New Surround A/V Receiver - Brand/model suggestions?

[Cardiobuck]

Originally Posted by DriveHard

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

DriveHard, Color me intrigued. Are those DIY subs you have on each end? I've thought a lot about going that route for sub(s). If so did you build from a kit?

Yes, I have two in the front and two in the back - one in each corner with 1.5 kW per speaker tuned to 18Hz, with a -3db of around 15Hz (that is nearfield, not in-room response which should be even better). I can make the floor in the room above this one move several inches..as in you can visibly see the floor flexing up and down. Explosions take on a whole new dimension with low extension this great. The line arrays (tall guys) are homemade as well. They are most excellent for watching sports events...makes the crowd sound like you are really there. Neither are a kit. I have been designing and building speakers for nearly 25 years now - from big to small, powered, unpowered, even bluetooth speakers. If you are ever interested, PM me. There is lots of free software out there to help guide the way, and I could talk about this stuff like some of the guys on here talk oil ;-) Before we were married my wife knew I got two "rooms" in the house. The theater room, and the garage. That is all I want...she can have the rest.

Right up my alley! Back before I set out to configure the living room the way I did I planned for a basement man cave/theater. I was going to build a speaker called the elusive 1099, from DIYsoundgroup for the LCR front stage. I was going to put all three of them behind an acoustically transparent projector screen. But I compromised and built a system into the main living room, I digress. My system now is pretty fixed but one area I continue to mess around with is the low frequency stuff. I had two ported subs, both w/ 12" drivers and 350w RMS, and decided to add a third just to screw around a bit. Three might not be ideal but I enjoy tinkering. It's not the kind of power your system has but it is pretty dramatic. Always makes me smile when I can feel a movie as well as hear it. But... what if I swapped out the 12"s for 15"s and say 500-750w RMS? I might PM you when I have more time.

 

[DriveHard]

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

Originally Posted by DriveHard

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

DriveHard, Color me intrigued. Are those DIY subs you have on each end? I've thought a lot about going that route for sub(s). If so did you build from a kit?

Yes, I have two in the front and two in the back - one in each corner with 1.5 kW per speaker tuned to 18Hz, with a -3db of around 15Hz (that is nearfield, not in-room response which should be even better). I can make the floor in the room above this one move several inches..as in you can visibly see the floor flexing up and down. Explosions take on a whole new dimension with low extension this great. The line arrays (tall guys) are homemade as well. They are most excellent for watching sports events...makes the crowd sound like you are really there. Neither are a kit. I have been designing and building speakers for nearly 25 years now - from big to small, powered, unpowered, even bluetooth speakers. If you are ever interested, PM me. There is lots of free software out there to help guide the way, and I could talk about this stuff like some of the guys on here talk oil ;-) Before we were married my wife knew I got two "rooms" in the house. The theater room, and the garage. That is all I want...she can have the rest.

Right up my alley! Back before I set out to configure the living room the way I did I planned for a basement man cave/theater. I was going to build a speaker called the elusive 1099, from DIYsoundgroup for the LCR front stage. I was going to put all three of them behind an acoustically transparent projector screen. But I compromised and built a system into the main living room, I digress. My system now is pretty fixed but one area I continue to mess around with is the low frequency stuff. I had two ported subs, both w/ 12" drivers and 350w RMS, and decided to add a third just to screw around a bit. Three might not be ideal but I enjoy tinkering. It's not the kind of power your system has but it is pretty dramatic. Always makes me smile when I can feel a movie as well as hear it. But... what if I swapped out the 12"s for 15"s and say 500-750w RMS? I might PM you when I have more time.

It would be interesting to know what frequency your 12's were tuned to...and what kind of low extension you were getting. Most off the shelf ported subs struggle to dip below 40-60 Hz, and that is where the magic just starts to happen. A room starts to "breathe" below 30...

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by DriveHard

Originally Posted by alarmguy

For people looking for soundbars, here are some pretty good sales Seems to be lots of good prices on everything here, I assume mainly closeouts ect, also for the OP looking to get a receiver for under $400, there are some killer deals here. Heck, even got me thinking for a while! Honestly seems like all receivers (sadly) put out about the same amount of power, no matter what price you pay, within reason of course, the good news is buying a lower cost receiver, your still getting the power, just less fluffy extras. Looks like the manufactures are selling "features" for mark up instead of power. Anytime you check power on an Amp, always check the watts at 20khz/20Hz with less then 1% distortion number, a really good amp will also list power at 8,6 &4 Ohms, but dont have to get too crazy at the lower prices., its just a bonus if you do get those numbers,I noticed many manufacturers now quote numbers like the car amp market, which is BS or better said not worth much, stick to 20/20 at less then 1%

This is somewhat true, but not totally. Receivers usually post their numbers based on ONE channel driven...maybe two. When you are listening to a movie on 5.1, 7.1, maybe even 9.1, there is a big difference on what the amps can supply with all channels driven. Here is where the power supply, caps, line voltages, etc. all make a big difference on what the amp can deliver. There is also a big difference in the amps ability to drive high end speakers with difficult impedance loads and maintain their composure. Even the high end receivers that are rated at 120+ watts per channel 20-20k at way less than 0.5% distortion are not going to be able to drive all 7 or 9 channels to that level. If they can (never seen one) they will be well into the 4-5 digit price range. The difference between a $300-$400 amp and a $1500-$2500 amp driving ALL channels is usually quite significant.

Exactly what I was saying, but to use the words usually post numbers on 1 channel driven I do not think correct from any respectable product, maybe I should have been more clear, look for 2 channels driven the old standard, at least you can then compare apples to apples, 1 is garbage. True there are more channels, but the 2 channel true spec of 20/20 @ less then 1% gives one the idea of the amount of current the amp is capable of/quality of the amp. How they split it up, is another story. But cheapo specs are worth nothing without the 20/20 @1% Actually 1% is high by todays standards, we have gone backwards over the last decade.

 

[Smokescreen]

Originally Posted by DriveHard

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

Originally Posted by DriveHard

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

DriveHard, Color me intrigued. Are those DIY subs you have on each end? I've thought a lot about going that route for sub(s). If so did you build from a kit?

Yes, I have two in the front and two in the back - one in each corner with 1.5 kW per speaker tuned to 18Hz, with a -3db of around 15Hz (that is nearfield, not in-room response which should be even better). I can make the floor in the room above this one move several inches..as in you can visibly see the floor flexing up and down. Explosions take on a whole new dimension with low extension this great. The line arrays (tall guys) are homemade as well. They are most excellent for watching sports events...makes the crowd sound like you are really there. Neither are a kit. I have been designing and building speakers for nearly 25 years now - from big to small, powered, unpowered, even bluetooth speakers. If you are ever interested, PM me. There is lots of free software out there to help guide the way, and I could talk about this stuff like some of the guys on here talk oil ;-) Before we were married my wife knew I got two "rooms" in the house. The theater room, and the garage. That is all I want...she can have the rest.

Right up my alley! Back before I set out to configure the living room the way I did I planned for a basement man cave/theater. I was going to build a speaker called the elusive 1099, from DIYsoundgroup for the LCR front stage. I was going to put all three of them behind an acoustically transparent projector screen. But I compromised and built a system into the main living room, I digress. My system now is pretty fixed but one area I continue to mess around with is the low frequency stuff. I had two ported subs, both w/ 12" drivers and 350w RMS, and decided to add a third just to screw around a bit. Three might not be ideal but I enjoy tinkering. It's not the kind of power your system has but it is pretty dramatic. Always makes me smile when I can feel a movie as well as hear it. But... what if I swapped out the 12"s for 15"s and say 500-750w RMS? I might PM you when I have more time.

It would be interesting to know what frequency your 12's were tuned to...and what kind of low extension you were getting. Most off the shelf ported subs struggle to dip below 40-60 Hz, and that is where the magic just starts to happen. A room starts to "breathe" below 30...

Infinite baffle subwoofers start to work well below 30hz well into subsonic...but you have to be pretty dedicated to install that type as it involves entire rooms as enclosures.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

For $400 I would go to crutchfield.com and get the Denon AVR-X4200H they currently have for 400 off MSRP.

Just to clarify, it's the X2400H that they have for $400. The X2400H has no pre-outs. If that's of any interest to the OP, he should look at the X3400H, alas, that's obviously a different price range.

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete

Originally Posted by Cardiobuck

For $400 I would go to crutchfield.com and get the Denon AVR-X4200H they currently have for 400 off MSRP.

Just to clarify, it's the X2400H that they have for $400. The X2400H has no pre-outs. If that's of any interest to the OP, he should look at the X3400H, alas, that's obviously a different price range.

Man, that looks like some sweet deal, very cool. I amplifier section of the x2400h looks very good compared to some of the newer less expensive stuff coming out, I have some respect for Denon posting the 20/20 with 2 channels at rated distortion which is getting more difficult to find among the exaggerated claims now a days Im even tempted but still good with my Yami but since the new TV last month I will be looking and watching deals like these for the next year, very happy with my set up but think its getting to be time. IN another post I just upgraded my center channel for $179.00 with a killer dealer on a JBL and just ordered new 2 rear surrounds, will arrive today on another great deal from JBL @ $89.00.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by alarmguy

Man, that looks like some sweet deal, very cool. I amplifier section of the x2400h looks very good compared to some of the newer less expensive stuff coming out, I have some respect for Denon posting the 20/20 with 2 channels at rated distortion which is getting more difficult to find among the exaggerated claims now a days

Yup, these newer Denon models are being generally praised on AV forums, from what I've seen. Honest specs aside, the one thing that attracts me to them is Audyssey MultEQ XT/XT32 room calibration/correction which is one of the best in the industry and much better than Yamaha's YPAO. From an aesthetics perspective, I do prefer the looks of current Yamaha receivers though.

 

[alarmguy]

Yes, I admit, very happy with our Yamaha, and I was never very impressed by the results of the automatic EQ, set it the way we like. Its getting on in years now, bought it around 2010. It sounds GREAT, more so with the new JBL Center Channel Speaker that we bought a couple weeks ago and just received the new rear Channel JBLs yesterday. The two mains are Paridigm and Yami powered sub. Surprised when I just checked the amp specs on the now 8 year old Yami (because of this thread) they were pretty respectable for a low cost Home Theater receiver. Much like my other posts in here, instead of great amp specs the new receivers are so packed and promoted with "extras" that most buyers can "see" rather then real solid amp specs. Anyway, anything like that $400 deal on the Denon or even deals down to $300 can be found with a decent amp in it, the biggest key to great sound is the speakers. I hate to say it but many consumers have no clue on how to read specs and these manufacturers are in business to make money, so the one thing a consumer does know, is stuff like bluetooth, wifi, ya da ya da... For me, give me a quality built, high current receiver without all that [email protected] at a good price. That that Denon got me interested as well as this thread, but after enough upgrades for this year, maybe next. So far this last month was the Sony 65inch x900f, plus the killer deals on the JBL center channel and rears. (center channel back on sale for $179.00, they are clearing them out for a new lineup.)

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete

I picked up a Polk S35 today just to try. I actually think it looks OK sitting in front of the TV, and it sounds pretty good, but wife is not pleased. She treats every one of my speakers like an intruder and would prefer to have every one of them hidden out of sight. Not sure what else to try. It's a temporary setup anyway. It's full of compromises and far from a proper HT setup. On the other hand, we watch so little TV/movies, that it almost makes no sense to try to improve it.

I ended up returning the Polk. After listening to it some more, I realized I did not like how it reproduced dialogs, especially male voices. It just sounded 'thin'. I suppose the 3" drivers just couldn't dig deep enough, even though there were six of them. So I picked up something slightly bigger... Infinity RC263. This thing is a monster. It dwarfs my L/R mains, it barely fits, and placement isn't ideal, but hopefully this is just temporary until I can put together a proper HT setup. Wife is not thrilled.

 

[OVERKILL]

You need speakers That Infinity looks nice, have you had much of a chance to listen to it yet? My centre is a Klipsch I picked up at Best Buy of all places on a boxing day clearance a year or two ago. It sounds surprisingly good, which has prevented me from replacing it with a Paradigm to match the mains

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by OVERKILL

You need speakers

I do have a set of decent Jamo floorstanders in storage. Just no room to place them in the current arrangement. Hopefully later this year this will change. I haven't listened too much to it yet. It may need some time to break in, although I am not 100% convinced there truly is such a phenomenon. Klipsch speakers have high sensitivity which makes them easy to drive - good for larger rooms. I was looking into klipsch rp-504c - another rather huge center, but supposedly really good. I am also going to order Chane A2.4 which is a bit smaller and compare against the infinity and then will send the loser back.

 

[OVERKILL]

Well now, that's a pretty good centre channel budget! Mine's the R-25C.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Swapped the RC263 for Chane A2.4. Since the Chane is a bit smaller, I could position it better by bringing it forward more. Now I just need to angle it up a bit more - ordered some taller rubber feet today. The flat panel leaf tweeter is money - fantastic detail without any hint of harshness. Not that the RC263 was deficient in that area - they are both excellent center channel speakers, IMO.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Speaking of budget HT receivers, I just picked up a refurbished Denon S740H for a little over $200. On top of good sound quality, it's got a lot more bells and whistles than my dearly departed 7-year-old Yamaha. Repairing the Yamaha would have cost me at least $100. I decided it was time to get something newer.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by Quattro Pete

Speaking of budget HT receivers, I just picked up a refurbished Denon S740H for a little over $200. On top of good sound quality, it's got a lot more bells and whistles than my dearly departed 7-year-old Yamaha. Repairing the Yamaha would have cost me at least $100. I decided it was time to get something newer.