Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Receiver Recommendations?

John, i agree with the notion that standard (or even experienced) users display a frequent inability to distinguish between system components (in this case receivers), I would also agree that certain brand names or technologies (ie. THX) can become the 'big ticket item' for any given year.
Although these statements are pretty logical, i don't believe that stating HT sound tracks are "sloppy" is accurate. I also do not believe that requirements for HT are not as demanding as opposed to music. Not all movies are bass action flicks or dramas with nothing but dialogue.

Case in point (and going back to Randyman's idea of soundtrack) have you ever watched a 'musical' production on dvd?

My fiance is quite the connoiseur of shows like The Sound of Music. These dvds require as rigorous and accurate a sound track as their cdrom counterparts. Making the cdrom sound a better quality than the dvd version just wouldn't make any sense at all. I highly doubt that extra care is only put forth for such dvds either. The focus of such movies is very much on the music.

One addition to our latest list of 'test' material for new components has become any of my fiance's musicals on dvd.

Chesseroo,

You are very correct, maybe I too have generalized too much here as well. The point is not specifically all DVD's I have music DVD's as well. What my point is to be more specific, is that Movies in general and lets take for the example LOTR or even Star Wars Episode 1, While these movies have good sound tracks the main event of the movies is the special effects and the pumped up lazy base that rolls on and on. You do not need a really good system to make these movies impress somebody. Take for example Bose systems (this I speak from experience because my first HT system which I do still have was upstairs in the main family room, my wife’s criteria, " I don't want to see big speakers" So when see saw the Bose systems well there you go) Now this system while sounds good (as good as Bose can Sound) playing movies it absolutely sucks at music. Compared to my Yamaha 995 it is absolutely pathetic for music. Now I take the 995 and put it on my system in the HT Room and compare it against my Denon 3802 or my Denon 5800 when played flat you are hard pressed to pick out the 995 from the 3802, I can't. I can hear the differnce from the 995 to the 5800 but then again you are not comparing apples to apples. So with out rambling on here, I did not mean to lump all DVD's into this statement, and I agree with your thoughts. But the fact is, and I am sure that Ian, Joe, and Allan will tell you that a movie that is made for effects such as LOTR is more forgiving of a system for accuracy then a music CD or music DVD.

How about the Integra 5.2? I have an opportunity to but this demo for $799, what do you think? Also in that range I've heard good things about Pioneer Elite 41 and Marantz 6200.