AVR Recommendations

Polkie2009

Villian, I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem like there would be enough surround back L+R material or signal to use a pair of the SRT's. Wouldn't they be better applied as front mains in HT?

Gatecrasher

tonyb wrote: »

I was in that boat, not anymore. I found the SRT's to be fantastic on HT, but left me wanting on the musical side.

I'm pretty-satisfied with the way mine sound for both home theater and music. A lot of the video in my HTPC is concert and music-related stuff in addition to about 15 terabytes of FLAC. With the SRTs it's like a front row seat.

New digital recordings are off the wall. Crisp and rock-solid punch.

I don't use my SRTs just to inflict pain on myself like Villain seems to want to do though. I crank it up but not to the point it hurts.... at least not for very long other than to show-off to a friend who wants a demo or something. They will hurt you if you go too far for too long. Sort of like going out to shoot your magnum with no hearing protection. Real bad for you.

That's why I said I'm glad I didn't have something like the SRTs when I was a kid (and didn't know any better) or I would probably be suffering serious hearing loss by now.

villian

Polkie2009 wrote: »

Villian, I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem like there would be enough surround back L+R material or signal to use a pair of the SRT's. Wouldn't they be better applied as front mains in HT?

No, I agree with you. That's why I'm using the RT2000p's in the rear and the SRTs up front. Eventually I would like another set of SRTs for the rear as well though, mostly for multichannel music.

ZLTFUL

villian wrote: »

My biggest concern is actually the structural integrity of the rest of house since it sits on top of my theater (which is in the basement). Vibrations can wreck havoc on anything and everything. As anyone who has a ceiling joist mounted heavy punching bag quickly finds out! I've done a lot of reinforcing, cross bracing, sound deadening, and room treatments just to help prevent what I can. So far so good. Soon I'll be adding another 2 12" DIY subs just for the sub-20hz range too though!

If those things had been done correctly from the very beginning, then you wouldn't have to worry about the structural integrity of anything.
Everything is better when built on the correct, strong foundation...buildings, marriages, meals, companies, literally everything.

Take a look at the truly well constructed theaters at AVS and notice the one thing they have in common...they were built to the purpose of being home theaters. Reinforcing and cross bracing aren't good isolation practices. In fact, they will contribute to more of the audio energy being transferred to the structure which will make your room treatments and deadening significantly less effective.
Isolation via clips and channel, increased mass via double layers of 5/8" drywall and green glue between, these are sound (no pun intended) strategies to keep the sound from being carried throughout the supporting structure.

Anyway, that is all off topic. Back to the topic at hand, Denon X series AVRs with pre-outs are 1.4v. So are the Marantz counterparts. I am fairly certain that all of the Pioneer Elites with pre-outs are as well.

Personal recommendation would be the X4100W as it puts you into Atmos, has dual zones (as well as the main zone), has the pre-out voltage you are looking for and can be had for under $750 new.

F1nut

Gatecrasher wrote: »

I didn't know you owned an SRT system.

I don't. However, I have heard them plenty of times in different places with different gear including AVR's. It's no secret that AVR's are a compromise in sound quality.

Gatecrasher

F1nut wrote: »

Gatecrasher wrote: »

I didn't know you owned an SRT system.

I don't. However, I have heard them plenty of times in different places with different gear including AVR's. It's no secret that AVR's are a compromise in sound quality.

Says you. That's your opinion - not a fact.

You obviously never heard the SC-09TX. It's not your Daddy's AVR.

I'm not saying it beats all separates but it can hold it's own against a lot of them. That's what Pioneer designed it to do.

I may get some external amps down the road but the 1400 watts of ICE power the SC-09TX puts out sounds plenty good with twin SRTs hooked up to it.

tonyb

Gatecrasher wrote: »

F1nut wrote: »

Gatecrasher wrote: »

I didn't know you owned an SRT system.

I don't. However, I have heard them plenty of times in different places with different gear including AVR's. It's no secret that AVR's are a compromise in sound quality.

Says you. That's your opinion - not a fact.

You obviously never heard the SC-09TX. It's not your Daddy's AVR.

I'm not saying it beats all separates but it can hold it's own against a lot of them. That's what Pioneer designed it to do.

I may get some external amps down the road but the 1400 watts of ICE power the SC-09TX puts out sounds plenty good with twin SRTs hooked up to it.

LOL, can't really compare a 7k receiver to todays mediocre offerings. As long as it works for you, rock it. Personally I'd amp them though, not a fan of the ice sound.

Gatecrasher

I like the sound just fine (and so does everyone else who's ever heard the system).

I've been very satisfied with the SC-09TX and have yet to see any bad reviews of it other than the occasional uneducated one like F1 posted.

tonyb

I'd hardly consider F1's response uneducated. He's probably had his ears on more stuff than you or I combined.

Receivers, generally speaking, are a compromised product. Nothing uneducated about that, and that's all he said.

Audio is just a matter of preferences and experiences, I think we all know that by now.

F1nut

I'm fully aware of what AVR you are using. Certainly a cut above, but still a compromise compared to what I've heard drive an SRT system. Save your insults, makes you look foolish.

tonyb

Dude, give it a rest.

villian

ZLTFUL wrote: »

Personal recommendation would be the X4100W as it puts you into Atmos, has dual zones (as well as the main zone), has the pre-out voltage you are looking for and can be had for under $750 new.

Thanks for the recommendation! That's a great looking avr! Tough decisions!

Gatecrasher

tonyb wrote: »

Dude, give it a rest.

lol

Don't make me use it on you too there boy.

fmw

OP, using a home preamp with a pro audio amp simply means that the preamp is unlikely to be able to drive the amp to full output power. That is probably unimportant, however, because we home audio people rarely if ever use full output power. In other words it isn't a meaningful reason to choose an AVR. Concern yourself with the features you want and will use.

tonyb

It's not the full output power we chase, it's the delivery of that stored power for the quick transients in the signal, dynamics, be it HT or music. Restricting voltage is like putting your thumb over the garden hose.

When that happens, most will be inclined to turn up the volume introducing distortion, either clipping the amp, sending the receiver into protect mode, or frying a crossover/tweeter.

Seeing that the OP's habits are on the side of chasing "loud", it's a legitimate concern.

villian

Tony is on the right page, it's like putting your finger over the end of a garden hose. A large part of my concern is also founded on the fact that because I'm driving the pro amps at such a low input voltage, my noise floor sucks. I'm guessing this is because I have to attenuate such a low signal so much higher on the amp side..which is not how proper gain setting works. I'm hoping that a proper input voltage will have a reduced noise floor (Along with the added bonus of being able to properly power the amplifier to it's full potential without having to boost the gain artifically). Here's an example of what I think is going on..but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Current AVR
1.0v output --> Pro amp 1.4v input
--Noise (For example) = 200mv of that 1.0v..so 20% of the signal is noise..

Best setup?
1.4v+ output --> Pro amp 1.4v input
--Noise still 200mv...so now noise has been reduced to 15% of the signal, and the pro-amp has been attenuated down/gain knob reduced to a reasonable level eliminating even more noise?

Better dynamic range and lower noise floor, right? Assuming that the "best setup" includes a preamp/avr with a better signal-to-noise ratio than the current AVR?

tonyb

Your amp is the last in the chain to hit your speakers, pro amps in general are more noisy so there isn't much to do there. If you reduce the gain, your back at square one again.

Noise in the signal at higher volumes, which you like, spells trouble for you and those SRT's.....that's the bottom line, matching voltages or not. Like I said, hope your wallet is pretty forgiving because the path your on is going to cost you down the road. If you want to take that risk, who are we to deny you that luxury, rock on man.

villian

ZLTFUL wrote: »

Personal recommendation would be the X4100W as it puts you into Atmos, has dual zones (as well as the main zone), has the pre-out voltage you are looking for and can be had for under $750 new.

I've been looking at various AVRs and am running into some problems. I have a 7.1.4 Atmos setup installed now (Just finished the .4) and can't find any decent AVRs that support it that I like. What confuses me is that the Denon x4100w has the pre-outs for height 2 speakers, and powers height 1, yet it doesn't state anywhere if it supports Atmos 7.1.4? Any idea? Or did they just make that for their Aura 3D audio crap and leave the Atmos 7.1.4 feature out of that model on purpose? The x5200 on the other hand supports Atmos 7.1.4 but doesn't support DTS X?! What gives. I seriously cannot win. I also can't find anything with a powered zone two and Atmos 7.1.4. Does anyone know of any AVRs with fully assignable amps? This is frustrating because I have externally amps FL, FR, C, SL, and SR speakers. I only need to power the atmos ceiling speakers, zone 2 L&R, and SBL, SBR off the AVR. If I could find a true fully assignable avr then you'd think it could do this..

tonyb

None that I'm aware of. Your fighting a losing battle by chasing software. Every few years they come out with something else, dts-x, atmos, etc. Soon it will be DTS-X 2 or Atmos 2.0, or who knows what. The idea is to get you upgrading and buying new gear every few years. If you don't mind that battle, just keep buying the newest and greatest.

txcoastal1

While at CEDIA I discussed, and demo'ed Atmos and DTS-X with Denon/Marantz. DTS-X was in beta as DTS just recently released the SDK's for DTS-X.
Some models will already have Atmos, some will need to be upgraded via firm ware, and obviously some without. Fewer will be upgradeable with DTS-X till final releases except higher end models i.e. the newly released 7702mkII and the 8802A. Denon/Marantz will work backwards from the top of the line.

Also learned that more than likely DTS-X will probably reign in the future as the protocols are easier to integrate into movies making it more cost effective for the producers....forget about Aura as it is more a Euro format.

The Atmos and DTS-X will both work in same speaker configurations. The configs of 7.1.4 and 5.1.4 are the best configs vs 7.1.2 and 5.1.2.

If your system has the capabilities of Atmos and DTS-X the audio processing then should be able to be set up and recognized by i.e. Audyssey for your config