New $700 Hometheater Receiver Advice

[ciscokid1970]

Hi guys long time no write.

I have decided to upgrade my hometheater room receiver. My current receiver is a Sony ES 555, nice sound, been reliable but looking for something with the new decoding formats.

Well I am looking for the $700 ish range, my current choices are:
1. NAD T753 $750, love the sound of NAD, but missing bells and whistles
2. Pioneer elite vsx-53tx $700, very good sound, automatic speaker calibration, plenty of bells and whistles, easy to service.
3. Marantz SR6400 $600, never owned this brand, attractive price, ok on features.
4. Denon AVR2803 $600, bad experience with denon long ago but this unit has good reviews.
5. Onkyo TX-sr701 $600, like the sound but last one i owned was not so easy to setup
6. Outlaw was a choice at first but they have no receivers right now.

ease of use and bells and whistles are more important in the HT room since it is mainly my wife and kids.

I own a NAD C-740 receiver in my stereo room and love the sound but it was a pain to find learning remote to accept the commands and is missing some bells and whistles.

leaning towards the Pioneer elite.

any opinions.

[kexodusc]

Just add Yamaha RX-V1400 and Harman Kardon AVR-430 through 630 to your list...good start.

NAD probably has slighty better sound than all, but as you said, poorest features...the Denon and Yamaha are probably the two most popular here in the forums.

[topspeed]

You can actually get a Denon 3803 in your price range as it's been replaced by the 3805 and discounts are rampant. It has the video-up feature which is actually pretty handy.

Just a thought.

[AVMASTER]

"ease of use and bells and whistles are more important in the HT room since it is mainly my wife and kids."

the onkyo txsr701 has an easy on-screen setup and one of the best remote controls supplied with a receiver in that price range. Serious consideration
the denon avr3803 has plenty of "bells and whistles" with video up-conversion and good sound quality. Good pricing on those that are left
since you're familiar with sony ES, perhaps you might want to take a look at the new strda2000es- lots of "bells and whistles"; how easy it is to use is another story

[scion]

The Yamaha RX-v1400 and 2400 are probably the most feature rich of the bunch while sounding excellent. The YPAO beats out Pioneer's MCACC in depth of options and calibration too (although some audiophiles would much prefer to calibrate it themselves.)

Dont forget number of inputs, component switching, A+B and multi-zone, upconversion of formats, OSDs, etc in your comparison.

[ciscokid1970]

I actually bought all of the following and did a head to head.

By the way all had certain features that I do not care about:
Component switching, not needed since I perfer to take video signals directly to the tv.
multi room, not needed since I have a seperate setup for my other room.

Denon AVR-2804
Marantz SR6400
Yamaha rx-v1400
Pioneer Elite vsx-53tx

first of all there is not a looser since all were good.
Only the Yamaha and Pioneer had the microphone autocal system which is very very nice espceically if you have strange room and or non-matching speakers.

My room is 20ft x 20ft with 10ft ceiling and I am running NHT in-ceiling speakers so I need plenty of amp to make them sing. The Pioneer Elite boasts 100W per channel and I must say they were honest about it because it is not lacking in juice and remains smooth and clean at ear-busting levels. The construction is heavy duty and I love that it is fan-free. The unit, programming and remote are easy to use.

I ended up buying a Pioneer elite vsx53tx and I must say it is the best HT receiver I have ever heard for $650.