Gal in distress needs a intelligent guy

[JMZMTA]

Hey Everyone..........

I finally saved enough money ($3000) to purchase my first ever Amp and Preamp for a 5.1 Home Theater. The only problem is, I don't know which Amp/Preamp to buy. My living / dining room measure 25 X 15 feet. I will be using my HT for mostly DVD video viewing. But then again, I don't want to sacrifice on audio listening neither. If anyone can suggest a system for me, it will be greatly appreciated. One thing I should mention is that I live in an apartment.

Thanking you in advance.
Jenny Lopez

P.S. I'm looking at speakers made by Paradigm and Energy.

[JMZMTA]

Hey Everyone..........

I finally saved enough money ($3000) to purchase my first ever Amp and Preamp for a 5.1 Home Theater. The only problem is, I don't know which Amp/Preamp to buy. My living / dining room measure 25 X 15 feet. I will be using my HT for mostly DVD video viewing. But then again, I don't want to sacrifice on audio listening neither. If anyone can suggest a system for me, it will be greatly appreciated. One thing I should mention is that I live in an apartment.

Thanking you in advance.
Jenny Lopez

P.S. I'm looking at speakers made by Paradigm and Energy.

[GMichael]

Hey Everyone..........

I finally saved enough money ($3000) to purchase my first ever Amp and Preamp for a 5.1 Home Theater. The only problem is, I don't know which Amp/Preamp to buy. My living / dining room measure 25 X 15 feet. I will be using my HT for mostly DVD video viewing. But then again, I don't want to sacrifice on audio listening neither. If anyone can suggest a system for me, it will be greatly appreciated. One thing I should mention is that I live in an apartment.

Thanking you in advance.
Jenny Lopez

P.S. I'm looking at speakers made by Paradigm and Energy.

Too many to choose from, too many oppinions. Try this site for a few ideas http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/mfglisting.asp?hdnMfg=Parasound&MFGID=95

[Florian]

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homeproc&1132417316

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1134764704

Save some more money and look for other speakers too :D

[GMichael]

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homeproc&1132417316

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampsmult&1134764704

Save some more money and look for other speakers too :D

Hey Flo. Long time no post.

[Florian]

Hey Flo. Long time no post.
Yeah, needed some time to cool off. I figured i keep on recomending the compontents i like, no matter if some consider them to be spoiled :p

[GMichael]

Yeah, needed some time to cool off. I figured i keep on recomending the compontents i like, no matter if some consider them to be spoiled :p

Recomend all you like. I'll keep reading.

[Jim Clark]

I looked into the Proceed but it seems to have some bugs and is really in need of the 2,000 update to bring it up to the AVP 2 to really shine and even then it doesn't have a full complement of balanced outs which strikes me as odd and DTS dropouts shouldn't happen on a 300 receiver, let alone a five grand preamp. Maybe the update takes care of that? If money is available then I'd say go for it. On the other hand if you're needing to stay within the budget you could go with the new Arcam AVP 700 pre/pro. New it's something like 2,100 list so I'd think a decent offer ought to make it happen for less than 2 grand. I've not heard it but the reading is interesting. Here's a thread chock full of hype - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=556430. Actually there's a member at AVS who works for an authorized dealer who is willing to make great deals on this piece, but I found that out after I bought the Anthem AVM 30.

Audiogon is the place to grab an amp for sure. Just be careful to judge feedback prior to sending payment. ATI, Rotel, Outlaw, NAD, and Sunfire routinely show up around the price you'll need.

Good luck and I hope you find what you really want.

jc

[royphil345]

I'd say, even with that amount of money to spend, you might be better off with a top of the line receiver. A nice home theater preamp / processor along with 5-channels of top-notch amplification would run more than $3000.00. You could probably put something together at that price, but it may not significantly outperform a "flagship" receiver you could buy for significantly less. Especially since the speakers you're looking at aren't especially difficult to drive. With your budget, you pretty much have your pick of receivers. For mainly home theater use in an apartment, you may be better served by saving a little cash on buying a receiver and spending a little more towards top-notch speakers and subwoofer.

[thepogue]

Anthem (which mate very well with the Paradigm line your looking at)
Outlaw (can be had for a very decent used price)
Rotel (used prices are ALWAYS the best!)

Depending on the price-point your looking at, both Canadian speaker companies have vairous killer bang-for-buck speakers....but very little snob appeal. Once again, buy used gear and save like mad! In this way if you want to take it to the "next level" it'll be real easy to re-coup your monies but in any event if you hunt and peck a bit you'll not be unhappy with the above equipment and have a killer budget "HT" set-up.


Peace-out, Pogue

[Florian]

And make sure the equipment class matches.

[Geoffcin]

Hey Everyone..........

I finally saved enough money ($3000) to purchase my first ever Amp and Preamp for a 5.1 Home Theater. The only problem is, I don't know which Amp/Preamp to buy. My living / dining room measure 25 X 15 feet. I will be using my HT for mostly DVD video viewing. But then again, I don't want to sacrifice on audio listening neither. If anyone can suggest a system for me, it will be greatly appreciated. One thing I should mention is that I live in an apartment.

Thanking you in advance.
Jenny Lopez

P.S. I'm looking at speakers made by Paradigm and Energy.

Buy a good receiver and bank the rest of your budget for speakers. You've got a good starting point with Paradigm and Energy, I would expand that further to include other brands you may not have heard yet. What ever you do don't sell yourself short on the speakers. Get the ones that you really like!

[Jim Clark]

Buy a good receiver and bank the rest of your budget for speakers. You've got a good starting point with Paradigm and Energy, I would expand that further to include other brands you may not have heard yet. What ever you do don't sell yourself short on the speakers. Get the ones that you really like!

Why? She's got 3 grand for an amp and a preamp according to her post. This is easily doable. There's not any mention that this is at the expense of the speaker budget.

jc

[Geoffcin]

Why? She's got 3 grand for an amp and a preamp according to her post. This is easily doable. There's not any mention that this is at the expense of the speaker budget.

jc

Sure you can spend 3k on a pre/pro & multi-channel amp but why? If you don't have speakers yet then the budget can be put to better use on them.... IMHO!

[Jim Clark]

Sure you can spend 3k on a pre/pro & multi-channel amp but why? If you don't have speakers yet then the budget can be put to better use on them.... IMHO!

Well it certainly wouldn't be the first time I didn't read between the lines of what a women was saying. I simply took her post at face value - 3,000 for an amp/preamp. If 5.1 speakers are included in the mix with a 3,000 dollar budget, I agree that would change things considerably.
I'm just going by what was actually posted. I could easily be wrong.

jc

[LMB]

I have a townhome at these have worked out great
Checkout Boston Acoustics 130 micro & VRC (center channel) at Tweeters
Pioneer Elite 56TXI receiver (Tweeters, Goodguys or Magnolia Home Theaters)
Velodyn SPL 800 sub (Tweeters or Goodguys)
Good Guys is going out of business some of the stores are open until December and you can get some good buys

Have fun shopping

[Woochifer]

For your budget, you could just use a midlevel home theater receiver as the preamp/processor, and add a multichannel amp from Parasound, Anthem, or Arcam (or simply add a two or three channel amp, and use the receiver outputs for the surround speakers).

If your budget also needs to include speakers, then you should stick with a midlevel receiver and allocate at least $2,000 to the speakers and subwoofer.

[RGA]

Best thing to do is listen to some full out systems at nicer hi-fi shops - NOT A&B Sound or FuturShop or Madman McKay, Audio Video Unlimited, or the Sony Store, type of places. Don't mention your budget right off because they will file you over to whatever they can unload for $3k. Have a plan of exactly what you're after and ask to hear a set up at maybe 2/3 of your budget - $2k and see what you think. This way you have room to spend more but you may be very impressed with the $2k unit. Often spending more does not net you more sonically. It can of course but that;s why you want to make sure you listen. Sometimes the higher models in a line can be worse or not as enjoyable as lower models. Pioneer and Pioneer Elite receivers for a long time was hit and miss. The Elite line was sometimes better using better parts and reflected in the sound -- other times they put a black piano laquer on the front, a copper underbelly and rosewood side panels but it was the same as the non elite line in every way that actually produced sound. Amplifiers and cd players are often the same especially those cross polinating parts with several brands. Pioneer made all Hitachi Laser Disc players -- Hitachi came in a silver case and was a $100.00 less than the Pioneer in a black case but everything inside and the remote was exactly the same.

It's senseless recommending specific things because not everyone is going to like the sound of the same stuff. It depends on how picky the listener is, what they listen to, what they listen for, what annoys them about a stereo's replay etc. My suggestion is to listen to speakers for music, listen for a fairly long duration - any hiint of treble brightness or boom and any other off-putting habit then it should be avoided -- lots of choices out there and the great stuff is usually found on the road less travelled.

[HT BUFF]

I am surprised nobody here mentioned the new Outlaw Audio pre-amp processor will blow anything recommended here away at only $1,099. www.outlawaudio.com Model 990.

[N. Abstentia]

Actually I did recommend that Outlaw preamp..I don't know where my post went..different thread on the same subject maybe?

Anyway, the Outlaw is currently at the top of my list of pre/pro's. I just haven't been able to find anything else that has similar features for the price. If anyone disagrees with this..please don't be shy! Tell me the pre/pro that matches it because I'm close to laying down the cash :)

[beta5alphamu]

Yeah with 3000 in your pocket you do have a lot of options

you could either get a top of line receiver that puts you just under 3000 (Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, Harman Kardon) can't go wrong with none of these

If you decide you do indeed want the pre Amp/ Amp route go into Audiogon.com and buy look for a used amp (Rotel, Outlaw, Parasound just to name a few that can be had for under 2k)

the pre Amp part I am not to familiar as i decided to turn my receiver into a preamp (I do, however, hear great things about the Outlaw Preamp)

[Greekguy]

For a full system at $3,000, a receiver will definitely be a more viable option. For a room your size, you'll need a fair bit of juice to drive your speakers, and a pre-amp processor / 5-channel amplifier combo will run you some $$$.

I was investigating this option sometime back and nearly went with a separate amp / pre-amp combo, but settled on the Yamaha RXV-2500 receiver. It's 7.1 channels, 130W per channel, and has more or less every decoder under the sun. Yamaha also now has the RXV-2600, which is more or less the same receiver, but also has HDMI inputs and XM Satellite Radio as well. Any other high end receiver, such as Onkyo, Denon or Marantz will be very good for this purpose too.

If you want a full 5.1 set of speakers, Paradigm has the Cinema Series 110 package. It comes in at around $1,000, and is rated one of the best 5.1 setups for this price point. It may not give you the punch you're looking for, but going with a good receiver and 5.1 speaker set like this will give you a very respectable setup. As I always say, experiment with different setups and you'll eventually find something your ears like.