Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Receiver Recommendations?

fhw is right

Arcam and Outlaw will be better than Denon with music. Yamaha and Onkyo, however, i'm not so sure. I haven't found their lower end models to be as great with music as their higher end models.

My newbie opinion might not be worth too much, but I'll put my Yamaha RX-V1300 ($627 delivered) up against anything. Although this is my very first system, I am totally sold on the combination I have taken three months to research and buy. The Yamaha drives my 6.1 Axiom setup very nicely. M60's, QS8's, VP150 and EP175 would sound great with most receivers I bet, but I have grown very fond of my setup the past week or so.

Id suggest looking into HarmanKardon and Rotel Both of those companies have teriffic power supplies in their receivers so no worries there and they both sounds great - Yamaha is good for HT but ive heard (and I really have heard) they sound like ass for music; which is a pity. But they are great for HT If you end up with a receiver that is considered 'high current' you will get a much better sound - I recently learned that the more wattage you have, not only is it safer, but it sounds much better I hope I dont sound condescending or anything - Im not a real audio pro I just dabble a bit

I'm always baffled by comments like: "Yamaha is
good for HT but ive heard (and I really have heard) they sound like ass for music"-freesey.
How can something sound good for HT but not good for music or vice versa? I'm just curious because I think my h/k AVR520 does an excellent job on BOTH. I'd be a little upset if it lacked in either department. I hear Denon and Yamaha are good for HT and Marantz, NAD and h/k are good for music. Unless you ONLY listen to music OR HT, why would you buy something that's only good for one "thing"?
I know this is off-topic, but I'm really curious to hear opinions on this matter.
Thanks!
PS I'm quoting you, freesey, but it's nothing personal and this is not an attack on you. You just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Big L, you have good reason to be baffled by those comments, since there's no technical basis for them. If you get a receiver adequately powerful for your setup and which has flat response from 20-20K hz with inaudibly low distortion(which most manufacturers supply easily), it will be good for home theater, good for music, and good for music occurring in home theater.

I agree with JohnK.

The words "adequately powerful" very much point out that more power does not automatically equal better sound, for any application.

chess... JohnK

Can't say that I disagree with your statements/arguments. Seems to me like the logic is there.

Most HT contains a sh**load of music these days. (and music is music eh?) My guess as to why some people believe that one brand (or model) is better at HT than music (or vice versa) stems from the companies particular approach to design the features that support HT (or just music)sound. I would think that since pretty stringent standards exist for the use and application of the 5.1, 6.1 decoding (and others) like DTS, DD, DPL etc, that they would be "essentially" the same between brands. But the way a company designs the receiver to use these decoders COULD have an effect on it's sound (for HT at least) and thus the perception that some brands do better at one element than the other.

Given the time and difficulty of actually comparing the sounds and features of receivers in the HT environment(unless they are doing an exact double blind test - which helps to eliminate the brain's acoustic memory loss), I think most people would be hard pressed to judge one brand "better" than the other when comparing their ability to reproduce HT vs music.

That whole argument seems pretty silly to me.

Just my 2 cents....

Randyman

I had a similar concern with the purchase of receiver that could drive totem's dreamcatcher system. The 4 monitors are rated at 4ohms and I was looking at either the Denon 1603 or the Marantz 5200. I was told it would be no problem by a sales rep, true?

Randyman I agree with you, in some regards however the comments do hold somewhat true, in stating that a system sounds go for HT but not for music. The point here is HT not Music. You will never find it the other way around. This seems to be more a product of the system as whole rather then just the receiver. For HT you can get a way with a lot as the requirements are just not as demanding. That is to say that to reproduce HT to sound good is as not as demanding of a system as to reproduce Music. The sound tracks on HT generally are very sloppy, the bass is deep and rumbling which is what impresses everyone but it is really not too demanding fidelity wise becuase that is not what you are really listening too. Now too reproduce music to any degree of accuracy requires a much better system overall the audience focus is on the music and reproduction of it is more critical. A setup while sounding great on HT can in fact sound mediocre for music. The choices for your receiver tend to be very influenced by what is considered “hot” this year. The business is very cyclical, one year it is Yamaha or Outlaw that everyone wants, the next it is Denon, next year it will Onkyo. I would challenge most people as you correctly state to actually hear any difference if they were not able to see what they were listening to. Given the same class of AV receiver the same speaker setup and the same piece of music, I do not think you would be able to tell one manufacturers comparable model to another’s. I do not mean comparing 500.00 receivers, you take any of the low to average range receiver’s $1000.00 to $1500.00 and compare the direct competitor to the model. Run them flat without any DSP crap and see if you can tell the difference. Most people cannot.

Ravi,
that is a pretty broad and general stement to make. You have to compare apples to apples. to broadly state that Outlaw and Arcam are better then Denon is pretty liberal. you cannot compare an Outlaw even the best one they make the 1050 which is what all of what $800.00 with the likes of the AVR5800 or 5803 they are simply not even in the same class. A person looking at either one would not be even auditioning the other.