Over the last few weeks I have been lucky enough to help some friends get on the road to HT. They all had unique budgets etc so it has been very interesting. I also served a little of my own purpose by not getting any of them the same receiver. They all knew it and nobody had a problem with it.
It was an absolute blast to play around with these 3 receivers and to also keep in mind how my Denon 3805 does against each of them. Anyway, does anyone have any interest in hearing me ramble about my thoughts on these 3 receivers? I had all 3 hooked up at my house on my own speakers for at least a full day and almost 5 day's with one of them! (I didn't want to give it back!) Guess which one? :-)
As always these will be my own thoughts and mine alone!.........................and to give you an idea as to how this went for me. If I had to rank them from the best on down, my Denon 3805 would not take top spot! Drives me nuts to have to say that but I'm dead serious.
Of course we want to hear what your thoughts are.Might as well say yes as I know we will hear them anyway.
Just kidding,I'm interested.
Yes we want all the gory details
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In reply to:
Might as well say yes as I know we will hear them anyway.
smartars! lol...........but your right! Gimme a bit and I will post my thoughts. They will however be short and sweet and I will try hard not to use any audio buzz words. lol
Hurry Hurry!! You got me excited!
Cool Neverhappy.
Definitely put me on the interested list!
Not surprised you've found a "better" reciever though, you gotta live up to that name (Neverhappy) after all...
Cheers, Jag
Well it's late and I should be in bed, but I will bang off some of this now. Please ignore my bad grammar. It sucks and I know it and I don't care! :-)
First things first. All of these are very nice receivers. Some do things better then others but I don't think you can go wrong with any of them. I'm also not real sure on how fair this is anyway. Some of these receivers are worth double and then some compared to what others are worth. The Pioneer can be had for $350.00 all over the net and the HK for example is double that at most places. The spread gets wider if you take into consideration MSRP................. But life is not fair so we press on!
If there is one thing that this has proved to me yet again, it's that not all receivers sound the same! Some think they do but I don't think so......at all. Anyone who can say that a HK and a Yamaha sound the same have never had the chance to listen to them one after another! DISCLAIMER.....remember I said this is my view and my view only.....so back off! :-)
Let's start with the sleeper in the group. The Pioneer. I can honestly say I was not expecting much from this thing. Not sure why, I just wasn't. Maybe it's because I have owned several DVD players made by Pioneer and I didn't like one of them. I also had an older Elite receiver several years ago and I hated it. No power, no bass, no nothing......but I digress. The Pioneer is what I would call a straight ahead receiver that does HT well and music even better. The one thing I really liked about the Pioneer was its ability to do an almost true bi-amp on the front channels! Thanks to DJ Stunna for clueing me in on this! The method that Pioneer employs is by far and away better then what is going around for the Denon 3805 and some others. I watched a few movies using the Pioneer and it did everything well (crossover flexibility is lacking in the Pioneer) but I always found myself spending more time with it listening to music. It does really well with audio! The Pioneer also seems to have decent power although I must admit I did get it to clip twice when I was getting really silly with the volume. Under normal circumstances I would never listen to anything this loud but I was playing and being stupid! As I did with all of these receivers, I played with the respective auto set-up or room calibration etc etc...........I don't like Pioneers. To be fair however, I hate them all. My Denon 3805 doesn't get it right either and the Pioneer was no different. Anybody who has there respective system set with this feature may want to check it again with a SPL and see if your missing out on anything.
End of the story is this. The Pioneer would not be my own choice for HT out of the bunch listed here nor would I give up my Denon 3805 for it, but don't pass by it to fast. I should also mention that if I was ranking these receivers, the Pioneer although not my top pick, would also not be at the bottom of the heap either. For the money this thing is a steal of a deal. However when it comes to just kicking back and cranking some tunes, the Pioneer is at the top of the heap as far as I'm concerned. It could use a little more power but other then that, not bad at all!
I'll back you up 110% NeverHappy. I've now owned both the H/K 630 and the Yamaha 1500. They sound as different as night and day. The processing is different, the clean/warm amplification is totally different.
This comparison was based on all the same speakers in all the same positions.
For one to say..."it's all about the features"...is the wrong thing to say. It should be more like..."features are imporatant, but not everything."
I am delighted that you liked the 'sleeper' so much for 2 channel! (Especially considering 2-ch direct is the only thing I use my 1014 for 95% of the time.
)
On a side note: I am very, very impressed that you were able to make it clip and you still have your hearing intact - heh. I guess your room must be much bigger than mine or I must be a wuss when it comes to loud volumes.
Out of curiosity, which would be the HT pick? I would guess the Yamaha, with your Denon beating them all, correct? I assume this due to Yamaha being the pioneer (no pun intended) of the auto calibration idea and being the clear DSP technology leader.
I find very interesting the fact that you had the chance to test all these Receivers at home, but I find even more interesting the fact that you liked the Pioneer the most!
To be honest, I'm not surprised. The 1014 is one of the best regarded receivers in its class in other forums (Really, people loves it in AVS forum). I'm not a Pioneer owner, as I like Onkyo's processing better. In fact I just bought a TX-SR602 to replace my year old TX-SR600 and I'm enjoying my terible speakers as I never did...
I guess things change, so did Pioneer...Cool!
Whoa there young lad!!! I never once said I liked the Pioneer the most! The Pioneer was my first review only because it surprised the heck out of me! I will post my thoughts on the others soon but for now here are some thoughts on the HK, which is in fact my number 1 choice for HT and second for stereo!...............yes I know what your thinking, I own the Denon 3805 what's up with that? Sorry guys but when it comes to HT and when you take everything into account from power to overall sound to features, the HK walks on my Denon..........and least in my basement and using my speakers!
When it comes to HT, the Harman to me is the ruler of the roost. This thing is just freaking amazing with the options you have. Multiple crossover points all the way to what I think is a great display. It's the only receiver I can actually read the front of from my seating position.......and I have 20/20 vision so no it's not my eyes. Not a big deal for me but the wife loved it. My biggest joy with the HK was with it’s seemingly endless supply of power! No matter what I did, it kept going and going. This receiver to me at least brings a warm sound to the mix that reminds me a lot of my Parasound amp. My guess is this is due to Harman's love of current and not just wattage. I have read a ton in here from Harman owners bragging about them.............I now get it! I have no clue on anything else in the line but the AVR-630 is a wicked receiver that I would own in a heartbeat. I can't say I spent a lot of time on the auto set-up offered up via the remote but I did let it do it's thing and it was ok. I made some changes but in the end I ended up going with SPL levels and setting speaker distance with a good old fashioned tape measure. I can go on but in the end if I was giving away a prize for number 1 overall, the HK takes it! It does it all well, from HT to stereo to multi-channel audio!
One of the things I love to play with, is every receivers multi channel stereo option. 5 channel stereo etc etc. Logic 7 wins this hands down with the Denon 3805 being real close. I have heard from a few Lexicon owners about how good Logic 7 was, but now that I have heard it, I must agree it is dam good.
I could ramble on for ever about this thing as I liked it that much! I also hit the same DB with the Harman as I did with the Pioneer, and it didn't clip..............ever...........not once...........it just kept going and going.
Now the bad. For some reason the volume on the HK went goofy on me a few times. Dam thing would turn itself down for no reason or not respond to the remote. We took it back and got another one. The replacement had problems to. As soon as I got the tunes thumping, it shut down. Again we took it back. The one we have now seems fine so far.
Does HK have some quality control issues? Who knows but I must admit that although I think this is a great receiver I may have some reservations on buying it based on what I experienced with 2 of them!.........but in the end this may have just been bad luck!
Those purty blue lights on the front are calling my name! :-)
Keep telling us more, especially about the H/K!
I have to confess that I'm changing speakers. I'm not getting rid of the Axioms, but for the HT/main listening area I was able to get a pair of Dynaudio 52SEs at a reasonable price @ Audiogon. So they will replace my M22s, and I suspect I'll need to replace my VP150 center. On the other hand, I bet the QS8s will stay.
Anyhow, while I really love my Elite 55TXi, it's not meant to drive a 4 ohm load (and only 86dB sensitivity). So I just started looking at other receivers and the H/K comes highly recommended for this kind of load. Other receivers (Rotel, Arcam, B&K, etc.) are above the desired price point, but the NAD T763 seems in the right ballpark.
I want excellent HT performance, but need an outstanding stereo/music experience. So want to hear more about your impressions about the H/K's music performance.
Also, any H/K product experts out there? I'm getting confused about the various feature trade-offs btw the 630, 635, 2005, etc. They don't seem to do a really clean "good, better, best" build-up of features.
Whew, this became long! Thanks for writing up your impressions.
Rich
And the yamaha?? did not see any comments.
Ah yes the Yamaha......... First thing I have to throw out there is that Yamaha's YPAO (Parametric Room Acoustic Optimizer) is by far and away the best of the bunch. It came in with the closest settings to what I would call the right ones. It still wasn't perfect but it came real close in most areas. As one would expect it also does well with the HT side of things. It's not loaded with options but it has enough to get most people by. One thing I have to throw out there is with respect to the Component video up conversion of the Yamaha. On my set, it sucked. I had digital artefacts all over the place that are not there with my 3805. I checked my cables and the whole nine yards. I have no idea why it did this but it did it and it got to the point that we bypassed it for up-conversion. You need to keep in mind here that I'm absolutely without a doubt anal about the picture I see. Most folks would probably not even notice what was bugging me.
Anyway, I think I managed to get in a total of 3 movies with it and I had no problems with it. However, nothing really stood out either. That's not a bad thing at all. What is with all the sound fields in this thing? Good god, who needs them and who in there right mind would ever use 95% of them. The Pioneer was the same thing and to a certain extent so is the Denon 3805. The Yamaha sounded fine but is it just me or does this Yamaha sound a little on the tinny side? It might just be my speakers but I have my doubts. I know that most receivers sound the same and for the most part I agree but not with all of them. When I first hooked up the Yamaha and let it loose I could swear I had accidentally turned up the treble. This wasn't the case at all so I checked and re-checked my settings and everything was ok but it still sounded like it was pushing a little more treble. I ask again, Is this just me or can someone else relate?
The Yamaha had decent power for HT but there is no way in hell that anyone is ever going to make me believe that this thing can do 110W X 7. For that matter I think every receiver I tried including my own Denon 3805 is out to lunch on the power ratings. The one exception to this is of course the HK. It as I have stated to many dam times already, has power to burn!
Just to test my theory I tried to get the Yamaha to clip running all 6 of my speakers in full range mode and sure enough it clipped. Keep in mind that we are talking way to loud to be even in the room, I just wanted to see if I could do it. Thank god my Monitor Audio's came out of it in one piece. To be fair to the Yamaha, I'm fairly sure I got them all to clip including my 3805 at some point with the exception again of the HK. I'm fairly sure that if push came to shove, the HK can push for awhile.
With stereo the Yamaha sounds very nice but again I had this tinny thing going on. I really wish I knew if this was just me or what, but I would walk away for a few hours and come back and turn something on and within 5 minutes, I had the word tinny running through my head. I wonder if the Yamaha is running MOSFET power like the Pioneer? I will have to look into this.
Anyway, the long of the short of it is this. The Yamaha for the money is a great receiver but in the end, I would buy the Pioneer for half the cost (MSRP) of the Yamaha and get an external power amp or a better DVD player with the extra money or spend a little more and get the HK. With the HK, I doubt you will need another amp unless you are running some really greedy speakers. The one and only reason I say this about the Yamaha is again the tinny thing. If it wasn't for this I would say the Yamaha rivals the Denon 3805 in almost everyway which is the highest compliment I can say about it!
I didn't want to rate them but so many dam people have asked me to I thought what the hell!!!! If I had to rate them in my own mind it would go something like this:
(Keep in mind this rating is based on my own listening tastes and using my own speakers in my own room that comes with all of it's acoustical drawbacks!)
HT
1 - HK AVR-630
2 - Denon 3805
3 - Yamaha RXV-1400 (The Yamaha is very close to the Denon. So much so that I would almost call it even....almost. The Pioneer would then be in 3rd spot which is better. Hell, I said it wasn't my bottom pick but it ended up being there.
4 - Pioneer VSX-1014TX
Stereo or multi channel audio
1 - HK AVR-630
2 - Pioneer VSX-1014TX
3 - Denon 3805
4 - Yamaha RXV-1400
So......when are you gonna pony up for that hk630?
To be honest, it's already done. It's in transit as I sit here!!!!! I picked up a used one. I'm going to do some side by sides vs. my 3805 and see if what I think right now, holds true in a week or so when the HK arrives. If it does, the 3805 is gone and will live with the 630 until such time as I can swing the AVR-7300 or whatever the newest model is they have out in a month or so from now.
In reply to:
but the NAD T763 seems in the right ballpark.
Don't rule it out! The T-763 is a great receiver that like the HK has power to spare. I have heard them both and if it was up to me, I would strongly look at the HK first and then the NAD.
Another great read. Thanks NeverHappy.
I'd love to hear your final thoughts between the Denon and the HK once you've had them togethor for a while.
Cheers, Jag
Nice review! Thanks!
I'm happy to see the H/K on top--makes me feel good about my purchase of a 525!
Yes my thoughts exactly with the Yammy being tinny. I'm still doing a test with the RXV1400 and 235 and I'm still amaze with how smooth the HK235 compared to the RXV1400. This is in 2 channel stereo by the way. I haven't had a chance to do an HT test yet. On Saturday I had some people over and did a blind testing. They absolutely love the clarity of the 235. My dad thinks the Yammy had to much trebble and harshness on vocals. Damn I'm kinda dissapointed with my Yammy.
I've learned through my studies of speaker to receiver relations...it's not necessarily that these receivers are bad. It's what sounds best matched up with certain speakers. That's why it's great to have forums like this for people who already own the same speakers.
The Yamaha is a great receiver. Very clean. Very pure. But it needs to be matched with a warmer speaker than the Axiom.
I'm not surprise to see HK came up on top of the list, if you intend to use the receiver solely for music, then you might want to take a look at the HK3480, 120w x2. :-)
I guess you're right. This is why I'm keeping the Yamaha as HT purposes; for my Energy speakers and the HK for two channel.
In reply to:
it's not necessarily that these receivers are bad
You got it! None of these receivers are even close to being bad. Some just do things better then others!
Hey NeverHappy -- when you get the 7300 can I come over and bow down on your lawn? Perhaps I could even touch this god-machine? Please? Pretty Please?
NeverHappy, I'm curious as to how your friend felt about you installing the "tinny"Yamaha in his home and then ranking a much cheaper Pioneer above it for music? Redman
In reply to:
NeverHappy, I'm curious as to how your friend felt about you installing the "tinny"Yamaha in his home and then ranking a much cheaper Pioneer above it for music? Redman
Good question. What I did with everyone was look at what speakers they are running and try and match the speakers with the tonal qualities of each receiver. The Yamaha went to an individual who owns an older set of Swan's. If you know anything about Swan's they are a warm speaker to start with and thus the Yamaha was a nice match.
The Pioneer went to a Axiom M22 owner. Again a nice match. The HK went to an owner of some of the best sounding speakers I have heard, Monitor Audio Gold GR60's.
Overall I thought I did a decent job of matching everything up and everyone is happy!
Makes sense. Good report, good job, and thanks for the reply.
Great read. Any chance you might review a Marantz as well?
In reply to:
Any chance you might review a Marantz as well?
To be honest, I don't think so. I have one more system I'm doing right now and it looks like NAD may be the choice but I'm not 100% positive. I like NAD's stuff but I'm having a hard time with the $$$$$$$$ they want for the T-773 and T-763.
Very nice sounding but I just don't see the money...........at least not yet.
Well in case anybody is keeping up with my never ending hunt for ?????.............dam I don't even know what it is! Anyway, my HK AVR-630 showed up today safe and sound. I'm going to spend a week or so with it and see once and for all how well it stacks up against the Denon 3805. I have the Denon running my Monitor Audio 9's and the HK running my Monitor Audio 5's. I will keep switching things around and see what shakes!
I will post back later!
Yippeeee!
An early christmas!
Have lots of fun with that beautiful beast of a reciever.
Looking forward to your impressions. Cheers, Jag