Please suggest a good AV receiver and speaker systems -> My Budget $1100

[rinkaudio]

Hi All,

This is my first post to this forum. I am looking for a good quality AV receiver ( in terms of sound) and a speaker system in a budget of $1100. I have done some research and Denon's AVR X2000 fits my bill. I am thinking of Polk Audio speakers along with it. Please let me know if this is a viable combo or else suggestions from the Forum Legends are most welcome.

 

[Pyrrho]

What will make the most difference in how it sounds will be the speakers. Will you ever have more money that you will want to spend on a home theater? If so, I would go with a decent receiver (I like Yamaha, but Denon is fine) and get a pair or three bookshelf speakers for the front, and later add surround speakers and a subwoofer.

But if you are going to insist on the whole thing for that $1100, I recommend going with a cheap Pioneer receiver that just has enough features that you require (maybe spend $300 on it), and put as much as possible into the speakers, because they will impact the sound far more than the receiver will.

 

[markw]

Are you figuring a subwoofer in that price?

 

[ousooner2]

Need more info to correctly help you.

1. Where is this going and what is the size of the room?
2. What are your goals or what do you want out of this system?
3. What have you listened to that you like or dislike?
4. Is there anything you MUST have or MUST NOT have? (ex. Some people can't have floorstanders due to no room or wanting them to go in something near the tv)

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Speakers wise , in your budget - no question asked you should go with Andrew Jones designed Pioneers:
Watch for frequent deals:
Pioneer SP-FS52-LR Andrew Jones Designed Floor standing Loudspeaker (each) | Amazon price tracker / tracking, Amazon price history charts, Amazon price watches, Amazon price drop alerts | camelcamelcamel.com
These are often sold for $100 or even less

On such tight budget I suggest a certified refub receiver - they come with same 1 year warranty
ac4l.com is great pleace to look for these, like mentioned above Denons and (runs and hides) Onkyos maybe even a Marantz

Don't look for bells and whistles. I would insist to have at least Audyssey XT (plain MultiEQ is significantly worse) and to get full 5.1/7.1 pre-outs

For sub... well - to be honest - unless you live in really small room - most likely you'd have to up this budget for better sub

 

[rinkaudio]

Hi,

Please find the answers:-

1. Size of the room is 20 x 12 X 11.
2.My goal is to listen to music but want a system that caters to future as in expanding it to be a hometheatre.
3. I prefer Rock, Classical and good old country music.
4. I DO NOT want floorstanders owing to the space constraint. 2 Bookshelf and a sub woofer should suffice.

Need more info to correctly help you.

1. Where is this going and what is the size of the room?
2. What are your goals or what do you want out of this system?
3. What have you listened to that you like or dislike?
4. Is there anything you MUST have or MUST NOT have? (ex. Some people can't have floorstanders due to no room or wanting them to go in something near the tv)

 

[markw]

Receivers and subs are easy to reccomend with confidence.

Speakers, OTOH, offer a wide varitey, most are very good, but the final decision is totally a personal preference. Purchasing based on what others like is risky and you know everything you read on the internet is true.

Which speakers have you listened to and like, and which ones don't you like?

 

[Pyrrho]

Hi,

Please find the answers:-

1. Size of the room is 20 x 12 X 11.
2.My goal is to listen to music but want a system that caters to future as in expanding it to be a hometheatre.
3. I prefer Rock, Classical and good old country music.
4. I DO NOT want floorstanders owing to the space constraint. 2 Bookshelf and a sub woofer should suffice.

You should go to all of your local audio shops and listen to as many different bookshelf speakers as you can stand to listen to, of as many different types as possible (e.g., ribbons, horns, domes, whatever). I recommend taking a CDR with you of a variety of your favorite music to listen to in the stores with various speakers. If you are willing to wait on a subwoofer, and are willing to go with an inexpensive Pioneer home theater receiver, you can look at bookshelf speakers costing up to about $700-800. The advantage to doing that is it will enable you to select some respectable bookshelf speakers that you may well like for a lifetime, but it would mean that you are, for the moment, giving up deep bass (as you will need a subwoofer for that).

However, you should also listen to bookshelf speakers at a lower price point, in case you like them as well or better.

That is what I would do with your budget. If you must have a subwoofer now, you will be cutting corners on everything, which means you are likely to want to replace all of it over time. And that means that you will probably be spending more money in the long run.

If you can find a pair of speakers that you like enough that you don't want to replace them ever, it will save money in the long run. Right now, I have speakers that I never intend to upgrade. If new features come out in the future, I may want to replace the receiver anyway, so receivers tend to be a less good long-term investment.

 

[3zones]

I just had this same situation. I had planned to do a 3 zone install in my 6000 square foot house. The 5.1 tv location room is 12x22 with 20 foot ceilings with a 55" tv. Just the wiring and cables and cat5e alone were several hundred dollars due to the Headend being so far away from everything. I decided I would live without a good version of Audyssey and so went for the Onkyo616 due to the sheer, almost seems not possible amount of features for the money plus decent power. HT is about choices and Audyssey 2eq the second lowest with just EQ lower has done a good job. My late version 616 has been rock solid so far. The Onkyo has 3 zones with two of them powered (all 7.1 or higher will have a powered second zone anyway...but it's the third that uncommon). For my 5.1 speakers I did the Energy Take Classic 5.1 set up. For the different zones I have a mix of Monoprice In ceiling 2way 8" and 3 way 8" in wall speakers plus impedance matching volume controls in each room. Of course you need a parallel distribution block as well plus an inwall ir repeater for everything and some DAC's for your zone 2 and 3 when your realize that you have to go high end to get dac's built into zone 2 and even higher for zone 3.
The 616 was $329 dollars on sale which I still can't believe, the Takes were on a 48 hour sale for $299. I'm basically ordering everything off the internet and installing it all as I get it. My project has grown a lot. The WAF has been a big issue and the last room I have to install speakers in is the kitchen and she is insistent that I not put any in there which is insane since it's the main room in the house. Anyway, the internet has made the whole system possible. Locally the only place around left standing is BestBuy and I'd have spent three time more on everything. The NR616 is the best value on anything I've bought in a long time.

I just added up my whole system which again is the full 5.1 set up, plus three rooms of zone 2 audio so far with all the cables, accessories, volume knobs, the wall plates and remodel boxes, Cat5e (for future proof to 4 rooms), cable clips, parallel distribution block,...every single thing it took to put this system together and I'm at $1,191 so far. That's for every little last item you could possibly think of and I started with nothing. Of course that doesn't include the 55" tv. The cable runs are in some cases 100 feet long so a ton of 14 gauge two and four run speaker wire. The amount of install I did running cable in walls and cutting holes for speakers and knobs, etc would be certainly into the several thousands of dollars by not. If I go crazy and install speakers in hallways and half baths plus a couple more rooms just because i'm in the mood, I will maybe break 1500$.