I was wondering what's the general consensus on AV receivers on this board? I see lots of insight & opinions on all kinds of equipment except for AV receivers. The specs on some of them are very interesting. I'm seeing some of them are able to stream FLAC 24 /192.
Mass market AV receivers are built on convenience and features. They are built to the lowest common denominator and most cases are sold on virtues other than sonic quality. I'm not saying that AV receivers can't sound good, but most are not built with 2 channel performance in mind.
and it sounds great with speakers, it injects more soundstage, the treble has a bit of sparkle that for some reason, synergies with every type of music. The bass is punchy nor bloated or greedy, and the mids are clear and great with female vocals. Most receivers now days are geared towards innovative features and surround sound channeling, but old stereo receivers (in my honest opinion, and take this with a pinch of salt) have the richer, full-on sound quality.
I was wondering what's the general consensus on AV receivers on this board? I see lots of insight & opinions on all kinds of equipment except for AV receivers. The specs on some of them are very interesting. I'm seeing some of them are able to stream FLAC 24 /192.
There are really two groups. In those groups you have a range of money spent and understanding. The HI/FI group are 2 channel and are not known for liking what a 5.1 or 7.1 system can do.
The home theater guy can get good sound and still spend the same amount of money but he wants music and movies. The HI/FI guy is maybe more of a purest and likes the sound-stage from only two speakers.
Both systems can achieve great sound but do it from different directions. As far as AV receivers being used for headphones go, they can be a value. The low cost ones can now be had for 2 to 3 hundred and be used not only for headphones but speakers with movies. Still the reason you don't see a ton of posts at Head-Fi is for that $300 you can get a better headphone set up that sounds better. The AV amps do more but if we are trying to get to optimal headphone quality their are other ways.
Its just that the AV amps are trying to be a Swiss Army Knife of sorts and when ever you see that it normally means a lack of quality somewhere. Being that they are mass produced they are a bargain. It just depends what your ultimate goal is.
I have owned a few and am always trying them out with headphones to see if they are getting any better. They offer a ton of features now like Blue-tooth, nework streaming and a DAC for your iPod. Still if you compare an amp like the $250 Schitt Asgard, it gets louder, has more dampning factor, has more detail and is just better for headphones than the headphone out of an AV receiver.
As great as a Denon or Yamaha Home Theater DSP is with speakers they fail somewhat when used with headphones. Headphones are not their designed purpose. Silent Cinema from Yamaha is just taking the DSP out of the signal and does not offer you anything more than stereo. If the room DSP setting worked with headphones you would not have a Silent Cinema button.
That said they are a value and there could be a day when the mass production sales of them make them a good buy for the headphone enthusiast if the performance changes in regard to headphones.
Even with the fact that you can hook up a CD transport optically to a Yamaha Home Theater and use the DAC, the results are thin and stark sounding. These same qualities seem to help the sound in that midprice range giving speakers detail and making movie speech and effects clear.
of course as headphone amps go they are insanely expensive for the quality output. for stereo again they are very expensive for the quality.
you pay for likely at least seven dac's and 7 amps, most are going to be 9 or 11 dacs and amps. then of course add in the headphone amp. basically whatever you spend gets split in so many ways and that even before you think about video processing.
so while your receiver can decode 192/24bit flac files its really not going to matter, unless your spending huge money you wont be able to tell it apart from a 320k mp3.
I have an older Sony ES receiver and love it with my speaker setup (Magnepan MMG's). I typically turn off all processing and put the receiver in Direct Mode.
you pay for likely at least seven dac's and 7 amps, most are going to be 9 or 11 dacs and amps. then of course add in the headphone amp. basically whatever you spend gets split in so many ways and that even before you think about video processing.
Here in the US, though, there are constantly good deals on AVRs that are heavily discounted off MSRP. Then, the AVR market is also a highly competitive market with huge economies of scale going on in manufacturing, whereas the stereo/integrated amp market is not. The redundancy of the DACs and amps over a 2 channel setup is surprisingly cheap at manufacturing costs. So AVRs often work out to be better price/performance values than stereo receivers or integrated amps. For example, I'd take this Denon X2000 over any $400 stereo receiver or integrated amp on the market.
That's funny you mentioned the Denon X2000. I just picked up the Denon AVR X 2100 this past weekend. I'm enjoying the convenience factor of just sitting on my couch and streaming tunes to the Denon instead of sitting @ my iMac. It sounds good enough and I probably going to look into bi-amping my Wharfedale Diamond 10.2 speakers.
oh certainly the av market gets some bargains, particularly because the makes all feel the need to release a new model each and every year with the old getting big price cuts.
still i have never once heard of anyone reputable ever claiming that the money spent on a bargain receiver compares audio wise to what the same money spent can get you in a stereo amp.
That's funny you mentioned the Denon X2000. I just picked up the Denon AVR X 2100 this past weekend. I'm enjoying the convenience factor of just sitting on my couch and streaming tunes to the Denon instead of sitting @ my iMac. It sounds good enough and I probably going to look into bi-amping my Wharfedale Diamond 10.2 speakers.
I bet you like controlling the AVR with your phone or tablet even when not streaming. There's something to be said for all of these convenience features being built into AVRs
Bi-wiring with an AVR is a gimmick. No audio benefits. If you look at test bench benefits for Denon receivers (for example), you'll see that they provide more power in 2 channel than multichannel mode. So when you hook up the extra wires, there's no extra amp benefit and definitely no SQ benefit.
If you do it, though, you might need to rerun Audyssey. Not sure.
I plugged my loaner Grado's into my receiver and was very surprised how good it sounded. It's a Pioneer VSX-9700S. I was originally using them through my PC's creative ZXR and I think the amp on my receiver just has more power or something because the bass sounded way better. It made me think twice of buying anymore high-end amps/dacs.
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