Receiver impact? (1 Viewer)

[Wvtvguy]

I'm in the learning stages so bear with me. I know it's important to put money toward quality speakers & good CD player. How important is the receiver? Will music sound better depending on the receiver? I'm mostly interested in a dedicated music system rather than home theater right now.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Speakers are the most important thing, sound quality wise. Most decent receivers over a few hundred dollars will have little effect on sound quality, unless perhaps the speakers are an especially demanding load or the amplifiers have low power. I think you’re going to have a hard time finding a dedicated CD player anymore.


Regards,

Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[Jerome Grate]

Well I've been out of the HT game for a while and now that I am back into it, I recall my first set up that changed drastically years ago when I changed from my speakers from Sony bookshelf speakers to Platinum Audio (way back when). I ran the Platinum Audio speaker on the Kenwood AVR 202 receiver for awhile then I upgraded to the Harmon Kardon AVR 500 and that produced far more sound from the speakers than the Kenwood receiver.

All that to say, I think the better the receiver, the more you will get out of your speakers.

 

[Al.Anderson]

I mostly agree with Wayne, but I'll tweak my answer to be that after a certain quality threshold a receiver probably won't make you audio sound better, but it may make it sound different. For instance, I was using an Onkyo receiver and liked the sound. I switched to a Marantz receiver and did not like to the sound as much; it sounded more "flat" or "dead". I don't think the Marantz was bad, I just didn't like it as much. I switched to a Yamaha and all was well again.

That said, I completely agree that speakers are far and away have the most impact on a system's sound.