Good A/V Receiver for Celestion Speakers 5.1

[jazman]

My Harman Kardon AVR85 from 1998 has bit the dust. For some of the reviews of HK I guess my quality was pretty lucky.

I have a complete Celestion speaker package:

Fronts - A3s
Rears - A5r
Center - A4c
Sub W - A6s

Obvioulsy I have 5.1. I am looking for a high quality sound receiver to replace the AVR85. I love good sound, i.e LP quality of depth. There are som many A/V recievers out there.

I do not like complicated equipment. I just want something that delivers great sound for music and movies and is easy to set up and maximize.

Price $400 - $800

Any suggestions

 

[Seth=L]

Welcome to Audioholics Jazman.

I think Onkyo is easy to setup, and they do sound good to me. Is HDMI switching an issue for you?

 

[jazman]

HDMI not high priority

Thanks for the feedback. I was just talking to a sales person who suggested not spending the extra money for HDMI.

He recommended an Insignia 6.6 105 watts per channel. Seemed pretty easy to use and was on sale for $850.

 

[Nuglets]

Thanks for the feedback. I was just talking to a sales person who suggested not spending the extra money for HDMI.

He recommended an Insignia 6.6 105 watts per channel. Seemed pretty easy to use and was on sale for $850.

From my experience sales people have a hard time understanding the needs or wants of the end user and suggest some bogus crap. I'm not saying you need HDMI, but you are the only one to know if you do, because you are the one who could potentially buy a new T.V. that uses HDMI.

For example: I had a sales guy give me a line level adapter and tell me to use it to connect my reciever's speaker level outs to an external amplifier. The line level adapter is rated for a maximum of 35 Watts and it got extremely hot and sounded like garbage. I knew that I needed a reciever with pre-out's, but the sales guy talked me into trying his way so I just ended up buying two things instead of one.

Anyways, get what you need and don't take the sales person's advice as a 100% guarantee. Just take your time, ask questions here, and make sure you get what you want.

 

[jcPanny]

Receiver Options

Never heard of an insignia receiver.
Check out Yamaha, Denon, and Pioneer in your price range. With the new models out, you should be able to get a Yamaha RX-V2600 or 1600 for about $800. It will have HDMI and plenty of power and features.

 

[markw]

This is the only Insignia receive I can think of.

It's only available at BestBuy, and for $150.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7016463&type=product&productCategoryId=cat03031&id=1099394773266

And, since the "Insignia" name seems to be trademarked, I would be very skeptical about this whole thing, and perhaps this thread in general.

 

[Nick250]

If you don't like complicated, take the Denon out of the mix. The user interface is poor on the three Denons I have owned, the manuals too. That being said, I have had zero problems with them and with the 3806 I now have the one thing that is easy is adjusting speaker levels on the fly and I like that.

Nick

 

[Seth=L]

Well a lower end Onkyo is fairly simple to set-up IMO. I have used Yamaha, Pioneer, and Sony receivers and all have some issues in user compatibility. As for the Insignia, there aren't that good. It is a rebadged KLH receiver under BestBuy's in house brand Insignia. Insignia buys what ever they can for cheap and slaps the Insignia logo on it and sells it. I had a KLH receiver and it had a multitude of problems, to many to list, and it didn't sound very good either. A Pioneer, Sony, or even Kenwood would likely be better.

I am sticking with my recommendation on the Onkyo, perhaps the TX-SR504 (highly praised). But please do not get the Insignia receiver. They do distribute some good things but not receivers, they have some pretty sweet speakers for $50 a pair though NS-B2111.

 

[Seth=L]

Thanks for the feedback. I was just talking to a sales person who suggested not spending the extra money for HDMI.

He recommended an Insignia 6.6 105 watts per channel. Seemed pretty easy to use and was on sale for $850.

Is that $850 a typo? I have never seen any Insignia with that big a price tag.