A/V receiver suggestions or alternatives

[roidefromage]

Dear Audioholics,

While scouring the internet reading reviews for a new A/V receiver I came upon this forum. After having read some reviews and advice I figured it would behoove me to simply post my questions to you good people and see what information and suggestions I might farm out.

I am currently looking to replace/improve my hometheater amplification and/or system A/V receiver. After many years of collecting them, my current theater/serious listening room set up is as follows: Marantz SR8000 A/V Receiver, Yamaha DV2500 Dvd, Dvd-A, SACD player (connected to receiver with 6 Kind Kables analog interconnects, Better Cables digital coaxial, and to TV with Better Cables component video cables) Monster Power Reference HTS-5000 power conditoner/filter system, Mordaunt Short 906 front, center speakers, and MS bipolar rear channels with a Paradigm PS 1200 powered subwoofer. ( all speakers are bi-wired with 12 gauge/shielded speaker cable and the sub is connected using Better Cable coaxial RCA interconnect instead of regular RCA interconnect) Samsung 50" Widescreen DLP HDTV, My multi room system incorporates parasound Zamps for power and Russound selectors/volume controls going to mostly Paradigm speakers of assorted sizes and model numbers.

All that being said, I am looking for a new receiver or amp/pre combo to better control my system and offer it more power. I am happy with the warm sound that Marantz puts forth, and tend to find Yamaha receivers a bit "tin-ny" when it comes to music. I am hoping to find a unit that will accept A/V HDMI with a 1080p signal as eventually I'd like to buy an HD-DVD or bluray and a DVD player that upconverts to 1080p. My budget is going to be under $2000 ( I am public school teacher so unfortunately that eliminates the fantasy of the Macintosh or Krell components echelon...) I would love any and all suggestions you wise audioholics might have to offer.
Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[obscbyclouds]

There are a lot of reciever's that do what you want for under $2000. Check out the new line of Onkyo Recievers (specifically TX-SR805 and SR875). Denon is also coming out with it's xx08 line, which will be HDMI 1.3 capable as well, for your future BR or HD-DVD purchase.

You may want to consider using the above reciever as a preprocesser only, and get a seperate power amp (2 channel or 5 channel) for your speakers. An Emotiva LPA-1 or RPA-1 for example (there are many others). A sperate amp will give you more clarity, channel seperation and higher SPL's without distortion.

You'll probably get people here telling you that you spent too much money on cables (and you probably did, but many of us have done the same before we joined this site ). For your future cable needs you should check out Blue Jeans or Monoprice. Also, Bi-wiring (not BI-AMPing) is a complete waste of time. There are quite a few threads on here on that subject if you want to read further. Good Luck

 

[jcPanny]

Seperates

Emotiva and Outlaw have some good options for seperates in your price range. You might consider getting the Emotiva LPA-1 amp (or more powerful IPS-1) and using with your receiver as a pre-pro. I am using an LPA-1 with a Yamaha receiver as pre-amp. Early next year they will have a new pre-pro model with extra features including HDMI 1.3 and you could get one to replace the receiver. Alternately, if buy any of the current emotiva pre-pros, you will get 40% off of one of the new pre-pros when they come out.

There are plenty of new receivers comming out with lots of HDMI, video scaling, iPod dock, and networking features, but they don't offer the power and signal quality of a good outboard amp.