JonW
08-23-2005, 06:06 AM
I’ve begun my quest for a nice audio system, with help from many of you here. I’ve been auditioning speakers, many so far and many more to try. The price I’m willing to spend on the main speakers has been creeping up as I hear more and more. :) I think I’m at around $3,000/pair at the moment. And the speakers I’m favoring (Totem, Linn, ATC, B&W) seem to do much better with a lot of power. Which has me wondering about a good way to get decent power/electronics running the speakers.
What I’m looking for: 95% 2 channel music listening, 5% movies. So I do need some way to watch movies (5.1 is fine). But sound quality is the highest priority. I don’t need any fancy features. If I get a receiver, it needs to have pre-outs so that I can add amps (right away or later or both). And the ability to EQ it to the room would be nice, although I could maybe buy something else to compensate for that? FWIW, used and tubes are fine by me.
At first I thought maybe just get, say, a Yamaha A/V receiver with preouts for $400-ish and start collecting amps for the mains, etc. Should be cheap, functional, and sound OK. But as the speaker budget increases, I wonder if a cheap receiver will diminish the quality of any sound put through it. I listened to equivalent Yamaha versus Denon receivers next to each other and could hear quite a difference (Yamaha being my preference). So if there is a sound quality difference at a given price, and I’m getting into expensive speakers, maybe I should up the budget. Around $1,000 gets you to the Rotel 1056 (hiss problems), Outlaw (never heard one), Integra 6.5, Cambridge Audio Azur 540R (various problems), etc. range. And if you go up to $2,000 you get to the very nice Arcam AVR300, which I’ve heard and liked. The Arcam has at least as many features as I’d like plus a pretty good amp, preouts, etc. I’d guess sound quality is pretty much as good as I’ll get with the Arcam and I wouldn’t need to add any amps (for a while, at least). So maybe that’s a way to go. I have not yet decided to spend that much, but it could well happen.
But if I’m in the $2,000 range, maybe I should think about alternatives to an all-in-one setup? I don’t want the receiver to become something I have to replace down the road for, say, a pre-pro (which is not painful with a $400 receiver). Seperates?
Related question: There are a zillion 2 channel amps (or 2 x monoblock) out there. How does one ever go about picking one?
Just curious as to your thoughts and wisdom. Thanks folks.
-Jon
What I’m looking for: 95% 2 channel music listening, 5% movies. So I do need some way to watch movies (5.1 is fine). But sound quality is the highest priority. I don’t need any fancy features. If I get a receiver, it needs to have pre-outs so that I can add amps (right away or later or both). And the ability to EQ it to the room would be nice, although I could maybe buy something else to compensate for that? FWIW, used and tubes are fine by me.
At first I thought maybe just get, say, a Yamaha A/V receiver with preouts for $400-ish and start collecting amps for the mains, etc. Should be cheap, functional, and sound OK. But as the speaker budget increases, I wonder if a cheap receiver will diminish the quality of any sound put through it. I listened to equivalent Yamaha versus Denon receivers next to each other and could hear quite a difference (Yamaha being my preference). So if there is a sound quality difference at a given price, and I’m getting into expensive speakers, maybe I should up the budget. Around $1,000 gets you to the Rotel 1056 (hiss problems), Outlaw (never heard one), Integra 6.5, Cambridge Audio Azur 540R (various problems), etc. range. And if you go up to $2,000 you get to the very nice Arcam AVR300, which I’ve heard and liked. The Arcam has at least as many features as I’d like plus a pretty good amp, preouts, etc. I’d guess sound quality is pretty much as good as I’ll get with the Arcam and I wouldn’t need to add any amps (for a while, at least). So maybe that’s a way to go. I have not yet decided to spend that much, but it could well happen.
But if I’m in the $2,000 range, maybe I should think about alternatives to an all-in-one setup? I don’t want the receiver to become something I have to replace down the road for, say, a pre-pro (which is not painful with a $400 receiver). Seperates?
Related question: There are a zillion 2 channel amps (or 2 x monoblock) out there. How does one ever go about picking one?
Just curious as to your thoughts and wisdom. Thanks folks.
-Jon