggest) real world benefits of separates, I'll distinguish it (as did Casey) from the "separate" question of intrinsic signal quality.

There's no doubt that more sophisticated analog circuits are being employed in certain high end separates (an interesting, if somewhat obscure, comparative parts breakdown example is available here ). But how audible is the resulting difference in a typical setup? Likewise, I'm "not really sure". I don't discount it, but rather have no firsthand experience to base an opinion on, and reliable people say different things. Balanced outputs, as are very common on separates, are an elegant solution to cabling noise, and there is real physics & engineering to justify the usage, especially for long runs ... but extent and contextual scope of the audible benefit is again outside my experience. If nothing else, the division of essentially reducible functions always seems favorable to me just on the grounds of basic principle, and there is certainly no intrinsic link expected between the rates at which digital signal processing feature sets and power amplifiers become either technologically obsolete or worn out.

Regardless, and setting aside all of those hypotheticals, I am looking forward quite a bit at the moment to the reality of a new receiver, which I very much suspect will sound really great!

DSQ - I just saw your PM about 5 minutes ago. My apologies for not seeing it sooner. That being said, you ordered the receiver for which I would have voted. The Marantz 7008 I just got is actually our second unit. It's a great receiver.

The user interface is so easy that one need not look at the menu, and sound quality is first rate.