Receiver as a processor question

[bornagain83]

Just wanted some feedback. Ive been using an AVR for years and just recently got a separate power amplifer as I’ve changed to 4ohm speakers. I have 2 older receivers(Pioneer elite VSX-92 and Arcam AVR-400) I could use as the processor and was wondering if there would be any benefit from using one over the other? I know they both are old, but I don’t have anything beyond DTS-HD or Dolby trueHD regardless and I’ve never had any desire to go the atmos route. I’m not really smart to the whole separates thing as you can probably tell . I appreciate any responses

just for clarification. The power amp is 5 Channels and all five are being driven by that amp, the receivers in question will be doing nothing but processing.

 

[TLS Guy]

Just wanted some feedback. Ive been using an AVR for years and just recently got a separate power amplifer as I’ve changed to 4ohm speakers. I have 2 older receivers(Pioneer elite VSX-92 and Arcam AVR-400) I could use as the processor and was wondering if there would be any benefit from using one over the other? I know they both are old, but I don’t have anything beyond DTS-HD or Dolby trueHD regardless and I’ve never had any desire to go the atmos route. I’m not really smart to the whole separates thing as you can probably tell . I appreciate any responses

just for clarification. The power amp is 5 Channels and all five are being driven by that amp, the receivers in question will be doing nothing but processing.

I would say the Pioneer is your best bet. Those older Pioneers were quite well thought of. It is more powerful but the older of the two by two years.

The Arcam seems to be known for quite a few problems.

So, one unit is 16 years old and the other 14 years old. The life of receivers seems to be about 15 to 20 years, so both are nearing expected end of life. However results vary, but don't be surprised of those units fail in the next few years.

So, you might be looking at a replacement before long. Now you have that amp, you could also include an AV preamplifier.

 

[dolynick]

If you're content with the current feature level of audio and video throughput of the receivers it should be fine. The voltage output capabilites on the pre-outs can be a concern with some but finding data on that for old units might be difficult.

 

[lovinthehd]

What amp did you get? I'd probably tend towards the Pioneer myself.

 

[Trebdp83]

Just wanted some feedback. Ive been using an AVR for years and just recently got a separate power amplifer as I’ve changed to 4ohm speakers. I have 2 older receivers(Pioneer elite VSX-92 and Arcam AVR-400) I could use as the processor and was wondering if there would be any benefit from using one over the other? I know they both are old, but I don’t have anything beyond DTS-HD or Dolby trueHD regardless and I’ve never had any desire to go the atmos route. I’m not really smart to the whole separates thing as you can probably tell . I appreciate any responses

just for clarification. The power amp is 5 Channels and all five are being driven by that amp, the receivers in question will be doing nothing but processing.

Will you be connecting the system to a newer Smart 4K TV? What kind of audio/video devices will be used in the system? The Pioneer supports HDMI 1.3 and the Arcam HDMI 1.4 which includes support for ARC(Audio Return Channel.)

Without ARC, an optical connection from any TV will be required if using a newer model’s Smart apps or for any devices connected directly to it. This will limit audio output to DD 5.1.

Using ARC, audio signals will be expanded to DD+ 7.1, but not Atmos/DD+ as Atmos metadata will not be supported here. The HDMI-CEC and ARC feature combo of the ARCAM will allow it to switch to the TV input source and output audio from the TV when using the tuner, devices connected directly to it or Smart apps if so equipped. HDMI-CEC must be ON to use ARC and some find it very troublesome and go with an optical connection.

While DD+ will be supported over ARC, DTHD, DTSHD-MA and MULTICHANNEL PCM signals will not be supported as they all exceed the bandwidth limitations of ARC and require eARC being supported at both ends. Some new TVs can re encode signals for output over eARC to ARC but this can result in audio sync issues.