HT A/V Recievers on a tight budget.

I am currently trying to decide on a nice receiver to go with my Ascend Acoustics main speakers. The A/V receivers that I have had my eye on are the Marantz SR4400, SR5400, and Harman Kardon AVR230. I do not want to exceed $450. Do you guys have any other recommendations for good receivers in this price range?

I kind of have my eye on the Marantz 5400 and the HK 230/330 Myself. Have you auditioned them? What is the # 1 feature you are looking for?

Lord Nikon;ThreeDhomer; My brother recently bought the Marantz 5400. It replaced a Yamaha 2095 which he just sold on Ebay. His speaker system for some time has been two NHT Super Twos and Three NHT Superones. He is very satisfied with the Marantz. I have not been able to really evaluate this receiver the way I like to because his speaker system set-up particulaly the rears face the front rather than being off the side of the listener. So IMHO, both receivers could not create the soundfield I could make a judgement on. When he first got the Marantz, he ended up changing speaker cables on this unit; there was something about the sound that just was not right. The change of cables helped to some degree. Powerwise, I thought the 2095 floored the Marantz. I also felt the 2095 had purer sound quality than the Marantz. I felt the Marantz could not push the NHT system like the Yamaha could. Many times, I would be off to the side of his room. You would be surprised what you could or could not hear. In that realm the Yamaha sounded better to me. The Marantz does have alot of accruements with three types of matrix type decoding systems(DPL-2, DTS NEO and CS-2 with trubass). I know these matrix circuits were giving separation in the rear but again I could not tell just how well they worked. It appeared to me that I liked the DPL-2 Cinema. Both receivers were set to LARGE because the speaker systems he has featured 6 l/2 inch woofers plus the Super Twos had bottom firing 6 l/2 inch subs. The Yamaha featured a bass boost that worked superbly well for this NHT system giving great subwoofer effect bass which Yamaha claimed that this was what that feature was for and they were right. I felt the Marantz was not for this NHT system. The Marantz may be better for a satellite sub system; if I had one, that is the only way I would use it. I would recommend if at all possible to get a demonstration of the units that you are looking into. If not, try to get a 30 day money back gurantee. I have no experience with the HK models. The 5400 appeared to be built well. Good luck.

Have you considered the Onkyo TX-SR501 and TX-SR601? I have the 601 and have yet to find any faults with it. I would say it compares very well with the HK you are considering. Also, the HK DPR-1001 is on sale at many retail outlets and is a full-featured unit as well, but adds pre-amp outs that you can use to add a full-power amp to in the future.

Ok, make it $500.... opinions anyone else?

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Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

I am currently trying to decide on a nice receiver to go with my Ascend Acoustics main speakers. The A/V receivers that I have had my eye on are the Marantz SR4400, SR5400, and Harman Kardon AVR230. I do not want to exceed $450. Do you guys have any other recommendations for good receivers in this price range?

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I recently bought a Denon-1804. You can get one at Ultimate Electronics for ~$450. I bought mine at dakmart.com for $350. This is a great AV receiver for that kind of money. It's got all the connections you'll need, plenty of power, and looks good too.

If you don't mind last year's model you can get a lot of features and performance for somewhat less bucks. Remember, in another 6 months even the newest of the new will be "obsolete", at least by marketing standards.

I wound up with last year's Denon 2802 for $399 last April. That's right about when the 2803's came out. I can live with it's obsolesence. It doesn't hurt the sound one bit. I haven't had any problems with it nor any complaints about it's sound and features. Well, the remote is a little weird but nothing's perfect.

P.S. If you're still hot for a Marantz, http://www.yawaonline.com/ is authorized to sell Marantz refurbs, with manufactures warranties.

Anyone else have some advice/opinions?

I'm kind of in the same situation you are in looking for a reciever around the $500 price point. I'm mostly looking at Yamaha and Denon. The Denon 1804 seems nice but I haven't had much time with it. I think the Yamaha rx-v740 is pretty nice and it can be found online for under $500...good sound, power, and room for upgrades. Also there are some new lower end Yamaha models with some nice features coming out that look pretty nice, but there aren't many details yet. Check out the following links for info on the new HTR models...

http://www.jandr.com/JRFreeShipping....leManufacturer

http://www.yamaha.com/YECDealerMedia/AD_HTR_recs.htm

Welp it has been narrowed down to 3 receivers to push what will be an entire Ascend Acoustic HT System. The choices are: HK AVR-330, HK DPR-1001, and Marantz SR5400.

The room is medium size, and it would be mainly used for HT listening, with music in mind of course. What I am looking for is a lot of features, good power, and most of all... extreme clarity. Let the voting begin!

well, me owning the Marantz SR-5200 I vote for the Marantz. Mine excels in music listening cause the power gets increased when only two channels are driven. You might want to even look for the 5300 for lower prices, the 5400 only added like two additional features, one being the virtual surround mode for headphones.

-Joey