I am not an expert by any means, but I am a tech guy by trade and Ill leave it at that. I have, for the past year, been trying to build 2 media rooms. A large family room and a dedicated theater. S in the last 12 months I have had the chance to do trial and error on 2011 and 2012 products in outfitting each room.
First room I starteed with a Denon 2112 then 2312 and even tried a Onkyo for a short time ( NRxxxx). I ultimately settled on a VSX52. Looks like we were looking around the same price range. Overall, when I plugged in the VSX52, it was very obvious I had a winner. It had the best balance of features and power and build quality. I mean, feel the weight in that thing, you cant deny it weighs considerably more and feels much more solid than the Denons that I checked out. The VSX 52 also had the better App for control. Yu may not care much now, but if yu had to control those recievers and actually used them everyday for airplay and entertaining guests, you will immediately see a diffrence in the quality of life a better App controler can make. BTW, these were to drive 5 InWall 6.5 in Kevlar LCRs and a Hsu VTF2 MK3 Sub. Home theater is awesome and music is ridiculous. I throw house parties and it never seeems to run out of steam as the volume gets louder as the ight progressses.
In the dedicatedtheater room, I upped the ante and went for a next tier model. I started with the Denon 4311, 3313 and Marantz SR7007. I'll cut to the chase, the Denon and Marantz were neck and neck. Sonically, the Marantz had more preouts and better overall musical sound. You really have to pay attention to detail, but it is there. However, I researched thoroughly and decided to stick with the Denon 3312 as I didnt see a point in spending 500$ more n the SR7007 which is basically an identical model to the 3312. A few days later, I started realizing the Denon was almost out of steam as I watched the Avengers. It was powering my B&Ws which were very inefficient speakers compared to my in walls. So I went to BestBuy to return the 3313 for the SR7007 when I came across the SC67. I ignored it earlier due to the 2K price. The guy says, lets price match and see if we can get it down, I humor him and check Amazon. Holy S?!)$. We found it for $1300!!!!. Needless to say, I jumped on that since I was very happy with my previously bought VSX52. I have now had my SC67 for 3 weeks. It feels waaay more powerful then my VSX52 formsure. Sonically, it sounds warmer than the Denon and Marantz on music. But the 3 HDMI outputs, 3 Subwoofer outputs, awesome control App and seemingly liitless power pushing y B&Ws to their limit is totally worth it. On tracks that I knowmtoo well, I can tell the difference between the Marat, Deon and Sc67. But I am cntent with the quality sound I have.Besides, its a dedicated theater so I really need it to ush the soundtrack and low end tones from Call of Duty and The Avengers more than I need it for rocking out. BTW, this was all during the hoifay season so the stores had generous return policies. Trust me I did. Ton of driving back and forth. Althoug I used Best Buys listening room, it is never gonna sound the same in your room. Best yu can do there is compare different recievers playing the same track so you cantell the difference from each reciever, knowing fully still, that it wont sound identical in your own room.
AJ
