Ok so not going to buy used for sure. I might be willing to buy renewed/refurbished if they come with a good warranty?
Could a few of you with strong opinions on brand give me a rundown of overall brands to avoid right now? Likewise what brands are typically regarded as a good bet? And in my budget am I really going to find anything that blows the others out of the water? If everything at this price point is relatively similar then maybe I can stop stressing about this decision and just pull the trigger on something. I keep reading reviews that seem to trash pretty much every brand. As noted I don’t want to spend more than $350 max. I see some good deals on accessories4less and they seem to be trusted?
Any suggestions/input/advice?
One of my avrs I bought used quite a few years ago, a Denon 3808 (here on AH classifieds) that still does very nicely for my use (for my garage/workshop, a 7.3 setup mostly music but some video on an old 720P set). Th,at was $200 plus shipping. I see on our local craigslist basic avrs at reasonable prices and that's for a relatively small metro area (Eugene OR), when newer tech comes out sometimes you can get a very good unit but perhaps without something like HDMI 2.1 or other newest features.
Personally I'd stick to the major brands like Denon/Marantz, Yamaha, Sony and perhaps Onkyo/Integra/Pioneer. (I say perhaps because it wasn't long ago Onkyo was in serious trouble and they got bailed out by Voxx, but so far Voxx seems to be going forward).
I bought a Denon 4520 refurb from A4L and it failed, replaced it with another and that one failed (and just beyond the 30 days but A4L treated it as if it happened within the 30 day period in their terms)....they happened to have a new unit also so I bought that as was getting tired of setting it up and tearing it down (and using a spare while waiting for shipping). I've had good buying experiences there but the refurbs have particular warranties (sometimes factory, sometimes 3rd party) and can vary in length (usually at least one year manufacturer's warranty). Also terms of sale are particular when it comes to returns, so acquaint yourself with them if going that route.