out of curiosity, ace did you recently sell your monitor 7's? ..because i recently bought some. if so, what a coincidence. i just noticed the same user names. haha, i guess i came to the right place
Yup, just recently sold off my Monitor 7s, CC-370 V3s and Cinema ADP V3s. I've had the Monitors since 1997 and they have served me well. Originally I got an LCR-350 (to save money off of buying an CC-350), but sold that one back in 2002. That was when I had a planned trip up to visit relatives in Canada, the US dollar was really strong and it seemed that Canadian dealers sold Paradigm speakers at much better prices than my local dealer. So I picked up my CC-370 V3 that year and lugged it back with me. I used to have Polk Audio surrounds, but last year I decided to try Paradigm's Monitor Cinema series surrounds and that's where the Cinema ADPs came from.
Now I've upgraded to Monitor 9 V6s, CC-290 V6 (the CC-390 is huge and doesn't fit on my TV stand) and ADP-390 V5s. As LOTR would tell you, Paradigm speakers are awesome and I'm sure you know by now. I also upgraded from a very good Denon AVR-3808ci to an awesome Pioneer Elite SC-07. Having just used those Monitor 7s with a Denon, I myself wouldn't recommend it. I will say that Denon makes excellent receivers, but my own personal experience with them is that unless you're using speakers that produce lots of mid-bass and low bass, the sound will seem "thin". Of course I expect to be flamed by that statement, but it is my honest experience with various brands of receivers that give me my point of view. Bob (LOTR) said it best in his post about the sound of the various brands from his perspective and I agree with him on the ones that we both tried.
Having just recently upgraded to a Pioneer Elite SC-07...yeah I love it and I'm very happy that I went back to Pioneer. Though keep in mind that we all hear/perceive things differently and what sounds good to me may not necessarily sound good to you. With that said, I and many others honestly believe that different receiver brands and their amplifiers do have different sound characteristics to them. The big debate and arguement by those who strictly go by science, statistics, recorded numbers, facts, etc., is that they think any perceivable sound difference in such things is purely psychological. While I surely take the science into consideration, I mainly go by what my senses tell me. I'm not sure how many receivers/amplifiers you've gone through yourself, but I know having gone through so many myself that I've gotten a fairly keen sense of what the different brands sound like. I think I mentioned this before in that the only Denon receiver I had that I really loved was my AVR-4800 back in 2000/2001. That unit was a beast and had nice and beefy amplifier section. In 2002 when I upgraded (downgraded) to the a Denon AVR-3802 for newer features such as Dolby Pro Logic II, I noticed the sound quality took slight a hit and I simply accepted it as going from a 4000 series to a 3000 series. Sadly, even the Denon 4000 series nowadays don't have the beefy amps that they used to and the 5000 series are out of my price range. Just rewinding a bit, when I tried to play 2-channel stereo music from my CD player with the 3808, it sounded clear and crisp but was missing mid-low and low end dynamics (cranking up the tone bass settings helps, but only a little...and the fact that you shouldn't need to crank them up in my opinion). With the SC-07, right out of the box my CDs sounded awesome and that was before I even calibrated it. To me that just speaks volumes about the way Pioneer implements the electronics that control the amplifiers. Sure you can debate until the world ends if different amplifiers sound different, but I know it's not necessarily just about the amplifer and also the electronics and programming used to implement it. Also, the ICEpower amps of the SC-07 are awesome and the unit doesn't run hot for me.
As for overheating issues, Onkyos will work fine if where you're going to use the receiver is open (in other words not inside a cabinet). I think they've worked on that issues in the last couple years and so I don't think it's that big a deal now. If you want to go Denon, that's fine as they do make excellent audio video products. But if there's any chance you could buy them from a store with a fairly liberal return policy, I suggest you do if only for the chance to try out different receivers with your speakers to see which one you like. From my experiences with going to places like Best Buy (well they're the only one left now that Circuit City is gone), it shouldn't be an issue to return something like a receiver if you don't like it. Best Buy/Magnolia carries Pioneer, Yamaha, Denon among other brands. Sadly, Onkyo never made it to best buy and was usually found at Circuit City. You might want to also look at a Yamaha RX-V665 that's in the $500 price range. Anyway, I think I've written a ton for this post. But yeah, try out as many things as possible before you settle is what I think.
