Question About Receivers

[hershon]

First off I'm very happy with my present receiver JVC RX-DV31SL Receiver but am always looking to better myself if it's financially worth my while. I have Orb Mod 1 speakers & their Super 8 sub which for me rule & love the sound of my system. I play my system in my normal size living room or family room as you might call in my apartment.

In any case & here's where I'm in total confusion here, can the sound your hearing, particularly CD's (Rock & blues stuff not classical), make a significant difference with your receiver, if the speakers remain a constant and are unchanged? If the difference is only minor not night & day stuff I probably wouldn't be interested but if the difference was major in I guess richness of sound, I would be.

If so, I'd welcome any recommendations.

[Resident Loser]

...who claim to be able to hear the differences caused the color of the wire insulation...

Speakers and the room they are in are really the interface to your brain, they are the most important members of any system IMHO...with regard to electronics, I don't think you will find anyone who will say there is a night and day diff, generally speaking...perhaps little things may change or improve and there are those who enjoy the hobby incrementally, insisting that it is a series of things that will get you to audio Nirvana. I mean if you're comparing apples and oranges, there will be power and noise and presentation issues...keep in mind however, I said generally speaking.

Rock, jazz, classical...I think any system worth it's salt should be able to reproduce any and all of it with equal aplomb...I think mine does...any mfr. who touts their gear as style specific probably builds colored and inaccurate equipment.

But then again, that's just my POV...others may not agree...

jimHJJ(...but they would probably be wrong...)

[bargainseeker]

First off I'm very happy with my present receiver JVC RX-DV31SL Receiver but am always looking to better myself if it's financially worth my while. I have Orb Mod 1 speakers & their Super 8 sub which for me rule & love the sound of my system. I play my system in my normal size living room or family room as you might call in my apartment.

In any case & here's where I'm in total confusion here, can the sound your hearing, particularly CD's (Rock & blues stuff not classical), make a significant difference with your receiver, if the speakers remain a constant and are unchanged? If the difference is only minor not night & day stuff I probably wouldn't be interested but if the difference was major in I guess richness of sound, I would be.

If so, I'd welcome any recommendations.Your Orb speakers use 3" full range drivers with no tweeters. Although I have not heard Orb speakers myself, I have heard similar speakers based on small full range drivers. In my experience, such speakers do not reproduce the very highest frequencies at full volume. Also, the high frequency response of such speakers is usually quite directional so that the off-axis frequency response shows an even more rapid drop off in high frequency output. In the low end, the subwoofer has its own amplifier and the Orbs are crossed over at a relatively high frequency. Therefore, the Orbs do not draw high amounts of current from the receiver. Because of these characteristics, the sound of your speakers is not strongly impacted by the quality of the amplifier driving them. So even though the JVC RX-DV31SL (http://www.jvc.com/product.jsp?modelId=MODL026994&pathId=5&page=1) is a low end DVD/receiver combo, it probably sounds pretty good driving the Orb speakers. Would you hear a difference if you upgraded your receiver and DVD player to mid-range products from a good manufacturer? Probably yes, but the difference would probably be subtle.

[midfiguy]

There most definately is a difference in the sound that is produced depending on which reciever you use. Otherwise, why wouldn't everyone just use the same $200 Sony reciever,etc and save the money over buying a $2000 Denon for example? It's not just imputs as some basic $400 models now have all the inputs, outputs, features etc the majority of us will ever need.

However, like others have said, the change in a reciever is not nearly as impacting as a change in speakers. Not that i'm saying your orb speakers are bad, because I don't know anything about them. I'm just saying that changing your speakers will results in a much bigger difference than changing your reciever.

However, that being said, when I upgraded from my cheap pioneer to my first real reciever (Denon AVR 3300), it really was world of difference IMO. However, it was even a bigger change when I upgraded my Cambridge Soundwork speakers to Klipsch speakers.

So take it as you will and good luck!

[hershon]

I'm really happy with my Orb speakers & am quite happy with my JVC receiver but if I knew that if I changed receivers but kept my same Orb speaker system, the sound would be noticeably better (in terms of richness/tone etc.) when I play rock & blues CD's, then I would explore the possibilities.


There most definately is a difference in the sound that is produced depending on which reciever you use. Otherwise, why wouldn't everyone just use the same $200 Sony reciever,etc and save the money over buying a $2000 Denon for example? It's not just imputs as some basic $400 models now have all the inputs, outputs, features etc the majority of us will ever need.

However, like others have said, the change in a reciever is not nearly as impacting as a change in speakers. Not that i'm saying your orb speakers are bad, because I don't know anything about them. I'm just saying that changing your speakers will results in a much bigger difference than changing your reciever.

However, that being said, when I upgraded from my cheap pioneer to my first real reciever (Denon AVR 3300), it really was world of difference IMO. However, it was even a bigger change when I upgraded my Cambridge Soundwork speakers to Klipsch speakers.

So take it as you will and good luck!

[nick250]

I'm really happy with my Orb speakers & am quite happy with my JVC receiver but if I knew that if I changed receivers but kept my same Orb speaker system, the sound would be noticeably better (in terms of richness/tone etc.) when I play rock & blues CD's, then I would explore the possibilities.

As others have said 95% of what you hear is speaker choice and room acoustics. The receiver plays a very small role in your system. So IMHO your system would not be noticeably better with a more expensive receiver.