Which receiver that came out 2014 is recommended?

[henry001]

Hello Everybody
I am aware of my question being so banal and probably everyone gets tired of this sort of enquiries, but since I have very limited knowledge with regards to AV equipment, please put up with me and I appreciate if you give me some ideas.

Current setup is consists of;
Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR 607 7.2 90 watts per channel
Blu ray player: Oppo BDP-83
Speakers: KEF Q Series 5.1 (2 Q900s/2 Q300s/1 Q200 C/1 Q400)

I am pretty satisfied with the current setup. As far as movies go, I am not so fanatic about the perfect surrounding sounds or special effects, and the current setup is plenty enough for me, except that for some movies, I feel the center channel is relatively weak for listening to dialogues as compared with the sound effects. Often I have to use “All channel” effects in order to bump up the volume of dialogues.

However when it comes to music, it is a different story. The sound is pretty satisfactory as long as I am listening to smaller jazz band, chamber music or orchestral pieces of smaller scale. However, when listening to some symphonies (sound scale from relatively quiet to very loud) are totally not acceptable. I just do not hear quieter sound, then it is too loud when it changes the tone. I feel as if overall sound scale is lopsided either due to my setup or the current incapable receiver.

Currently I am thinking about purchasing a receiver with more power, such as;
Onkyo TX-NR 838 7.2 130Watts per channel
Marantz SR 7009 9.2 125 Watts per channel
Pioneer Elite SC-89 9.2 140 Watts per channel

All of them have Atmos Dolby and 4K/60 Hz-Capable HDMI terminals since they are the latest models. But I do not have any intention of setting up more speakers, so I believe 9.2 is overkill for me. Onkyo 838 has a capability of attaching an external amplifier as shown here though I am not sure if I do so later on, (please see Audioholics web site I can not list the links yet)
And 838 has a good review at; (please see sound and vision web site)

On the other hand, Pioneer has Class D3 amp in it and makes me wonder…
On the sound quality wise (I listen to jazz and classical most of the time), I wonder which receiver would be ideal, and if I purchase Onkyo, and I am not satisfied with the sound, which amplifier can be a candidate?

Any suggestion is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Henry

 

[markw]

If you're thinking more watts will cure your problems, it won't The "loudness" difference between what you have now and the receivers you're looking at isn't as much as the numbers would indicate. You're looking at maybe a 1 - 1.5 decibel increase, which id barely perceptible.

Your speakers, while nice overall, might be a bit "polite" for your tastes.

Do you have a subwoofer?

 

[lsiberian]

Okay so you are wanting to go form 19.5 dBW to 21.4 dBW?

You need at least 3 dBW before it's even worth thinking about and that's still not much of a boost.

Obviously this plan is not scientifically sound. I mean 1.9 dBW is nothing worth spending money on. I'm surprised the KEF R200 has issues as a center. It's a top notch Center from what I've heard. I suspect something is wrong with your speaker setup that is not related to the speakers or receiver. Please review some of the articles on speaker placement and see if we can't figure out the real issue.

 

[zieglj01]

It is more the speakers than anything else.

 

[henry001]

So what you guys are saying is that it is not worth upgrading my receiver at all from 90watts to 125 or 130 watts capable one because it is not perceptible to my ears after all and loudness has nothing to do with the quality of sound?

I set up the speakers as it was indicated in the manual, and there is no way to make any mistake unless I plugged into a different output, which is most unlikely (for the center speaker issue particularly).

 

[Carl06c6]

Not sure if i totaly agree on the receivers not making a diff...... I do think you should add yamaha to your list if you do go with a receiver..
I currently went budget on my upgrade from a 1999 kenwood Vr-209.. to a yamaha HTR-3066.. SOUND IS MUCH cleaner,AND here notes i was missing with older RECEIVER.. New yamaha is rated at only 80 watts at 8 ohm's two channel driven 20hz.-- And my older kenwood was 100 watts ... And tho sound is better, i feel i would be that much happier if new receiver had 100 watts min....

If you did go receiver and it helped the sound issue ,, i would say it wasnt the watts, it was your old receiver...

 

[henry001]

Thanks for the different opinion Carl.

 

[zieglj01]

So what you guys are saying is that it is not worth upgrading my receiver at all from 90watts to 125 or 130 watts capable one because it is not perceptible to my ears after all and loudness has nothing to do with the quality of sound?

You can try a new receiver - however with the new one, make sure it is capable
to handle 4 ohms - your speakers do dip down in impedance, and it has been
recommended to drive them with a nice 4 ohm capable receiver or amp.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-q900-loudspeaker-measurements

That would be the real key more than so called watts - since you seem to want
power, then get a receiver with pre-outs so you can add an amp in the future, if
you do feel you need to do so - one that would have some high wattage

With KEF on the center - I would look at the Q600
http://www.kefdirect.com/q600c-centre-channel.html

 

[zieglj01]

duplicate erased

 

[henry001]

Thanks Zieglj01 for your advice, but how do I know which receiver is capable of nicer 4 ohm capable one? For example, Onkyo has specification as followed;
http://www.onkyousa.com/Products/model.php?m=TX-NR838&class=Receiver&source=prodClass

And I have to admit that I did typo for my center speaker. I do have Q600 instead of Q400.

 

[tyhjaarpa]

Do you need this years model? I myself just purchased Marantz SR7008, last years model, and got it for half the price and it does amazing job to fire my speakers just missing atmos and build in wifi, both features I don't need. Have you tried adding for your center speaker level in receiver settings? This could solve your dialogue problems. Or are the dialogue sounds weak on center and other sounds from center are good?

 

[PENG]

Hello Everybody
I am aware of my question being so banal and probably everyone gets tired of this sort of enquiries, but since I have very limited knowledge with regards to AV equipment, please put up with me and I appreciate if you give me some ideas.

Current setup is consists of;
Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR 607 7.2 90 watts per channel
Blu ray player: Oppo BDP-83
Speakers: KEF Q Series 5.1 (2 Q900s/2 Q300s/1 Q200 C/1 Q400)

That's a nice set up. The SR607 can drive those speakers given the right conditions. As such please provide the following info:

1) Room dimensions in LXWXH
2) How loud do you listen to jazz and classical? I mean the loudest average SPL you typically listen to, best measure it with a SPL meter such as this: http://www.amazon.com/Radio-Shack-Digital-Sound-Level/dp/B000A1EHGW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1416572010&sr=8-3&keywords=sound level meter, or an Apple/Android device app that can do C weighting.
3) Distance from where you sit to the Q900's.

If you cannot or do not want to provide such information then since KEF specify the power requirement for the Q900 is 15 - 200W, I would say go for something like the Denon AVR-4520, Yamaha RX-A3030 (2003 models), or Denon AVR-X5200W, Marantz SR-7009 or Yamaha RX-A3040 (2014 models). All of them have received good reviews (I refer to bench test results only). The Anthem MRX-710 is worth looking at too if you don't need the latest features. None of them are truly 4 ohm rated but I expect them to be capable of producing around 200W into a 4 ohm at 0.1% THD+N. For real world music listening they should be able to drive the Q900 to their full potential performance. All of them have provision for connecting external amplifiers.

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/denon-avr-4520ci-av-receiver-test-bench

http://www.audioholics.com/av-receiver-reviews/denon-avr-x5200w

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/denon-avr-x5200w-av-receiver

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/yamaha-rx-a3020-av-receiver-page-4

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/anthem-mrx-710-av-receiver

 

[PENG]

Not sure if i totaly agree on the receivers not making a diff...... I do think you should add yamaha to your list if you do go with a receiver..
I currently went budget on my upgrade from a 1999 kenwood Vr-209.. to a yamaha HTR-3066.. SOUND IS MUCH cleaner,AND here notes i was missing with older RECEIVER.. New yamaha is rated at only 80 watts at 8 ohm's two channel driven 20hz.-- And my older kenwood was 100 watts ... And tho sound is better, i feel i would be that much happier if new receiver had 100 watts min....

If you did go receiver and it helped the sound issue ,, i would say it wasnt the watts, it was your old receiver...

I highly suspect there is something wrong with your VR-209. You can't compare an "old" (especially low cost entry level models more than 15 years or older) with a much newer unit. Electronics do deteriorate with age, in some cases even if not used.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Two separate issues:
a) Issues with human dialog - this is an extremely common problem with HT. The issue is severe room modes make human voice less clear.
The fixes are two step: Proper room treatments to minimize modes and b) re-run Audyssey setup.
Unfortunately your AVR only supports the least capable flavor - 2EQ - it's the least accurate and doesn't apply to sub at all.
http://www.audyssey.com/technologies/multeq/flavors
Still it's worth to run it for all it's 3 positions with tripod etc...

As for headphones details: Again, I doubt it's the AVR issue, but ether issue with headphones or your own hearing which imo is worth checking with specialist. Try to buy some decent new headphones and see if problem goes away

Getting new AVR is not bad idea, but not for more WATTS but for much better auto-room correction features, like above mentioned denons or cheaper Denon X4000, which features best consumer lever Audyssey level - XT32

 

[henry001]

The distance from center speaker to where I sit is about 8 feet. Yes I was thinking seriously about Marantz 7008 until a few weeks ago, but the latest models have 4K HD compatibility. I really do not care much about Atmos and wifi.

 

[markw]

Getting new AVR is not bad idea, but not for more WATTS but for much better auto-room correction features, like above mentioned denons or cheaper Denon X4000, which features best consumer lever Audyssey level - XT32

This is perhaps the best answer yet.

Also, check into room treatments.

 

[zieglj01]

Thanks Zieglj01 for your advice, but how do I know which receiver is capable of nicer 4 ohm capable one? For example, Onkyo has specification as followed;
http://www.onkyousa.com/Products/model.php?m=TX-NR838&class=Receiver&source=prodClass

And I have to admit that I did typo for my center speaker. I do have Q600 instead of Q400.

The Onkyo and Pioneer ones you listed is 4 ohm certified - which room correction preference you
choose, is up to you - From your list, I would lean to the Pioneer. There are some other options.

Room lay-out does play a big part - and decorative room treatments can help.

 

[zieglj01]

I highly suspect there is something wrong with your VR-209. You can't compare an "old" (especially low cost entry level models more than 15 years or older) with a much newer unit. Electronics do deteriorate with age, in some cases even if not used.

I agree, that receiver may have had or has an issue.

 

[henry001]

Since nobody really recommended Onkyo, and due to Peng’s suggestion, I am more leaning towards Denon AVR X5200W now with Audyssey Platinum speaker/room correction plus 4 ohm capable (not sure if it is certified) and 4K HD ready…

 

[zieglj01]

Since nobody really recommended Onkyo, and due to Peng’s suggestion, I am more leaning towards Denon AVR X5200W now with Audyssey Platinum speaker/room correction plus 4 ohm capable (not sure if it is certified) and 4K HD ready…

I could live with the Onkyo - however the Denon will be fine, and it will drive your speakers

Hope things work out for you.