Receiver comparison, Am I crazy?

Bill H

To day I compaired 3 receivers. A Denon 2803, 3803 and an Onkyo TX-SR501. I had the Onkyo in there because that is what I have now. I listened to a Pair of Polk RTi8's with out a sub. I tried to set all receivers to the same loudness by ear as I forgot to bring my Radio Shack SPL meter. They all sounded just about the same, but the Onkyo was just a tad brighter. If I turned the treble on the Onkyo down 2 dB they sounded the same to me.

Am I crazy, or is it because of all the switch boxes (there were 2 of them in line) that I could not tell much differance? The Onkyo would turn itself off sometimes and when I turned it back on some CD Mega Changer would turn on and make sounds like it were looking for a disk to play (this was not what I was using for the source). If there was nothing playing and I turned up the volume on the 2803 I heard a hum, (ground loop?). I'm guessing they all would of done this, but I only turned up the 2803 to see what the volume range was.

Should the Denton's blow the Onkyo out of the water? I do like the sound of my Onkyo, but it seems to get bright on my RTi70's when I crank up the tunes.

I'm looking for a receiver that will do 7.1 as my Onkyo is only 5.1 (it's a 500 not a 501) and since I bought the RTi70's I have a set of RTi38's doing nothing. I'm thinking Denton 2803 or Yamaha 1400 and the Onkyo 601, 701 are just to deep to fit, but there is nowhere within in 4 hours of me I can go listen to a Yamaha.

What would you do?

Thanks, Bill

PolkWannabie

Get a different rack ?

Just a thought ...

As far as the Onkyo's go, the 501, 601 & 701 are all 6.1 AFAIK, to get 7.1 you'd need the 801

F1nut

One probable reason your Oinker sounds bright when cranked is that it has run out of steam, another reason could be your source isn't up to the task and yet another reason could be that your gear/speakers are not a good match.

As for all three receivers having close sound levels. It's most likely because they are all pretty close in rated power. Example, the sound levels between a 100wpc and a 150wpc are going to be very small.

Was it a hum or a hiss that you heard?

Bill H

F1nut, I'm not talking about volume between the receivers, I'm talking about the way they sound tone wise. They all seemed the same just that the Onkyo sounded just a little brighter. Shouldnt I be able to hear a bigger differance between them?
It was Hum not Hiss. Maybe a 60 Hz hum? They have all those receivers tied togeather with the switch boxes.

Bill

shack

If you were able to listen to all of the three in the same store then chances are that the source went though a switch box to the receivers, then the signal goes out to another switch box and then to the speakers. no telling what the quality of the inteconnects and cables are. By the time it gets to the speakers the signal is probably degraded to the point that no one unit will sound better than another. That is why it is so difficult to demo anything in mass market stores. It's hard enough to get a good demo in a specialty shop so you know it's nearly impossble in the larger stores.

Having said that...**IMO**...the SQ difference in most of the mass market receivers of similar quality using similar quality sources and speakers and wires, etc...will be subtle at best. Different?...maybe...but not night and day...even under optimal conditions. Most of the differences people hear are from setup, room, perceptions, and so forth. Some may disagree...