Amp/Receiver Advice

[br??]

Hello friends. First-time poster but long(ish) time lurker.

I'm thinking about upgrading my current pair of active monitors for something of the bookshelf variety, namely a pair of SVS Ultras (@ roughly $1,700 AUD a pair). I was hoping I could get some recommendations for something to power them, because to be frank I have little idea as to what's good value and/or sufficient. My current room is quite small, at about 40 square metres (~430 square feet). A slightly larger room is a possibility in the future.

I'm open to any suggestions, old and new, preferably around the $1,000 AUD mark as a rough guide. Speaker suggestions are also welcome if you think I can do better for ~$1,700 AUD.

Thanks a bunch for your time. If there's any key information I've left out just let me know.

 

[TheWarrior]

Hello friends. First-time poster but long(ish) time lurker.

I'm thinking about upgrading my current pair of active monitors for something of the bookshelf variety, namely a pair of SVS Ultras (@ roughly $1,700 AUD a pair). I was hoping I could get some recommendations for something to power them, because to be frank I have little idea as to what's good value and/or sufficient. My current room is quite small, at about 40 square metres (~430 square feet). A slightly larger room is a possibility in the future.

I'm open to any suggestions, old and new, preferably around the $1,000 AUD mark as a rough guide. Speaker suggestions are also welcome if you think I can do better for ~$1,700 AUD.

Thanks a bunch for your time. If there's any key information I've left out just let me know.

Hi!

Obviously switching from Active to Passive means you need an amp. What are your current Active Monitors, and what are they connected to?

 

[br??]

I currently have a pair of Swan T200Cs running through a DacMagic Plus into my computer playing FLACs. It's been a fantastic setup for the money but it's not perfect. I planned on selling it to more or less account for the amp.

 

[br??]

I did a bit of research and the Yamaha RS700 and AS701 look like they fit the bill, but I'm not sure if there's any real difference between the two. The RS700 has pre-outs, but also other stuff I'd never really use. The AS701 seems to be marketed to sound better, but I'm not sure how much truth there is to that. Would I be missing out on anything important going for the AS701 in terms of features?

Thanks a bunch!

 

[TheWarrior]

@br?? Are you planning on adding speakers any time soon? Cause I doubt you will hear much benefit swapping your DAC for the DAC in a receiver/pre-amp...

 

[br??]

No, not anytime soon. This will be a 2.1 setup for a while. If by adding speakers you meant getting a pair of passive bookshelves, then yes. The plan was to sell my current DAC and monitors and buy an amp and pair of bookshelves.

 

[TheWarrior]

No, not anytime soon. This will be a 2.1 setup for a while. If by adding speakers you meant getting a pair of passive bookshelves, then yes. The plan was to sell my current DAC and monitors and buy an amp and pair of bookshelves.

Can your DAC connect a subwoofer? Cause if you're itching for an upgrade, and you are currently without a sub, that would be my first purchase! And SVS makes some great ones!

The Ultras are a very good speaker, I did some listening with them in my Bookshelf Speaker Shootout in the Write your own review, subsection.

As for receivers, any of the mid to high end offerings of Denon, Yamaha, Marantz are excellent and should only be compared by feature sets. Because you are running 2.1, you will not have any concern (nor should you, IMO) for Atmos/DTS:X and therefore should look for some leftover receivers from a couple years ago that are without that kind of processing. Their inclusion tends to take away from the amp anyway because they have to balance costs somewhere!

 

[br??]

Thanks for your replies! I do indeed have a sub, the SVS SB-2000. Those two Yamaha receivers I mentioned seem to meet all my criteria - how would you choose between the two?

 

[TheWarrior]

Thanks for your replies! I do indeed have a sub, the SVS SB-2000. Those two Yamaha receivers I mentioned seem to meet all my criteria - how would you choose between the two?

Buy a multi-channel receiver instead. $500 US is too much to pay to only get two channels of amplification! Unless you are absolutely certain you'll never need surround sound, buy it so it remains relevant!

 

[br??]

Looking at the similarly priced Yamaha RX-V679, it's just so unbelievably bloated with features - surely this comes with some drawbacks to other aspects compared to an equally-priced receiver with only two channels? It will be a long time before I even start to venture into surround sound. A good pair of towers will likely be the next upgrade, perhaps years down the track.

Am I right in saying that by the time I get into surround sound there'll probably be a new iteration of DTS or something, making my purchase now irrelevant anyway? I guess this would be even more of a factor when buying an older generation receiver.

Considering I'll be using it exclusively for 2.1 for the foreseeable future, I'd rather neglect the possibility of surround sound in favour of improved stereo performance if that's how it works.

 

[fmw]

Looking at the similarly priced Yamaha RX-V679, it's just so unbelievably bloated with features - surely this comes with some drawbacks to other aspects compared to an equally-priced receiver with only two channels?

Not at all. The reason AV receivers are so cheap because of economies of scale. Two channel receivers and integrateds are on the verge of obsolescence sell a tiny fraction of the units sold of AV receivers. You don't really lose anything in terms of quality or sound with the AV receivers. They are top for overall value.

 

[br??]

Hmmmm. While I don't doubt there is truth to what you're saying (& I thank you for your insight), I find it hard to believe that there are no advantages to going for a purely two-channel receiver. I don't need any of the features of an A/V receiver or any of the extra channels and would feel kinda weird buying one, but at the same time I don't want to waste my money.

 

[markw]

If you choose, you can use a multi-channel receiver in stereo mode but you cannot use a stereo receiver in multi-channel mode.

If you're absotively, posilutely you'll NEVER want to grow your system intl a home thearer,t her are a few nice two channels being made. Marantz, Denon, Yamaha and Onkyo spring immediately to mind.

 

[fmw]

Hmmmm. While I don't doubt there is truth to what you're saying (& I thank you for your insight), I find it hard to believe that there are no advantages to going for a purely two-channel receiver. I don't need any of the features of an A/V receiver or any of the extra channels and would feel kinda weird buying one, but at the same time I don't want to waste my money.

It is your money to spend as you see fit. I simply answered your question.

 

[PENG]

Hmmmm. While I don't doubt there is truth to what you're saying (& I thank you for your insight), I find it hard to believe that there are no advantages to going for a purely two-channel receiver. I don't need any of the features of an A/V receiver or any of the extra channels and would feel kinda weird buying one, but at the same time I don't want to waste my money.

I agree it does seem kinda weird, but true.., the best two channel receiver tend to be a multichannel AVR.

 

[Latent]

Yeah you would think a straight stereo receiver/amp would be better than a multi-channel box of tricks. At the very high end this is probably very true. However if price/performance is important then they are at a disadvantage due to the limited demand for such products.

There are a few things to consider though. multi-channel AVR's like the RX-V679 you mention have built in support for bi-amping the mains which can be fun to try out if your speakers support it. Another advantage is they come with often good quality high resolution DAC's and you can feed them up to 192kHz/24bit stereo over HDMI from your PC. Also have the advantage that if you add a spinning disk device of some kind it just plugs in with a no loss HDMI cable cheaply as well and you don't have to spend too much on the player. Other features you may still used in 2.1 mode is room correction to help with bass integration and leveling your system. All the new streaming tech built in may be useful as well as we move slowly away from dedicated PC's and to more mobile devices.

There are a few downsides though. Often units like this have no analog bypass option (some of the older units you can pick up cheaper second hand etc may have this option though). This means that if you use an expensive external DAC you may just be throwing its quality in the bin as the audio gets feed from your PC to your DAC/soundcard then in via RCA and then goes though a A/D Converter then through the DSP's, out the built in DAC's, then the integrated AMP and to your speakers. The RX-V679 has some options like "pure direct" mode where it bypasses the DSP's so the audio remains as clean as possible and turns off some unneeded sections to reduce noise from interference. But this is the best it can do. Older units had an analog path with old school tone/balance controls similar to what you get in a stereo only unit. You can avoid all these downsides if you get a unit with good built in DAC's and feed only digital sources in the best quality you can.

The other issue is keeping up with the Joneses with regard to all the video/audio tech like HDMI 2.0a and DTS:X etc. But in reality this is only important if you want to connect the latest greatest Technology to your device like SUHD 10-bit color curved TV's and expect it to handle every feature because you are a new Tech Junky. My old 15 year old Receiver did DD and DTS 5.1 and if you connect it up today with any brand new Blu-ray release it would still work just as well as the day it was released. My current receiver is 5 years old and it passes though 3D 1080P signals and handles all but the latest height channel mixes or 4k TV's. But the thing is things are always backwards compatible so a DTS:X encoded disk of today will still work fine as DTS-Master audio but without the height info and it will convert down to compressed DTS 5.1 if needed or stereo if you had a 20 year old unit. For this reason it would be fine if you found a second hand or old model unit for half the price for the same performance amplification if you are not going to want 4k HDR DTS:X type tech

 

[br??]

There are so many options, and far too many people either side of the fence. The Yamaha RX-V579 looks pretty much the same as the RX-V679, just without as many bells and whistles for $300 less. This would be great if there was a consensus on how the thing sounded - everyone seems to have a different opinion.

Sound quality is the top priority for me but also the hardest thing to ascertain, especially when you have no experience in the AVR market. If anyone would like to just throw some model numbers at me that would be greatly appreciated, because this is getting far more complicated than I was prepared for.

 

[Latent]

RX-V579 has 10w less power and a few pointless video conversion features missing as well. Also the pure direct mode is not included on this model but it has a more limited equivalent called direct.

I still haven't figured out if these newer units have a full analog path when in pure direct mode like some of the older units did. Some say they all support analog and some think its model dependent.

Really you are free to choose stereo or multi-channel receiver as both will probably provide similar levels of sound quality per $. Stereo units have less features etc but that doesn't turn into a price saving which is why some people may try and get you to look at multi-channel units instead because they are seen as a better deal. If you only want stereo and the price is around the same then you may have less regrets going that way.

 

[br??]

Hmm... I think I can agree that a full-blown A/V receiver is the way to go, even though it's a bit counterintuitive. Looking at the 2015 buying guide, Audioholics loved the Sony STR-DN1040, but I couldn't really get one locally. I like the idea of getting an older A/V receiver with fewer bells and whistles, so I did some digging and found a second-hand Yamaha RX-V757 for $300 AUD. From what I can tell this seems like a pretty good deal and would suit my situation quite well. Would this be a good buy?

 

[PENG]

Hmm... I think I can agree that a full-blown A/V receiver is the way to go, even though it's a bit counterintuitive. Looking at the 2015 buying guide, Audioholics loved the Sony STR-DN1040, but I couldn't really get one locally. I like the idea of getting an older A/V receiver with fewer bells and whistles, so I did some digging and found a second-hand Yamaha RX-V757 for $300 AUD. From what I can tell this seems like a pretty good deal and would suit my situation quite well. Would this be a good buy?

Would you not consider Denon and Marantz products, such as the X3100W and SR5009?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00KONGJOO/ref=sr_1_cc_1_olp?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1452955767&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=denon+x3100w&condition=new

http://www.amazon.com/Marantz-Refurbished-Network-Theater-Receiver/dp/B013X0VG2Y/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1452955893&sr=1-2&keywords=marantz+sr5009

The Yamaha is good too but I think D&M's Audyssey XT can probably do a better job with your subwoofer.