A/V Receiver

[DiamondPete]

Hi:

I am in the market for home theater. I already have the HD TV and DVD player, so my next step is an AV receiver. I figure I will spend between $600 and $800 for the receiver to get the features I want. However, I would like suggestions on which one, given two primary criteria:

1 (mine): overall quality and features

2. (my wife's): ease of use. If the system is too hard to figure out, she will watch movies using the TV speakers

I don't care for bells and whistles, and the simpler looking the better, especially if that makes it more approachable by my wife, and if the simpler looks hide sophisticated innards and capabilities.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

thanks,
Pete

[uncooked]

i would go with a yamaha. very straight forward awsome sound quality. it has the bottom door on the front of the receiver that covers up all the buttons so it looks very clean and not cluttered at all. i dont know if you could get the rx 1300 or 1400 in that price? i live in canada so i dont know the prices in the states or anywhere else. the htr line is very good to. maybe a 5650 or 5660? 6.1 to

[TinHere]

i would go with a yamaha. very straight forward awsome sound quality. it has the bottom door on the front of the receiver that covers up all the buttons so it looks very clean and not cluttered at all. i dont know if you could get the rx 1300 or 1400 in that price? i live in canada so i dont know the prices in the states or anywhere else. the htr line is very good to. maybe a 5650 or 5660? 6.1 to

I agree. Of the ones you mentioned, only the RX-V1400 has YPAO [Yamaha Parametric Acoustic Optimizer]. The HTR series doesn't offer it. This feature makes calibration a breeze, and IMHO makes the Yamaha the one to beat today.

[recoveryone]

Hi:

I am in the market for home theater. I already have the HD TV and DVD player, so my next step is an AV receiver. I figure I will spend between $600 and $800 for the receiver to get the features I want. However, I would like suggestions on which one, given two primary criteria:

1 (mine): overall quality and features

2. (my wife's): ease of use. If the system is too hard to figure out, she will watch movies using the TV speakers

I don't care for bells and whistles, and the simpler looking the better, especially if that makes it more approachable by my wife, and if the simpler looks hide sophisticated innards and capabilities.

Any and all suggestions would be welcome!

thanks,
Pete

For the price range you could check out the Pioneer 911, it also has the room calibration like the Yammie. Very clean looking all buttons cover by lower door. On most Pioneer units the remotes are learning type so you may only need to use 1 (wifes like that). If you hook the TV sound ouput through the AV receiver she won't be able to use the sound from the TV at all ......just an after thought

[poneal]

Or you could get a harman kardon with automatic speaker level adjustment (EZ Set). It balances your system too. For a little less than $800 you could get the AVR-330. So what I would do if I were you is to go out and listen to Harman Kardon, Yamaha, and Pioneer and see which one you like the most. Never depend on someone elses recommendation if you can go out and listen and make your own decision. Hope this helps.

[spacedeckman]

It isn't competative at all with either the h/k or the Yamaha. Played with the h/ks a bit today. Almost got the cosmetics right. That glowing volume control thing is...stupid looking. Replaced with a regular silver volume control it would look much nicer. It was at Circuit, so they didn't have any speakers that I would consider worthwhile.

I still have reliability concerns with the h/k, but haven't heard much lately on that front. That is a good thing.

[woodman]

[QUOTE=poneal
...never depend on someone elses recommendation if you can go out and listen and make your own decision. Hope this helps.[/QUOTE]

This is well-intentioned advice and would be good advice if we were talking about loudspeakers, but they are the ONLY component to which the advice applies. When talking about A/V receivers, the differences in sound quality from one to another are far too small to be a valid criteria for making a choice. Just about ANY receiver in the marketplace today should fill most anyone's needs regarding performance ... it's the other criteria that assume greatest importance. Such things as "user-friendliness", "customer support", and THE most important one (to me) ... RELIABILITY.

To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha - the reliability kings of the industry. Today, the best value in an A/V receiver is the Yamaha model RX-V1400. It carries an MSRP of $799, but can probably be found for less if you shop around.

Hope this helps you

[Geoffcin]

To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha - the reliability kings of the industry. Today, the best value in an A/V receiver is the Yamaha model RX-V1400. It carries an MSRP of $799, but can probably be found for less if you shop around.

Hope this helps you

Between all the major brands.

But I would despute your findings that Yamahas reliability is somehow superior to Marantz,HK, Denon, or Pioneer Elite. I want to see the hard figures to support this assumption.

[spacedeckman]

It is pretty common knowledge that h/k was having some real problems with the later model Korean built receivers, and the first couple of generations of the Chinese built receivers. Things seemed to have calmed down and ducks appear to have fallen into a row. That makes me feel good since I've been a h/k fan and owner for 25 years. But this was actually quite a time span of problems popping up.

Marantz, hopefully, is just over a bout of brokenitis. They had a couple models of the meat and potato variety that were having pretty regular failures in the field and their customer service was not too good at getting them fixed. Have had a number of dealers drop them in the area. Yamaha and Onkyo have been the major beneficiaries.

I am unaware of any problems with Pioneer Elite, but there was a batch of shutdown problems last year or the year before with the regular line.

Sony ES had some really bad problems a couple of years ago and had to recall a bunch of receivers. Either a couple of them caught on fire, or they had the potential to. Sony's regular line has had off and on issues for the past decade. Past year or two have been better.

Denon hasn't had any major problems, just some small stuff, but have had some customer service issues, though somehow not as severe as Marantz.

Yamaha's last major bout with problems that I am familiar with was in 80/81 or so when they tried to use Carver type amplifiers (that magnetic field thing), I think licensed from him. Disaster.

Onkyo had some issues probably 4-5 years ago by now. But to my knowledge have been pretty clean since then.

Proof? You would have to talk to someone like Woodman who fixes them. This is just what I know from keeping tabs on what's going on, and talking to my friends who fix this stuff, and some dealers who I know pretty well after all these years. This is the reason I'm also a big B&M supporter. These guys are my friends, and I want to visit them this year too when I have the time. Which is less often anymore.

[Keith from Canada]

[QUOTE=woodman][QUOTE=poneal
To go out and choose a receiver based upon "how it sounds" is a foolhardy move at best. I've worked on this gear - on the insides of it for more than half a century, which is why I wouldn't consider buying for myself any receiver other than Yamaha [/QUOTE]

Once again, I would state my total disagreement with Woodman on this particular issue. Despite his continued insistance that there is no difference in sound quality between receivers, we consistently have people posting about the differences that they in fact have heard. When I worked at an audio store (way back when), most of the staff that I worked with could tell which receiver was running when they were in another room (and yes, they were hooked into the same speakers). The JVC sounded kind of flat, the Yammy emphasized highs and had a deeper low-end and the Denon was the middle ground (keep in mind, this was several years ago).

I don't want to start a war of words with you on this topic (I think we've done that in the past), I would simply state to the original poster that if one receiver does sound better to you than another, then this is a criteria that you should take into consideration (along with reliability and user-friendliness).