Budget AVR question

[ematthews]

In the 450-800 dollar range is there any playback sound difference between brands? I am just wondering with all the attributes aside would there be a difference in sound quality between a Denon X2300 VS Marantz SR5010 or maybe even the Yamaha A760.
Coming from the 2 channel hobby a Marantz can sound very warm against a Yamaha.

 

[lovinthehd]

I've had, and still have, several avrs of different brands and price points, after swapping several in and out of different rooms/systems I think the biggest difference is in the feature set, sometimes that's related to audio in terms of what eq/dsp modes it offers. The effort of trying to buy a brand, let alone a specific model, as some vague tone control....meh.

 

[ematthews]

Yeah. Was really curious if some of those reviews say some brands have better music playback. I have an old Onkyo 805 that finally stopped working. Was leaning toward Yamaha as I hear it's very reliable. But love my Marantz gear and can't rule out Denon 2300 just yet. This will only be for a 3.1 system that needs to push some lower sensitivity {86} speakers.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

In the same sound mode, there won't be a difference between Denon vs Marantz.

In DIRECT mode, there won't be a difference among Denon vs Marantz vs Yamaha, etc.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yeah. Was really curious if some of those reviews say some brands have better music playback. I have an old Onkyo 805 that finally stopped working. Was leaning toward Yamaha as I hear it's very reliable. But love my Marantz gear and can't rule out Denon 2300 just yet. This will only be for a 3.1 system that needs to push some lower sensitivity {86} speakers.

I think the marketing of "better for music" is to appeal to a certain buyer, i.e. old school 2ch vs "home theater". I'm still waiting to hear these electronics that make movies sound marvelous and music like crap and vice versa.

 

[ematthews]

I think the marketing of "better for music" is to appeal to a certain buyer, i.e. old school 2ch vs "home theater". I'm still waiting to hear these electronics that make movies sound marvelous and music like crap and vice versa.

I can tell you this. My Onkyo 805 AVR sounds like crap when I test it against my ATI 2002 Amp using a Parasound P5 Pre... Same 2.1 speakers in the same room Audio only. So in my experience, it can make a difference.

 

[lovinthehd]

Sounds like crap? Why the hell would you even use a piece of electronics that sounds like crap? Are you being just a bit over-descriptive?

PS "Different" I can understand....a huge change, no.

 

[ematthews]

Sounds like crap? Why the hell would you even use a piece of electronics that sounds like crap? Are you being just a bit over-descriptive?

Maybe. It wasn't transistor radio quality.

 

[lovinthehd]

Maybe. It wasn't transistor radio quality.

My gripe with reported "differences" is the hyperbole that it can come with....night and day....sounded like crap....even "more musical". Quantifying differences can be hard, and fairly comparing two different setups can be difficult to do at home (did a friend do instant switching for you while you were "blind" to what was being used, was it level-matched, same settings, etc?). You may be convinced of the results of your comparison, but I'll stay skeptical based on my own experiences with both avrs and 2ch gear (which I still have as well) and the consumer experiences that help define many preferences....

 

[ematthews]

Well. I can 100% hear a difference. Any when my wife can then I know it's different.. There could be a big difference in the amp section from the Onkyo 805 and the ATI 2002... I know the price was.. Lol.

 

[PENG]

That's odd, I have A/B'ed my old Denon AVR with my A21 and CA 840E many times and the 3805 always sounds just as good, definitely not crap. I would think the 805 should be comparable to the 3805/3808 in SQ, and probably more powerful.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

That's odd, I have A/B'ed my old Denon AVR with my A21 and CA 840E many times and the 3805 always sounds just as good, definitely not crap. I would think the 805 should be comparable to the 3805/3808 in SQ, and probably more powerful.

Unless the Onkyo is defective (the overheating has fried some circuits ) or some kind of DSP is active (even when it's not supposed to be).

 

[PENG]

Unless the Onkyo is defective (the overheating has fried some circuits ) or some kind of DSP is active (even when it's not supposed to be).

Agree, when someone describes such gear producing craps I tend to think about reasons other than the fact that the gear is an AVR that tend to get despised by audiophiles. When comparing electronic gear it is really important to make sure the units being compared are in top conditions, wired the same way etc. etc... not just volume match.

Recently I AB'ed two DACs, volume matched but sighted, each has it's own jack to rca interconnect as I don't believe in cables making audible differences. To my surprise I felt the expensive one (3X) sounded better. Just out of curiosity, I swapped the interconnects and then found the cheap DAC now sounded like the expensive one and the expensive one sounded like cheap one in the previous tests!!. Long story short, a couple of weeks later I accidentally found out one of the interconnect has the L/R channel reversed. I learnt from this experience that one has to be extremely careful in conducting AB comparison listening tests.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Agree, when someone describes such gear producing craps I tend to think about reasons other than the fact that the gear is an AVR that tend to get despised by audiophiles. When comparing electronic gear it is really important to make sure the units being compared are in top conditions, wired the same way etc. etc... not just volume match.

Recently I AB'ed two DACs, volume matched but sighted, each has it's own jack to rca interconnect as I don't believe in cables making audible differences. To my surprise I felt the expensive one (3X) sounded better. Just out of curiosity, I swapped the interconnects and then found the cheap DAC now sounded like the expensive one and the expensive one sounded like cheap one in the previous tests!!. Long story short, a couple of weeks later I accidentally found out one of the interconnect has the L/R channel reversed. I learnt from this experience that one has to be extremely careful in conducting AB comparison listening tests.

Yeah, I don't believe in spending a lot of money on cables either, but I do buy only cables (and other components) that I think are high quality built.

And since I do have truly balanced pre-pro and amps, I do use balanced XLR cables.

 

[<eargiant]

I don't think we listen for the same things when listening to movies vs music. Two different animals.

I may be in the minority here but I own a Denon AVR-3803 that I purchased new (early 2000's ?). Even in Direct mode it has never been able to compete with other 2 channel amps I've had. I've played every speaker I've ever had in here on it (using the same source & no sub) always with the same result. It's just OK for music.

My brother in law was also in the camp like some of you that AVR's are just as good as any quality 2 channel amp for full-range music. When his old Yamaha AVR gave up the ghost he bought a Denon 4312ci. He knew that I had a decent AVR but have always preferred my dedicated 2 channel amps for music. He was very skeptical and asked me to borrow one of my amps.

Long story short, he was amazed with the results in his own home playing music he was very familiar with. So much so that he purchased a dedicated 2 channel amp for his serious music listening.

YMMV

 

[lovinthehd]

I listen to both music and movies (and the audio in movies may outweigh the video for me in many cases) and like both a lot, that's why I have the gear (both avrs and 2ch stuff), don't know how I would listen differently, or at least any more differently than I've been doing for the last 40 plus years. Maybe I'm weird, maybe the amplification just doesn't matter enough to me. I'll just have to get together with someone who feels this way, that amps make drastic differences to music particularly, and do some blind listening tests.

 

[<eargiant]

IMO, movie soundtracks can easily impress us in ways that are different from a 2 channel music recording. For me personally, the bar is lower for movie soundtracks. My Denon can make movies sound like I'm in the theater but falls short with 2 ch music once you remove all of the other distractions, sound effects, video, etc. associated with movie soundtracks.

IMO that will be even more evident in the lower range AVR's.

 

[Dustin melvin]

9

In the 450-800 dollar range is there any playback sound difference between brands? I am just wondering with all the attributes aside would there be a difference in sound quality between a Denon X2300 VS Marantz SR5010 or maybe even the Yamaha A760.
Coming from the 2 channel hobby a Marantz can sound very warm against a Yamaha.

I have the yamaha rxa760 reciever very good reciever but don't have preouts for amplifiers nice value for 700.00 I would recemend this reciever!

 

[lovinthehd]

IMO, movie soundtracks can easily impress us in ways that are different from a 2 channel music recording. For me personally, the bar is lower for movie soundtracks. My Denon can make movies sound like I'm in the theater but falls short with 2 ch music once you remove all of the other distractions, sound effects, video, etc. associated with movie soundtracks.

IMO that will be even more evident in the lower range AVR's.

IME that isn't true, on either point. The price scaling avr thing particularly; I've got avrs ranging in msrp from 299.99 to 2499.99 and sound quality isn't an issue. For music or movies. So I guess it's YMMV.

 

[<eargiant]

IME that isn't true, on either point. The price scaling avr thing particularly; I've got avrs ranging in msrp from 299.99 to 2499.99 and sound quality isn't an issue. For music or movies. So I guess it's YMMV.

Shocking on many levels but it goes to prove that mileage does vary greatly.

Just the transformer differences in those two model extremes is enough to make an audible difference.