I have been over this ground before.
The problem is receivers period, especially at the price people want to pay.
This touches on how the perception and expectations of quality has really decreased over the past half century or so. From print, to television, to equipment, to....well, yeah...music. The problem with quality is that most people don't want to pay for it, and to develop it is expensive!
Bose is a bad word around here, but what Bose figured out that made them a brand was that people were more interested in tiny packaging and that they could take lots cuts in sound quality as long as it sounded (and looked) 'good' to a consumer. So, use some cheap drivers with fatiguing highs to have it sound 'clear' and bloat a bass 'module' to make some rumbling noise...and that's 'good' to people. That the bass is one noted and distorted makes no difference to most.
It's kind of like I buy cheap jeans rather than Armani. The Armani might seem like a 'rip off' to me, but really I look like a schmuck and the guy in Armani looks stylish, well-fitted, clean and pleasing to the eye. To me, they are 'jeans' and they work...to the guy into fashion its more than that...it's style, it's well-stitched, it's designed by very good designers, etc.
It seems like I'm getting off topic, but its really the answer to your question, I believe.
We are in the era of narrow fronted cabinets, and so the speakers to be any good (not sound thin and puny) need diffraction compensation. For most speakers that means a boost of 12 db per octave starting around 600 Hz.
With a passive crossover the only way to do that is to drop the impedance so the speaker can draw more power, and a lot more power, as the frequency drops.
You won't get that kind of amplification at the price and space available in most receivers.
Class D amplification is an option, but those amps tend to perform poorly with passive crossovers. Those amps work much better as part of an active speaker system, like the Hypex modules.
So the options to make a load easy for a receiver are: -
1.) Return to wide fronted speakers. (poor imaging and multiple reflections spoiling the frequency response).
2.) If you pick a receiver use on or in walls, as they don't require diffraction compensation. Same problems as 1 above.
3). Use good external amplification and at the same time increase market share of pre/pros. They obviously ought to cost less than the equivalent receiver. For Marantz that is now so, and a step in the right direction.
4). Development of more numerous and affordable active speakers. This is by far the best solution to the problem. This should eventually lead to the phase out of the receiver which should happen sooner rather than later. Then the market will be entirely pre/pro and and cheaper than receivers. I also think active speakers could be highly competitive. A decent passive crossover is expensive, and the cheap components on most speakers severely limit their performance. Good active crossovers can be made cheaper than good and probably even poor passive ones. Class D modular amps can be made inexpensively and have a good track record when designed as a unit with a loudspeaker driver.
There are good reasons why I have never been a receiver fan boy. If people realized how much a receiver plus speakers with passive crossovers limit the performance of their systems, they would be demanding change within the industry.
As an aside anyone who puts speaker cable in a wall without putting it in conduit is asking for trouble. The day of change will surely come and those speaker cables will be useless.
I think one reason why active speakers have stayed largely out of home theaters is also the requirement of having power cords to all the speakers. Speaker cables are pretty easy to tuck under carpet, fish through walls, and so forth, but installing power outlets is above most peoples desires, skillsets or budgets. Also, a lot of the moderately priced active speakers aren't really post crossover amplified, they are just regular speakers with plate amps.
Just to update the current status: I'll be grabbing the Denon 4311ci for sure, just missing the final setup for the 5.1 speaker system...
@GranteedEV, any recommendation on the JTR speaker models to pick for the 5.1? Do you know if they ship to Europe?
@MidnightSensi2, since I live in a flat, I won't be playing them too loud. Still a move to a house with a dedicated HT room is in the plans for the next couple of years
So, can someone please elaborate on the models for both speakers and sub for around 3-3.5k USD/EUR taking in consideration the 4311 is guaranteed?
Thanks again!
I'm sure JTR ships overseas, it's not really that difficult. Just figure out the duties on your end, if applicable. Remember, with the exchange rate you get a pretty good discount buying in dollars (I was just in Germany, I think it was 1.38E to 1USD or something).
The JTRs are probably way overkill for a flat, but if you plan on moving into a house in the next few years its not a bad idea to buy for that since your not really paying much more. I've always been a sort of 'buy in sections' type of guy. Like, if you got a 1.4HDMI receiver with pre-outs, you could always go the seperates route later on. And if you bought them amps, you can always upgrade your pre-pro. Speakers and amps last a long time (there are some advancements, but, really a good speakers now is like a good speaker from 10 years ago...*shrug*...and certainly amps are), receivers/processors date themselves quicker.
I'd go a little cheaper on the TV, since if you do a dedicated HT in your new house you're TV will either be in a bedroom or on eBay in exchange for a current projector.
Another thing you could do is buy some smaller nice speakers for your flat, and then use it in your bedroom of the new house when you move into the house and buy all new for your dedicated home theater.
In a nutshell: With audio/video gear, plan ahead and build piece by piece. Enjoy each bit as you get it and make it more of a process than an all out buying spree. If you look at most of the people with quality gear on here, it was acquired not by a giant budget but rather bits and pieces and lots of careful shopping and planning.
