New Receiver for HT

[Jack in Wilmington]

Hi Guys, I decided to upgrade my home theater receiver and I've looked at Yamaha RX-A840($899), RX-A830($499), Marantz SR-5009 ($899), a Pioneer that the model slips my mind. $1000 would be my max budget. I need preouts for the front speakers and subwoofer. Anything else I should check out? Thanks.

[blackraven]

Check out the prices on the Marantz gear here-

Home Theater Receivers | Accessories4less

I have a friend that bought a couple of pieces of Marantz gear from them and they were sent out right away and he received them in 4 days.


They have some great prices on Integra AVR's that weigh twice as much as the Marantz. They also sell Cambridge Audio AVR's.

Most of their gear are refurbished with warranty or last years models.

[Mr Peabody]

My Onkyo kicked the bucket way too soon, a SR515, It was on a lot in a 24 hour period being in the main system with wife and kids but I'd still expect more than a couple years service from it.

I was looking to replace it and not needing anything too extravagant, I bought the Marantz 1605. It's more channels than I need but I liked the Wyfi capability and analog video upgrade to HDMI. I believe it has preamp outs for mains but not sure. The Denon AVR-s900w & Yamaha 677 had similar features. To be honest on this one I liked the Marantz slim profile and the fact my AV8003 is still doing it's job without so much as a hiccup, knocking on wood now that I brag. FA really had problems with her Denon set up which was a factor. The Yamaha was really tall. I helped my friend set up his 1403 and just running a Klipsch Quintet set with a sub, sounded pretty good for a budget system. Also, Marantz gives a 3 year warranty which is one year longer than the others.

Your budget is a bit more than mine, the Cambridge would be a great receiver, probably giving up some of the bells & whistles of a more mass market brand, same with NAD. Me personally I wonder about NAD reliability.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I decided to go for the Yamaha RX-A830. It's last years model but I found it on Amazon for $499 so I'll take the $400 savings over the couple new features on the new model A840. I've been an Onkyo guy for a while now, but I recently got my wife a Yamaha and was very impressed with the features and build quality, and truth be told, I was a little jealous that the picture on her Panasonic plasma got better than mine when the Yammy was installed. It came with a 3 year warranty which the Marantz also had so that helped me decide. Interesting tidbit when I was setting up the sound field it told me that my left surround speaker was "out of phase". I switched the leads and it measured correctly. I guess things can happen like that when you're swapping speakers in and out. Thanks guys for your recommendations.
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[bfalls]

Have you looked at the Emotiva Fusion 8100 for $499. It has 7.1 in/out, a true 65w/ch (all channels driven 8ohms), HDMI 1.4a and Bluetooth. I like the Yahama gear too, but Emotiva sounds more musical to me and has more dimension.

[Jack in Wilmington]

Have you looked at the Emotiva Fusion 8100 for $499. It has 7.1 in/out, a true 65w/ch (all channels driven 8ohms), HDMI 1.4a and Bluetooth. I like the Yahama gear too, but Emotiva sounds more musical to me and has more dimension.

I never cared for Emotiva. It got mixed reviews from the articles I've read. I consider them the Vizio of the audio community. They'd like to be up with the big boys, but don't have the horses.

[Mr Peabody]

Looks like a good buy Jack.

I got my 1605 hooked up last night but still need to run the auto speaker set up. Interesting now how the manual is on disc. The set up assistant is really good but when we set up an analog input for the Wii, we forgot to turn it off while setting one up for the VCR, then some how the receiver had the same analog input for both, there was not a "clear" or "delete", finally I shut the receiver off which cleared all the input settings, then the receiver picked new analog inputs for the source, so I had to change some connections. LOL, you can see I had a lot of fun, sometimes the simplest of things. So tonight after the kids are in bed I'll tackle the speaker set up. I hate to say much with it just being out of the box with no video or audio adjustments, but out of the box the video doesn't seem to be as good, the audio is warmer, just from TV so far, but I know on the Onkyo the Audessy EQ made a world of difference and I suspect it will on the Marantz as well.

I selected something last night, today video looks at least as good as it did with the Onkyo. Still didn't run the audio but vocals seem more natural than the prior receiver even without running Audessy.

I didn't want to spend the price but I was tempted to try one of the Elite receivers with the Class D amplification since I suspect the heat from the Onkyo may have attributed to it's early death.

[Jack in Wilmington]

Looks like a good buy Jack.

I got my 1605 hooked up last night but still need to run the auto speaker set up. Interesting now how the manual is on disc. The set up assistant is really good but when we set up an analog input for the Wii, we forgot to turn it off while setting one up for the VCR, then some how the receiver had the same analog input for both, there was not a "clear" or "delete", finally I shut the receiver off which cleared all the input settings, then the receiver picked new analog inputs for the source, so I had to change some connections. LOL, you can see I had a lot of fun, sometimes the simplest of things. So tonight after the kids are in bed I'll tackle the speaker set up. I hate to say much with it just being out of the box with no video or audio adjustments, but out of the box the video doesn't seem to be as good, the audio is warmer, just from TV so far, but I know on the Onkyo the Audessy EQ made a world of difference and I suspect it will on the Marantz as well.

I selected something last night, today video looks at least as good as it did with the Onkyo. Still didn't run the audio but vocals seem more natural than the prior receiver even without running Audessy.

I didn't want to spend the price but I was tempted to try one of the Elite receivers with the Class D amplification since I suspect the heat from the Onkyo may have attributed to it's early death.

This time I just wanted a change. I may use the Onkyo on my living room system.

[bfalls]

I never cared for Emotiva. It got mixed reviews from the articles I've read. I consider them the Vizio of the audio community. They'd like to be up with the big boys, but don't have the horses.

I've always felt the same about Onkyo. Never had the sound quality of Denon, or the drive capabilities and features of the Yamaha. I'll give you the UMC-1 had some issues, but my UMC-200 and XPA-5 has had no issues. To me the sound quality with the Emotiva separates was substantially better than the other three.

[Mr Peabody]

I ran the Audessey on my 1605, the sound is good, I was watching a cartoon of Little Einstein with my 4 year old, the Classical music sounded natural, the trumpet was brassy yet smooth. Sound effects on other shows varied by channel and program but they seemed to be popping from a quiet background. Vocals are easily understood and bass is fuller. With the Onkyo you could tell you were listening to a receiver the Marantz gets closer to what you might expect from separates. Looking forward to hearing a BD.

[Jack in Wilmington]

I've always felt the same about Onkyo. Never had the sound quality of Denon, or the drive capabilities and features of the Yamaha. I'll give you the UMC-1 had some issues, but my UMC-200 and XPA-5 has had no issues. To me the sound quality with the Emotiva separates was substantially better than the other three.

In the Family Room system I started out with a Pioneer Elite, moved on to an Onkyo and when that died moved on to the Yamaha RX-V575 and really liked it the best out of the three. In my Audio Room, I had an older hand me down Marantz and moved that to my Living Room system and added the Onkyo TX-SR705 because of a lack of features on the older Marantz. Now that the Yamaha has replaced the Onkyo, I may sell the Onkyo. The Emotiva didn't have all the features that I was looking for as was the case with some of the other contenders.

[TheHills44060]

I decided to go for the Yamaha RX-A830. I....

Great buy Jack. I've been eying those Aventage models too. Anxious to hear your impressions after some time.