I just sold my Paraound preamp and am looking for a receiver to replace it, while providing a path for more home theater functions as time goes by. My speakers are 4ohm, with pretty good sensitivity at 90db. I still have my Harmon Kardon Citation 24 amp from the late 80s, which produces 100 watts per channel of pretty good power, so I could use it if I needed to power the front channels, but I wonder if I could get better sound if I just use a receiver's internal amplification. I'd like to spend around $1000, so the Yamaha 2400 and Denon 3805 are my obvious first thoughts. I see that the Denon's rated THD increases dramatically from 8ohms to 6ohms, so while it won't shut down, it may not sound great either compared to driving my speakers. I really like my PSB silvers and won't change them, btw, some believe they are slightly "warm" in tone.
Does anyone know whether bi-wiring the Denon 3805 would have the effect of reducing the amp's load, potentially reducing THD when powering a 4 ohm speaker? I haven't heard comments about sound quality before and after performing the bi-wiring trick. More quantity is obvious, more watts vs. my dedicated amp, but what about quality and current?
I anticipate mostly 2 channel operation for the next 5 years. Which receiver would perform best at handling 2 channel pre-amp operations, functioning as a D/A converter, etc., if I decided to use external amplification for my main channels?
Key questions:
Any $1000 receiver competitive in powering 4ohm speakers vs my existing old dedicated amp?
Which performs better as a pre-amp for 2 channel mode, while also being good for multichannel down the road?
Thanks for any thoughts.
