Method said:
Oh I definitely enjoy the research. I stopped by sound Advice yesterday to see my boy and to order a BDI Furniture piece (Avion 8529). Wound up sticking around for 2 1/2 hours. First, sat in a viewing room and caught some parts of Star Wars III - Revenge of The Sith on a new Yammy Projector and a $25K+ Martin Logan sound package...Je-sus.
We shot the sh!t for a while...listened to a bunch of Focal speakers...the Elektra line (which I have since kinda fallen for) and the Profiles (which makes more sense for me...kind of...economically).
Also looked at all the aforementioned receivers in this thread, and finally, my guy suggested me doing what he did when he was "starting out" on higher end home audio/video. He suggested forgetting all about an A/V receiver..."Why spend that kind of money on something you are going to throw away"..."Throw away?", I said. "Yeah, new technologies are developed so frequently that you'll always be upgrading?", he replied. What he suggested I do is get the Krell KAV-400xi (amp/preamp), and a pair of front speakers (he suggested starting out with the Profiles, I would try and snag the Elektras).
I know that Sound Advice has that program where anything, at least speakers, you buy there can later be up0graded through them, making additional upgrades considerably cheaper. That did not come up in conversation last night, but in previous bullsh!t sessions (he was telling me how he was able to obtain some of the high quality pie3ces he has).
Im embarassed to say that I am not as well versed in all of this sh!t as most of you guys. I'm a smart guy who loves to read about things that interest me, which is why I can dig into reviews of equipment here and have an idea of what models to consider, but I am not sure I fully understand the difference between getting an amp/preamp as opposed to an A/V receiver. He told me I can hook a CD and DVD player right up to the amps (I think that's what he said). I guess I would need some kind of processor (to process 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 dolby surround, right?).
I guess this is an entirely new thread, but again, any/all feedback would be appreciated from the resident audioholics.
Thx.
JB
The difference between getting a receiver versus a separate processor, preamplifier, and power amplifiers is the number of boxes you have on your shelves. The electronics inside are what count, and most good receivers these days have extremely good preamplifiers and processors in them, often with newer and better processors than in separates, and they usually sell for less money than the separate preamp/processors. This is largely due to mass production, as receivers are made on such a grand scale that one typically pays next to nothing per unit for product development, and they also have the savings in the manufacturing process as well. If you go with separates, you will almost certainly end up spending much more money, and have less processing capabilities than if you bought a receiver.
There are those who will tell you about how one thing sounds better than another, but these claims often are not replicated in properly controlled tests. That is, there is no reason to suppose that anything more than the power of suggestion and other such influences are involved in many instances when someone claims one piece of electronic equipment sounds better than the other, as they typically fail to distinguish between them when the equipment is level matched and they listen in a double blind test (i.e., where neither they, nor the person switching in the room with them, know which is which). Often, when people see what they are listening to, they pick what LOOKS more impressive as what sounds more impressive, even if they are not actually audibly different. In fact, tests have been done where some golden eared audiophiles are told that a change is made that they think is important, but no change is actually made, and yet they often swear they hear the difference!
Audio is subject to pseudoscience and superstition as much as anything else, so beware of the claims that people make.
But, you should not simply take my word for this here, but read up on the subject for yourself, from a variety of sources (you are able to use a search engine, right?) and think carefully before someone suckers you out of your money (even though in your case you can afford to be suckered out of a few grand).
Let me just add that often manufacturers choose to put their best amplifiers into separate boxes, and one is then often paying for something that is objectively better. However, often the way in which the amplifier is better is a matter of more power and the ability to deal with low impedance speakers, so that, in many instances, being "better" makes no practical difference (e.g., when one does not have low impedance speakers, and when the receiver is powerful enough to play one's speakers in one's room as loud as one ever wants to hear).
