2013 $500 AV Receiver Roundup

[corey]

I find it somewhat interesting that of the 7 receivers you looked at, your bottom 3 would be my top 3. The Denon, Marantz, & Onkyo are the only ones with Audyssey MultEQ. There is a major lack of objective measurement between speaker/room calibration systems, but the little I can find tends to rate Audyssey well. Many people considering an AVR in this class will not be running $10k speakers in a fully treated room.

I very much encourage Audioholics to "Pursue the Truth" in the differences between speaker/room calibration systems, as there's not a lot of info available.

 

[Adam]

I very much encourage Audioholics to "Pursue the Truth" in the differences between speaker/room calibration systems, as there's not a lot of info available.

That would be a great article! It wouldn't be easy (I don't think) to be remotely comprehensive in evaluating the real-world effects, but it would be great.

My one knock against Audyssey is that it can't store multiple configurations (at least on the three receivers that I've tried with it, all in or around this price bracket). For anyone with more than one distinctly different listening location, it falls short. For example, I have two spots that are kind of centered relative to my speakers, and Audyssey will handle that just fine because it tries to average things out over an area. My third spot, however, is off to the side - and a single configuration can't handle both of those situations because the speaker delays and levels are significantly different between the centered and side locations. In contrast, Pioneer's Advanced MCACC can store up to six configurations. That said, the VSX-1023 included in this comparison does not have that. It has regular MCACC that (as far as I can tell) only stores one configuration.

I've used MCACC and Audyssey MultEQ, and I think that both do a good job and are very similar for any given location. Advanced MCACC wins for me because it can store configurations for multiple locations.

 

[fmw]

I find it somewhat interesting that of the 7 receivers you looked at, your bottom 3 would be my top 3. The Denon, Marantz, & Onkyo are the only ones with Audyssey MultEQ. There is a major lack of objective measurement between speaker/room calibration systems, but the little I can find tends to rate Audyssey well. Many people considering an AVR in this class will not be running $10k speakers in a fully treated room.

I very much encourage Audioholics to "Pursue the Truth" in the differences between speaker/room calibration systems, as there's not a lot of info available.

Perhaps they don't put as much importance on the calibration routine as you do?

 

[Pyrrho]

I find it somewhat interesting that of the 7 receivers you looked at, your bottom 3 would be my top 3. The Denon, Marantz, & Onkyo are the only ones with Audyssey MultEQ. There is a major lack of objective measurement between speaker/room calibration systems, but the little I can find tends to rate Audyssey well. Many people considering an AVR in this class will not be running $10k speakers in a fully treated room.

I very much encourage Audioholics to "Pursue the Truth" in the differences between speaker/room calibration systems, as there's not a lot of info available.

Perhaps they don't put as much importance on the calibration routine as you do?

Given the apparent lack of any objective evidence that it is any better than the other calibration routines, I can see why the revięwer would not regard that as terribly important. Other calibration systems work quite well; for example, YPAO, Yamaha's system, works quite well, as one can see from reading revięws here of their receivers.

 

[Adam]

Hi, Steve. Any plans to add a roundup for $600 (well, probably $550 - $650) receivers, too? Now that you've got your table all set up, you'd just need to populate it and reevaluate. Okay, granted, that's a time-consuming "just."

That way, you could get into the Onkyo TX-NR626 (which is pretty feature packed at this price), Pioneer VSX-1123 (with Advanced MCACC, and my pick in this range), Marantx NR-1604 (7.1 and higher power), and some other upper models. I think that it could help highlight to readers here some of steps up that another ~$100 can get you these days.

 

[Steve81]

Hi, Steve. Any plans to add a roundup for $600 (well, probably $550 - $650) receivers, too? Now that you've got your table all set up, you'd just need to populate it and reevaluate. Okay, granted, that's a time-consuming "just."

It's not something I'm currently working on, though if/when it happens is up to Cliff & Gene. Personally I wouldn't be surprised to see another roundup at the $1,000 level, though the +/- $600 bracket might not be considered worth the effort.

 

[Adam]

Slacker...

 

[Steve81]

Slacker...

Oddly enough, I do have a t-shirt

Of course some might dispute the genius part

 

[fanging]

just a AV receiver, the price is a little high

 

[PENG]

That would be a great article! It wouldn't be easy (I don't think) to be remotely comprehensive in evaluating the real-world effects, but it would be great.

My one knock against Audyssey is that it can't store multiple configurations (at least on the three receivers that I've tried with it, all in or around this price bracket). For anyone with more than one distinctly different listening location, it falls short. For example, I have two spots that are kind of centered relative to my speakers, and Audyssey will handle that just fine because it tries to average things out over an area. My third spot, however, is off to the side - and a single configuration can't handle both of those situations because the speaker delays and levels are significantly different between the centered and side locations. In contrast, Pioneer's Advanced MCACC can store up to six configurations. That said, the VSX-1023 included in this comparison does not have that. It has regular MCACC that (as far as I can tell) only stores one configuration.

I've used MCACC and Audyssey MultEQ, and I think that both do a good job and are very similar for any given location. Advanced MCACC wins for me because it can store configurations for multiple locations.

I agree with you that Audyssey equipped AVRs fall short on not allowing storage of multiple configurations, even two would have been great, but I am not sure if that is Audyssey or the AVR manufacturer who is not allowing it. It seems to me Audyssey's software required a lot of MIPs and that might have forced manufacturers to pick and choose what they think are most important and in the end people think Audyssey is the bottom neck, such as the reconverting from 192 to 48 kHz when the fact is the MIPs limit of the AVR in that case anyway.

Regarding the averaging thinig, this point has been raised more than once, and links have been posted to clarify that Audyssey does not do the aveaging, they do want to focus on that one position but they need to gather more information of the room by having the mic in as many locations as possible in the surrounding area. I know that may sound like averaging but it is not.

 

[ASecondChance]

Thanks for putting this list.

I was planning to buy an AVR but I didn't know where to begin. Thanks

 

[Pyrrho]

I was planning to buy an AVR but I didn't know where to begin. Thanks

You should consider what features you need, and also what speakers you will be using with it. If your speakers are a normal, easy to drive set, and you do not attempt to play your system at literally deafening levels, you can just focus on the features you want, and stick with a good brand, like Yamaha, Marantz, Pioneer, and Denon. Start looking at low end models, and keep going up until you find one with all of the features you require.

 

[ASecondChance]

You should consider what features you need, and also what speakers you will be using with it. If your speakers are a normal, easy to drive set, and you do not attempt to play your system at literally deafening levels, you can just focus on the features you want, and stick with a good brand, like Yamaha, Marantz, Pioneer, and Denon. Start looking at low end models, and keep going up until you find one with all of the features you require.

when i was looking at amazon i found this

Onkyo TX-NR616 7.2-Channel THX Select2 Plus Certified Network A/V Receiver(Black) by Onkyo
Link: Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-NR616 7.2-Channel THX Select2 Plus Certified Network A/V Receiver(Black): Electronics

I have a Samsung UN55ES7500 tv and im going to use it with a PS4, PS3 and PC do you think this is good enough ? if not i was going to choose the Harman Kandor AVR 1710 from this list but i like the feature the Onkyo has by almost half the price

for speakers im between this two

Onkyo SKS-HT870 Home Theater Speaker System by Onkyo
Link: [rul]http://amzn.com/B002C73WRW[/url]

Harman Kardon HKTS 20BQ 5.1 Home Theater Speaker System (Black) by Harman Kardon
Link: Amazon.com: Harman Kardon HKTS 20BQ 5.1 Home Theater Speaker System (Black): Electronics

im open for suggestions too and im choosing 5.1 speaker sets because i can always add later on the other speakers and i cant afford it right now anyway

thanks

 

[mychaelp]

More info

This grid-layout guide is helpful to compare side by side. But how do some of the models directly compare? Here AV Receiver Guide - Home Theater I read about the Harmon Kardon but it looks to have more noise than the others, even Yamaha.
What do you suggest as a replacement to a 2 year old Onkyo that I'm just not happy with? I understand the standard for 4K is not complete as they all use something different it seems. Anyone?

 

[Findedeux]

Poor Advice

I was surprised how bad this article is. It's hard to even call this a review, as the only thing the article does is compare how the receivers look on paper without actually testing the receivers themselves. I notice that real reviews on this website emphasize build quality and reliability over features but this article appears to do exactly the opposite.