which receiver hk vs deon vs pioneer

thuchien

hi all,
i have RTi12 for front speaker, center CSi5, rear LSiFX

i want to buy a recevier and i have a hard time to pick among these three here. I need your help. Please help!
thanks a lot guys


which one you rather have

pioneer elite VSX-72TXV
deon 3805
harman 7300

aaharvel

If you're not going for separates than I recommend the H/K avr-640 or 7300.

If you do go the way of separates (how should I know you didn't specify a price point)get the cheapest denon with pre-outs and an amp to power those behemoths.

welcome to the forums.

audiobliss

Harmon Kardon

thuchien

i can get the receiver for around $1000. but which one give a best sound.
thanks for all reply.

audiobliss

It sounds like you're not going to add an external amplifier to your system, in which case the answer is, no doubt about it, Harmon Kardon.

thuchien

with pioneer and denon they have give an option to bi-amp front speaker and H/K is not. do you think bi-amp will benefit a lot for my H/T

Sami

thuchien wrote:

with pioneer and denon they have give an option to bi-amp front speaker and H/K is not. do you think bi-amp will benefit a lot for my H/T

No, they still share the same power supply so I don't see how "bi-amping" would do any good.

audiobliss

Won't do any good. I did it with the 'A' and 'B' outputs on my Yamaha for a while, but it's pointless.

shack

I'd be real careful about that Deon. If there going to leave out the "N" who knows what other corners they may have cut.

Early B.

Either get the Pioneer Elite and bi-amp the speakers or get a $500 receiver and spend $500 or less on a 200 wpc (or more) 2-channel amp to power those 12's.

audiobliss

Get a $500 receiver like Early said and then get these Outlaw M200 monoblocks from a fellow forum member to power your 12's. Should work great.

http://www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?p=407546#post407546

thuchien

how about i got outlaw 990/7075 the amp is 7 channel. i only use 5 channel so i can use extra 2 channel to bi-amp. do you think that is a good idea. isn't worth to go extra miles for bi-amp my polk speaker.

limashaynut

I love my Denon AVR-3806, it may be a bit out of the budget you have set though. I plan on adding a Adcom or Outlaw amp to the pre-outs for the front two channels in the future. Looking at about 200 wpc, and free up the AVR to just power the SR/SRB and center.

Early B.

Can't go wrong with Outlaw. Don't worry about bi-amping. If you have a good, high powered amp (such as the Outlaw monoblocks in the Flea Market), there is no need to bi-amp.

The 990/7700 (not 7075) combo would be very nice -- just depends on how much $$ you wanna spend. If your budget is $1,000 for a reciever, the best option is to get a lower priced receiver with pre-outs and separate amplification for your fronts. So take audiobliss' advice and buy those Outlaw monoblocks before they're gone!!

aaharvel

don't confuse bi-amping with bi-wiring on a receiver with an extra set of speaker terminals. It means jack squat when in the end everything is still on one power supply.

For $1,000 get a Harman.

FicmanS

Denon get the AVR-3806 though, upgraded from the 3805...

Holydoc

I would highly recommend spending less on the receiver and putting that money into some type of amp for those RTi12's and CSi5. Those RTi12's really open up when you apply power to them. Problem is if you are depending on your receiver to power those speakers, your other speakers will suffer from lack of power thus giving you a very weak sound stage. That is why it would be best to get the best amp you can afford, at least for those front speakers.

I am not going to tell you which receiver or which amp to purchase. The other guys on this board are much smarter and more experienced than me in that area. All I can testify to is that when I added my Outlaw 770 (7x 200wpc) amp to my HT, it came alive with engulfing sound.

gregure

I think the Outlaw idea is the best bang for the buck. The HK 7300 would be the next choice. Denon receivers are horrible, people, I wish you'd hear me on this. They are the most current-limited recievers out there, next to Onkyo, and furthermore, even a Denon at the 3805 level is not capable of stably handling 4 ohm loads, which means youre LSi FX could drive it into protection mode. If you are willing to put the extra $$ into an outlaw setup, that would be the best all around result. Why buy the biggest speaker and then cheap out on the amp? You might as well have bought a bookshelf speaker for all the results you'll get.
1. Outlaw
2. HK 7300
3. Track down a Pioneer Elite VSX56TXi on clearance. This is the only other unit I think has any amount of power, and can easily power 4 ohm loads.
4. Option 2 or 3 and a good two-channel amp for the 12's.

aaharvel

is that the only pioneer with decent current & p.supply Greg? I've never been high on Pioneer either- to me they were somewhere in between Onkyo and Sony and a notch or two below Denon & Marantz.

audiobliss

My vote would still be with a cheaper receiver with a good preamp section (and preouts) and some external amplification. I would vote a Harmon Kardon mated with some Outlaw amps. The M200's would be nice.

thuchien

is h/k realy reliable product?? Since i see a lot of FACTORY REMANUFACTURED receivers on theier website. they sell it for half of origin price.

ND13

Alot of times the remanufactured ones were just part of a recall. Let's say there was a production run of 10,000 units. A retailer like BB buys 1500 of that run and have 50 of those returned for the same issue, but none of the others sold had any problems. Well now let's say Fry's bought 3000 of the same run and had 40 of them returned for the same issue as the ones that BB had returned. Most likely there was a bad part that they purchased from another manufacturer. To keep the retailers and consumers happy, they recall all the unsold units and test, replace the bad part and retest, and retest again. Then they reintroduce the units back on the market as remanufactered units at a reduced price with a warranty. IMO, it's a win win situation for the consumer. I've purchased refurbs on several occasions in electronics and appliances and am yet to have any of them not function as they were intended.

I've owned many HK products over the last 25 years or so and have been more than pleased with the performance and quality of their products. That's not to say that they are as good as they once were, but are still as good as it gets in that price point.

reeltrouble1

The audio/visual receiver is itself a dicotimization between effeciency measured in terms of cost/convenience vs actual effectiveness in reproducing the source signal. One might easily say that brand x is terrible or brand y is awesome, or talk of value and so on. In the end they are all, at their very best a compromise.

Receivers like other audio component pieces have levels, a 1000.00 is going to get you to a decent level in receiver land as this point has been determined by manufacture's as the dollar amount where consumers expect "something" more, what that something is then determined by that maker. The level point has to do with the psychological expectation of quality that comes when the consumer first spends five figures on a component.

All this sans those occasional true rare anomalies known as "giant killers". A certain hardcore member recently stated that "high end audio exsists for a reason", I would certainly parrot those words. Its simply a matter of how much compromise you can live with and what features matter most to you within your given budget.

We could just as soon debate abortion. There is no "right" receiver answer for all. Consider the idea of trusting your own ears validation of any piece of gear or speaker.

RT1

gregure

aaharvel wrote:

is that the only pioneer with decent current & p.supply Greg? I've never been high on Pioneer either- to me they were somewhere in between Onkyo and Sony and a notch or two below Denon & Marantz.

Actually, I think PE receivers are quite a bit better than the Denon, Sony and Onkyo. The 56 especially has a great power supply. One of my old co-workers uses it to drive his Vienna Acoustic Beethovens, and it sounds pretty good. However, when he tried the 54, it went into protection. Marantz is also a whole lot better than Denon for music. Easily stable into 4 ohms. The SR8500 is a real treat, competing with units a lot higher in price for sound quality. They may not overload on features, but the sound quality is there.

The new Pioneer Elites have compromised a bit in sound quality. They are still very good, but moved away from MOSFET to Bi-polar, and there's something lost in the translation. Even the reps noted they made the change to save money due to all the new features. HDMI switching-what a load of crap. Most of the receivers can't even do it right anyway. I'd still say the new PE's are better than Sony and Denon, though.

thuchien

what about rotel 1056??
isn't beeter than other?

okiepolkie

I really like the Rotel. It has a lot of good features. I installed one this last spring with some B&W speakers

RoosterD

gregure wrote:

I think the Outlaw idea is the best bang for the buck. The HK 7300 would be the next choice. Denon receivers are horrible, people, I wish you'd hear me on this. They are the most current-limited recievers out there, next to Onkyo, and furthermore, even a Denon at the 3805 level is not capable of stably handling 4 ohm loads, which means youre LSi FX could drive it into protection mode. If you are willing to put the extra $$ into an outlaw setup, that would be the best all around result. Why buy the biggest speaker and then cheap out on the amp? You might as well have bought a bookshelf speaker for all the results you'll get.
1. Outlaw
2. HK 7300
3. Track down a Pioneer Elite VSX56TXi on clearance. This is the only other unit I think has any amount of power, and can easily power 4 ohm loads.
4. Option 2 or 3 and a good two-channel amp for the 12's.

Not to detract from what Gregure said, but I've had my 3805 connected to my LSi15's, LSiC, and LSiFX's for over 6 months now and haven't ever experienced ANY heat issues. In the past week I Bi-amped the 15's (because I did notice power issues) and was surprised at the difference. I will however save for a better amp, but not until I'm ready to take the next step. I would definitely recommend the 3805, and for $100 more absolutely recommend 3806. The upgrades are worth it.
I have been to Good Guys, and a more elite dealer and found that both had the 3805 as a preamp because the 16 Burr Browns were as good as any of the $5-6000 receivers when used as a preamp for the Parasound halo they had hooked up. Obviously I'm not trying to say that the $5-6000 receiver isn't better, but that the 3805 is good.

*Seby*-Polk-

Consider Yamaha RXV 2500 in the decision ... same level as HK, Denon receiver.

For me .. superior to Onkyo and pioneer. Bye

FicmanS

I like the Denon equipment, best thing to do is get out there and listen to them all...

thuchien

http://members.cox.net/alexhardware/IC_database1.htm

this is about what processor that each reciver have

that is what i found on the internet. Any one undersand please give some more idea about my choice
thanksss

gregure

Honestly, and no disrespect to those happy with their Denons, the Denon receivers are some of the worst offenders in terms of current limiting. Rooster may be able to have the 3805 drive a 4 ohm load w/o going into protection, but I'd be willing to bet a million dollars that the Lsi's would sound better on Pioneer Elite or Marantz. Every other 4 ohm speaker I've heard on a Denon sounded terrible, while the sound opened up tremendously when switched to PE or Marantz. And an amp that sounds that much better on 4 ohm, well, it's a no brainer that it's a better amp all around. For theater, Denon is fine, and their stereo receivers are actually very good. But for music from a surround receiver, Marantz has it all over Denon. And that's to say nothing of B&K, Rotel, or more current-happy receivers.

As far as that processor matrix you provided a link for, it doesn't really mean ****. If you're looking to get a receiver and eventually use it only as a pre, it may be a concern. However, if you want to go separates, you should just do it right to being with, as a nice dedicated pre will do it better than a receiver any day. Now, if you're stuck on a receiver only for music and movies, the DAC isn't nearly as important as the amp's current abilities, as that is what truly opens up the sound, improves depth and detail and gets you better bass and smoother highs. Pick a receiver that you like for music performance first, as any receiver can do theater just fine if it sounds great for music. If features and video switching is your thing, well, don't heed my advice at all, because I couldn't care less about that. Sound quality is my primary focus.