A quick question about Receivers...

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DariustheSandman

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 15, 2005
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107
So, I'm looking for a new setup that's not going to set me back too much...probably 500-1000, definitely hoping for more on the 500 end, but there's some wiggle room. I am going to have a 42" Panasonic HDTV, PS3, and at least one computer in the room. This is going to be in an apartment, so I don't want to blow anyone out, but some sound quality would be nice. I've seen some good recommendations on here for speakers. Given the size of the room, I'm thinking a decent to good 2.1 is probably the way to go here. I don't want to over pay for a receiver, but because of what's there I'd like at least to have a few HDMI ports.

I know there are some threads like this...but I thought this might be specific enough between the small size of the room, the budget, and the connectivity issues. Anyway, any help would be appreciated.
 
Onkyo and Yamaha are good brands. I don't know how H&K is right now but a few years ago they seriously lagged in terms of DSP features.

The more expensive receivers (near 1000 range) have more hdmi connections, more rca inputs (although receivers never seem to have many optical inputs...), and more power.

Power isn't something you are looking for given you are in an apartment, and in the future you can always buy a seperate amplifier if you wanted more power.

Avoid Sony at all costs (except the ES line, which is on the higher price bracket)...their receivers are underpowered. You can simply look at the power supply on the back of their receivers and most of the time they top out at 230W total, meaning your maximum power output to 7 channels is about 32W.

Shop by price...doesn't seem like you need many connections, the entry-level Onkyos and Yamahas are excellent and provide most of the features of their more expensive brethren.
 
If price is really an issue...should I try to go for a used model? I hear that some people really go for that, but I'm always nervous about potentially inheriting other peoples problems and bad treatment of equipment.
 
Used is pretty hit or miss. I would go new all the time if I had the chance, unless it was a low risk item. Almost every time I've purchased an expensive used item, it came in busted in some way (and I'm talking about multiple $2500-3000 pairs of speakers). People just have no idea how to pack items. It's not about double boxing and triple boxing, it's about padding the right places, and even single box will do.
 
I would head over to AVSForum with this question, there are a lot of folks there with tons of knowledge. I have linked you to a couple of my posts with suggestions on recievers from Onkyo and Marantz. Another good company is Denon.


I would suggest purchasing from Accessories4less as they are a certified factory refurb site. You can get a Onkyo TX-SR607 for a very decent price. Any of the Onkyo's that start with a TX-SR5XX or higher will be good and will do DTS Master and all other blu ray formats.

If those arent important you can get by with a cheaper one.
 
Well, when it was my money, I bought Denon. I like the setup, and Audyssey MultEQ is so worth it in my opinion.
 
Denon 1910 or an Onkyo 607 would be a good start for you to look up. I would look up AVS forum as well: beware though it can be really addicting once you start with a receiver you will start looking at upgrading everything else, subwoofer, front speakers, etc.
 
Pioneer or Yamaha would be at the top of my list. Denon makes a quality product but I think their amps sound like ass. It sounds like you are looking for something midrange so you should be able to find a decent reciever in the $300 - $500 range.
 
astrallite said:
Onkyo and Yamaha are good brands. I don't know how H&K is right now but a few years ago they seriously lagged in terms of DSP features.

The more expensive receivers (near 1000 range) have more hdmi connections, more rca inputs (although receivers never seem to have many optical inputs...), and more power.

Power isn't something you are looking for given you are in an apartment, and in the future you can always buy a seperate amplifier if you wanted more power.

Avoid Sony at all costs (except the ES line, which is on the higher price bracket)...their receivers are underpowered. You can simply look at the power supply on the back of their receivers and most of the time they top out at 230W total, meaning your maximum power output to 7 channels is about 32W.

Shop by price...doesn't seem like you need many connections, the entry-level Onkyos and Yamahas are excellent and provide most of the features of their more expensive brethren.
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H/K is fine, they use their in-house DSP tech (from Lexicon and other Harman International companies) in lieu of something like Audessy

as far as other solid brands, Yamaha is my personal pick, also like Marantz, Pioneer (not all), and Sony

a note on the Sony comment:
your calculation of what it can deliver per channel is wrong, as it assumes >100% efficiency
your assertion that Sony is the only brand to do this is also wrong, the same undersized transformers/overstated output #'s are found in Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, Pioneer, and various other boxes, simply put, you'll never need peak output power (and even after you tell him this, you insist its required), you'll probably never need 25% output power at that, Sony's newer DH parts are solid for the price, ES has a nice new warranty package as well

so while I prefer Yamaha or NHT, I've got nothing against Sony, if you want balls to bone accurate numbers, get an h/k, or spend more

for the op:
I'd just find something from a reputable vendor that has the features you want, do a bit of research, and go ahead and buy

and as far as "this amp sounds like a blueberry and that one sounds like an orange", well, lets not even go there
 
something like these would be a nice fit. They all do DTS and True HD (so blurays play at their full potential). They will also be capable of handling all the other speakers you are going to want to add once you get the 2.1 setup finished and realize that you really do want surround sound!

http://www.accessories4less.com/mak...r607-7.2-channel-Home-Theater-Receiver/1.html

http://www.accessories4less.com/mak...el-Home-Theater-Receiver-Like-Tx-sr607/1.html

http://www.accessories4less.com/mak...r507-5.1-channel-Home-Theater-Receiver/1.html
 
obobski said:
a note on the Sony comment:
your calculation of what it can deliver per channel is wrong, as it assumes >100% efficiency
your assertion that Sony is the only brand to do this is also wrong, the same undersized transformers/overstated output #'s are found in Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, Pioneer, and various other boxes, simply put, you'll never need peak output power (and even after you tell him this, you insist its required), you'll probably never need 25% output power at that, Sony's newer DH parts are solid for the price, ES has a nice new warranty package as well
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Sony is easy to point out because they use the same power supply for each iteration of their entry line DH series, they just add more amps, and they've been tested by S&V to only produce around 30W/channel in multichannel mode.

There's no doubt output is overstated in the low end for other receivers. Onkyos entry level receivers have been tested to maintain around 50W/channel in multichannel mode. Horsepower is over-exaggerated in most cars, but I'm pointing out which brand is exaggerating the most.

(and even after you tell him this, you insist its required)
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Nice. Just like how you insist you never need more than 30 watts.
 
DariustheSandman said:
Well I might want that, but I have two female roommates that might slay me if things get too loud....
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My fiancee used to get scared by the surround sound because she had never watched movies with it, but now she likes it. More speakers aren't for volume, they're for positional audio!
 
audio thug said:
What is it about Denons that 'sound like ass'?
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My personal opinion and experience is that either their internal amplifiers or possibly the preamp do not sound as warm and full as some other brands. I find that they cause the top end to be harsh and brittle. My father has and still does own multiple Denon recievers and I have owned one in the past. I think their build quality and reliability is excellent. I just don't care for their sound. I realize Denon is a very popular brand and many people are very happy with them (including my dad), I was just stating my opinion.
 
Assuming you really COULD tell the difference between the Denons and another receiver in a DBT...

It's less likely that the Denons sound warm or brittle (because it doesn't, all modern solid state amplifiers are at the very least are +/-0.2db from 20-20KHz), it's more likely the impedance curve of your loudspeakers are presenting a challenge to the amplifier in certain frequencies. Time to get a more powerful amplifier, because chances are, the lower bass impedance on your speakers are on the low side which is making the highs more pronounced on your speakers when driven by an amplifier that's not capable of producing the necessary current demand.

You can replace the amp, or replace your speakers with something that has a flatter impedance curve.
 
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astrallite said:
Sony is easy to point out because they use the same power supply for each iteration of their entry line DH series, they just add more amps, and they've been tested by S&V to only produce around 30W/channel in multichannel mode.

There's no doubt output is overstated in the low end for other receivers. Onkyos entry level receivers have been tested to maintain around 50W/channel in multichannel mode. Horsepower is over-exaggerated in most cars, but I'm pointing out which brand is exaggerating the most.
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I don't believe Sony is "exaggerating the most", and the real world difference between 30W and 50W isn't all that exciting, basically picking on one brand based on personal preference isn't very objective, or [H]ard


Nice. Just like how you insist you never need more than 30 watts.
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sure lets knock each other around over nothing, seems logical; as far as 30Wpc being enough, it easily is, most speakers are 88-92 dB/W/M, meaning 10Wpc is easily more than enough power for an average living room, 50W would give perhaps 2 dB of extra headroom, which is more or less inconsequential

so as I said earlier, there isn't really a lot to worry about here, its going to be roughly equivalent; if you want more power, pay for it
 
Power also isn't so important if your material isn't real dynamic. Where you start to need power is if your peaks are high over the average volume. Movies need a lot of dynamic power if played at reference level with no compression since the dialogue can well be 30dB or more below the peaks. That means that you need 30dB of headroom over whatever you want your dialogue at, which can add up to a lot of power.

Games, usually not so dynamic. Probably because a lot of people own lower quality speakers for gaming. So game designers seem to level their sound out more to not have large peaks and valleys since that wouldn't sound good on a low power system.

Power requirements also grow quickly. Say you have a system that does 85dB with 1 watt of power. If you want twice that you need about a 6dB increase. 6dB translates to a perceptual doubling in volume. However, you need to double wattage to increase an amplifier power by 3dB. So that means you need about 4 watts to get to 91dB. Not bad. Now suppose you want twice as loud again, 97dB that takes about 16watts. Still easy. Double again to 103dB? 63 watts. Double to 109dB? 250 watts. To get all the way up to 115dB which is theater reference for subs? 1000 watts.

So each "Little bit more," starts to take more and more power. However for moderate levels, you don't need that much.

Denon makes a quality product but I think their amps sound like ass.
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I disagree. I use a Denon receiver for my center and rear speakers and I'd say it sounds as good as the Rotel RB-1050 I use for my front speakers. With good solid state amps, there really isn't an audible difference. Now the Denon amps can't drive odd loads as well as dedicated amps, they don't work as well with low impedance speakers, which is part of the reason I use a discrete amp on my setup, but they have no sonic problems I can hear or measure.
 
More power is mainly to avoid the harsh metallic sound of clipping. If you listen to a lot of classical music this might impact you considering the recordings have been know to have dynamic range of 60db.
 
Sorry guys, I didn't make that statement to rain on anyone's parade. I was just stating my experience. Maybe I should have put it in more delicate terms. Astrallite and Sycraft, the speakers in all cases presented an 8 ohm load to the amplifier, well with in the operating capability of the amp. They were high end at the time (mid 1980's) Boston Acoustic speakers that are still in use today with no problems. Although less noticible than other pieces of equipment, amplifiers absolutely have a character to them. It doesn't matter if they are solid state or not.
 
Sycraft said:
Power requirements also grow quickly. Say you have a system that does 85dB with 1 watt of power. If you want twice that you need about a 6dB increase. 6dB translates to a perceptual doubling in volume. However, you need to double wattage to increase an amplifier power by 3dB. So that means you need about 4 watts to get to 91dB. Not bad. Now suppose you want twice as loud again, 97dB that takes about 16watts. Still easy. Double again to 103dB? 63 watts. Double to 109dB? 250 watts. To get all the way up to 115dB which is theater reference for subs? 1000 watts.
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I've generally seen it published as 3 dB to double actual output, perceptual increase is a range between +3 dB and +10 dB, and never seen it stated as a static figure, or as 6 dB, care to share?

and 85 dB 1W/M is terribly inefficient, almost unrealistically so (yes I've seen speakers spec'd as such, but they don't seem too terribly common)

otherwise I agree 100% with your post

astrallite said:
More power is mainly to avoid the harsh metallic sound of clipping. If you listen to a lot of classical music this might impact you considering the recordings have been know to have dynamic range of 60db.
Click to expand...

and I agree entirely
but 30W vs 50W isn't even double output power, so regardless of if it takes 3 dB or 300 dB of gain to alter perceptual loudness, it isn't gonna hit it, hence, not really a big deal; the average $200-$400 A/V receiver is gonna get about as loud as anything else off the shelf with the same speakers (yes this is a generalization)

30-40 dB of headroom is fairly hard for most speaker/amp combos to achieve from a 100-110 dB baseline (and I don't know about you, but I don't want movie-theatre loud at home), I wouldn't worry too terribly much about getting those 140 dB peaks basically; you can be very satisfied with a $200-$400 receiver and appropriately matched speakers
 
Pioneer VSX Series receivers are the best ones right now for the money.....you get Dolby Tru-HD for under 250$

my Pioneer VSX-519v-k is only 160$ and takes Tru-HD from my PS3. And HDMI audio from my video card AMD HD4850 @ 24bit/192Khz
 
obobski said:
I've generally seen it published as 3 dB to double actual output, perceptual increase is a range between +3 dB and +10 dB, and never seen it stated as a static figure, or as 6 dB, care to share?
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3dB is what you get when you double wattage so that's where that one comes from. 10dB is an actual doubling of sound power, if you are talking about SPL of course. 6dB is what you get with each bit you add on to a digital sample. So a 16-bit sample has 96dB of dynamic range, a 20-bit sample has 120bB of dynamic range. I'm not sure if this is mathematical or based purely on human perception, but it seems each 6dB is a doubling to us (pro audio software also uses this for panning laws and such).

Either way, you take the dBSPL you have at a given wattage, and you take the dBSPL you want to have and you can figure out what wattage you'll need to achieve it with factors of 10. 90dB @ 1 watt means 100dB at 10 watts and so on.

As for the figure, I was just using something on the reasonable end of what you could expect in a real room. Remember speaker specs are for 1 meter. While you might be that close or closer to studio monitors or something, home theater speakers are a bit farther back. Also sound pressure decays exponentially with distance. So speakers that do 90dB/watt @ 1 meter will not still be 90dB if you back up to 2 meters.

What it all comes down to though is that you don't need a ton of power to reach reasonable levels in a normal room. If you want high levels, or if you are far away from your speakers (like in a real theater) power levels quickly go through the roof. Going from 1000 watts to 2000 watts gets you the same perceptual gain as from 1 watt to 2 watts but takes massively more amplification.

As a practical matter, I find with my somewhat inefficient speakers (87dB) and a 70 watt amp I can push them to full reference levels (105dB) and still have amplifier headroom. Now I'm not that far away, maybe 6-8 feet, but still.
 
Sycraft said:
3dB is what you get when you double wattage so that's where that one comes from. 10dB is an actual doubling of sound power, if you are talking about SPL of course. 6dB is what you get with each bit you add on to a digital sample. So a 16-bit sample has 96dB of dynamic range, a 20-bit sample has 120bB of dynamic range. I'm not sure if this is mathematical or based purely on human perception, but it seems each 6dB is a doubling to us (pro audio software also uses this for panning laws and such).

Either way, you take the dBSPL you have at a given wattage, and you take the dBSPL you want to have and you can figure out what wattage you'll need to achieve it with factors of 10. 90dB @ 1 watt means 100dB at 10 watts and so on.

As for the figure, I was just using something on the reasonable end of what you could expect in a real room. Remember speaker specs are for 1 meter. While you might be that close or closer to studio monitors or something, home theater speakers are a bit farther back. Also sound pressure decays exponentially with distance. So speakers that do 90dB/watt @ 1 meter will not still be 90dB if you back up to 2 meters.

What it all comes down to though is that you don't need a ton of power to reach reasonable levels in a normal room. If you want high levels, or if you are far away from your speakers (like in a real theater) power levels quickly go through the roof. Going from 1000 watts to 2000 watts gets you the same perceptual gain as from 1 watt to 2 watts but takes massively more amplification.

As a practical matter, I find with my somewhat inefficient speakers (87dB) and a 70 watt amp I can push them to full reference levels (105dB) and still have amplifier headroom. Now I'm not that far away, maybe 6-8 feet, but still.
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alright, that explains the 6 dB # (I knew every other reason, just had never seen 6 dB listed for said calculations, always done it myself with 10 dB or 3 dB (really depends on how lazy/critical I'm feeling at the time)), thanks

OP:
listen to the man regarding power, I've got a somewhat similar setup (110 wpc and 89 dB/W/M speakers) and can hit similar levels at a similar distance, and I've no doubt plenty of other members have similar configurations

now, if you consider the receivers you're looking into, they may only hit 30-40wpc all channels, but consider thats with 6 speakers going, not two (which is what my #'s are from, and what I'm assuming sycraft's #'s are from), theres more power available in stereo mode (generally speaking), and even if you're only hitting the 30wpc that astralite pointed out for the cheapie Sony products (no reason to doubt this value, guy seems to know his stuff), just don't buy mad inefficient kit (90-95 dB/W speakers aren't much more expensive than 85-90 dB/W speakers, in some cases cheaper, just check the specs when you buy), and 4-8Wpc will be more than enough for quality use (8Wpc into 92 dB/W will have you pushing something like 100 dB output at 1M, which is more than enough loud for all but the largest of rooms)
 
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