Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Receiver questions again

I've had a pair of the M50's for about 1 1/2 years. The rest of my system is from a Sony HTiB. I'm looking to get a new reciever and would like any input that I can get. I need to stay under $400. And I have come up with a few options.

Denon AVR-1905
Yamaha RX-V650
Onkyo TXSR601

I've only been able to here the Denon and the Yamaha. But not with Axiom speakers. Any info at all would be great.

Thanks

There are a couple of other receivers in that price range which get discussed and used a lot with Axioms. A number of Axiom owners have / had HK AVR 130s, and the ones who have replaced the 130 have tended to stay with HK as they move up. No on-screen display, no pre-amp outs, but very flexible crossover and moderate but sufficent power.

The Pioneer 1014 is a recent arrival here but a couple of people have them and seem to like them. Lots of power, lots of features.

The Denon and HK seem to be happier driving 4 ohm loads if you ever want to move up to M80s or (maybe) VP150. The 150 is 6 ohm so I think most receivers can drive it OK.

If you search the board for each of the receivers you will find some good comments from owners. The best thing seems to be to search for something like :

search string : yamaha 650
search type : AND
etc...

[EDIT] You will find conflicting views here re: whether there is any need to match receiver "sound" to speaker "sound". Consensus seems to be that there is a bit of difference between brands but VERY subtle and probably not enough to be the deciding factor when you buy your receiver.

A bigger question is what kind of listening you are going to be doing (HT vs. music, rock vs. jazz vs. classical, loud vs. moderate etc...). That will help you get more useful feedback, since some receivers (eg. Yamaha) are respected for having great decoders while others (eg. HK) are respected for having great power amps.

I don't want to trivialize what probably seems like a very important decision, but if you're anything like me you're going to end up buying the receiver which has the features you want and looks most like what you think a quality receiver should look like

Don, welcome. The Pioneer 1014 which John mentioned is an especially well-featured receiver in the under $400 area that you should carefully consider. Don't worry about auditioning receivers to "hear" them; nobody can do it.

Thanks for the input. I’m much more into music (rock at moderate to loud levels) than I am movies at this time if that would make a difference. Also my living room is open to the kitchen and dinning area with some what vaulted ceilings. The volume of the area about 3450 cubic feet. All though the speakers are only 11 feet from the listening position.

. . .and there a few of us who have had the 1014, and found it to be cheap looking, and utterly disappointing sonically I might add. Not everyone is in love with this model, but, it seems to be the online receiver of choice at the moment. If I was going to go cheap on the receiver I would consider Panasonic first. I had the m50s hooked up to a Yamaha and it sounded pretty darn good.

>>there a few of us who have had the 1014, and found it to be cheap looking, and utterly disappointing sonically I might add.

Ahh. I missed those posts. Good to know.

For a large room and moderate to loud rock it sounds as if having a good power amp is going to be important. I have to admit I don't really know which of the receivers in that range gives "best power for the $$$". I know the HKs have highly regarded amp sections but they are also rated relatively low in power compared to other receivers in the price range.

Can anyone jump in here ? I'm thinking maybe the Denon ?

[EDIT]... or the Panasonic, sorry I didn't see your post Maybe we are worrying about this too much. I imagine whatever receiver you get will be way better than the HTIB unit it replaces.

I suggest you carefully look at the Pioneer VSX-1014-Tx. I found it to be a great value with ample power and excellent feature functionality.

I just noticed that the HK prices in the US seem to have come down recently, so you can get an AVR 230 for <$400. If so, that would be a real good choice.

I got my HK AVR 230 for about $350 on jr.com about 2 months ago. It looks like they're out of them now though. Maybe you can still find one somewhere?

The 230 is rated at 50 wpc but that seems very conservative to me.

You might consider refurb/B-stock for your receiver. You can meet (or save$$) your budget and likely trade up a model or two. Denon and Onkyo are available at at ecost . They have a Denon 1804 and a 2803 right now.

Additionally, HK has their own outlet store here and currently have the 230 and 330 within your bidget.