Polk Rti A7 with Pioneer sc-37

raman

Hi,
My setup includes RTi A7 fronts,CSi A4,ohm's as surrounds,PSW 500 as Subwoofer. I want to upgrade my AVR which is currently Denon 2309(100 watt/channel) to Pioneer SC-37. Will there be a significant jump in performance for movies and music.

Thanks & Regards,
Raman

Toolfan66

The SC-37 is a Fantastic receiver and should be an upgrade to the Denon, with that said have you thought about an external amp?? that IMO would do you more justice then swaping receivers..

raman

Thanks,
I heard that RTi's "sing" when given more power from the Amps.Is that really true?

Raman

quadzilla

What he said. Unless the Denon doesn't have some feature that's a must have for you, then you'd be better served going to the external amp first. Otherwise, yeah, the pioneer is a great AVR, but at 140 watts per channel, isn't going to give that much of a boost in power. 40 extra watts will only give you a little over 1 db increase in volume.

quadzilla

raman wrote: »

Thanks,
I heard that RTi's "sing" when given more power from the Amps.Is that really true?

Raman

All speakers sound better with more power. Well, except the crappy ones.

mdaudioguy

Welcome to Club Polk!
I don't think that particular Denon has pre-outs, so the Pio SC would be a VERY nice choice. Start with that and see what your ears think... You could certainly add an amp later. That Pio is a beefy amp, and I think you will notice an incremental difference.

raman

Thanks for all the replies.
My version of Denon 2309(released in India) has Pre-outs.
I have been hearing in a lot of AVForums that more power would be useful only when we go for higher volumes. But I do personally feel that overall dynamics will change with a more powerful amp(I did not get a chance to hear the speakers with a more powerful amp).
What I am expecting with the upgrade is that the sound will be more beefy
,more attacking and ofcourse with all the details.
If there wont be much difference then I will check out the power amps.
Will power amps give beefy sound at lower volumes?

Thanks,
Raman

jbooker82

Why are you upgrading avr's then? If your doing it for more power then do it right by going external amp. For what you would pay for that avr you could get a really sweet used amp. Look on audiogon. A parasound halo would blow the doors off the pioneer avr. 250 watts, 60 amps per channel, all channels driven.

F1nut

Let's look at few things here. The Denon weighs 12 lbs. and is rated at 100 wpc. I looked very hard for some real world power specs and could only find one that tested the unit using only 2 channels. That and the lack of weight should tell you that with all channels driven, it's no where close to 100 wpc. I'd be surprised if it is more than 50 wpc all channels driven.

The SC-37 weighs 40 lbs., rated at 140 wpc of ICE power. Real world power specs show that with all channels driven it's a shade under the stated 140 wpc.

The obvious conclusion is that the SC-37 will be a major improvement over what you are currently using. Considering that you can buy one new for $1200-$1300, it's a no brainer and you will not need an external power amp.

quadzilla

I find that more power improves the quality of the sound at all volumes. The SC-37 would be a big improvement. And looking at your AVR, you don't have multi-channel pre-amp outs. You only have a VCR and zone 2 pre outs. That means you either do the SC-37, something else, or go to seperates, and get a pre-amp processor and seperate amps/multi-channel amp.

But listen to one first. Not everyone likes the ICE sound, and it doesn't mix well with all speakers. I found that RTi series and ICE to be a less than ideal match, so I'm running external amps on my SC-05. Other people absolutely love it. So it's what you like, not what someone here tells you your should get.

chadam44

Your RTiA7s are similar to my RTi10s, and I went from a Denon 2308 to a Pioneer SC25, and boy what a difference. They sound night and day different, more robust sound than the Denon. Definitely want to listen to the set up first before you drop the funds on a new receiver but in my opinion, it should be a big step up.

Sherardp

If you don't need the 3D, then go for a cheaper SC05/07, SC25/27 or just the SC35. All of these have preouts, so should you decide to go for an amp you can do so with no worries.

Here's an SC-27 for $800.00 so if you can spring it, do it. The Pioneer has awesome clarity/ forward sound. If you find your current speakers "bright" MCACC will allow you to tame those tweeters also. Very nice receiver.

From Videogon:

http://cgi.videogon.com/cgi-bin/cl.pl?rcvr71ch&1314832624&&&/-Pioneer-Elite-SC-27-AV-Receiv

A few new/used models over on Audiogon:

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?miscrcvr&1315337860&/Pioneer-Elite-SC-25-New-Factor

http://www.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?miscrcvr&1315178199&/Pioneer-Elite-SC-25-Sweet-Soun

mantis

F1nut wrote: »

Let's look at few things here. The Denon weighs 12 lbs. and is rated at 100 wpc. I looked very hard for some real world power specs and could only find one that tested the unit using only 2 channels. That and the lack of weight should tell you that with all channels driven, it's no where close to 100 wpc. I'd be surprised if it is more than 50 wpc all channels driven.

The SC-37 weighs 40 lbs., rated at 140 wpc of ICE power. Real world power specs show that with all channels driven it's a shade under the stated 140 wpc.

The obvious conclusion is that the SC-37 will be a major improvement over what you are currently using. Considering that you can buy one new for $1200-$1300, it's a no brainer and you will not need an external power amp.

This is basically what I was going to write.
I will also add that the Denon doesn't not even compare in the same league as the ELite SC model. And yes you do NOT need external amps with this receiver especially with the speakers you have.
I will also add that the sound quality of these SC model receiver rival most entry level separates in sound quality and best out most in connections and features.

raman

My brother bought recently a cheap yamaha HTIB and though it could not come closer to my system w.r.t
expansiveness,details,smoothness, it still had an upfront nature and was more dynamic than denon.
It was noisy and shouty at times but had greater attack and a sense of urgency and loudness (when I was testing iron man ost).
There appears to be a serious problem with denon 2309 with RTi's.It is very sluggish and lacks the attack.
Hope sc-37 would drive Rti's better with more adrenalin pumping attack!

raman

BTW, yamaha was rated 105W/ch and 2309 is 100W/ch.
I am beginning to feel the importance of power!!