Best HT Receiver for Boston Cr85 (1 Viewer)

[fabrizio]

Hi all,

New to to his entire business...and you all seem very knowlegeable....

any suggestions for a good HT receiver match for a pair of Boston Cr85's? I currently am using a 2-Channel Marantz SR63....which to my non-audiophile ears sounds great...

Any suggestions?

 

[SanfordL]

Hey Fabrizio, hope things are going good today. Being relatively new to the forum too, I can imagine the questions folks are going to ask: What's your budget and what are you going to do with it (an idea of what percentage will be music, and what percentage will be Home Theater will help 'cause some are better at HT than music and viceaversa)? What kind of surround (5.1 vs. 6.1 vs. 7.1) are you after? Also, are you going to use the receiver for video switching, or will you run the video feed directly into your TV? If you need video switching, how many components are you going to attach?

Oh, they might also want this on the Receivers / Seperates / Amps forum, but then again, who knows?

__________________________________________________ ___

“The fact that there are actually ways of knowing and characterizing the extent of one’s ignorance, while still remaining ignorant, may ultimately be more interesting and useful to people than Yarkovsky,” Giorgini said.

 

[fabrizio]

Forgot to add all that info....thanks....I'm in Ottawa, Canada by the way

Budget...well, not as high as a lot on here...just getting into it....so...something like $500-800 Canadian...which is about $10,000 American....not sure on the exchange today

Most I can do is 5.1...room configuration, and spousal unit restrictions..

As for percentage...probably...70% HT and 30% Music...

I currently have an Expressvu dish, HI-FI VCR, Marantz CC-45 CD player, Sony 32" WEGA...and eventually a DVD...

As for video switching, not sure...

 

[SanfordL]

"Live Rates as of 2002.04.08 15:37:37 GMT.
800.00 CAD
Canada Dollars = 501.850 USD
United States Dollars
1 CAD = 0.627313 USD 1 USD = 1.59410 CAD"
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi
I have read good things about both the Onkyo 595 (around $500.00usd,) and 696 (around $800usd) and the Denon 1802 (around $500usd,) and 2802 (around $800usd.) I'm not too certain if those are in your budget or not (depends on if you shoot to the low side, knowing you are going to end up spending 30% more anyways) but all are well reviewed receivers. I have read, that Denon's are better at HT than music, and the Onkyo I used to have performed well for music, as well as for HT. Notice, I would listen to the receivers you are interested in, and see what you think. I don't trust anyone's opinion ultimately more than my own. What sounds good to you, is what you are going to like. Kenwood makes some good stuff too (and I can rave about my built in 1994 DSP, AC-3, KR990D which still rocks, but I want to upgrade to 7.1, so do not pass that along to my wife ).
Your Sony TV has 4 video feeds I believe with 2 S video and 1 (or is it 2) component video plus coax's. You don't have to worry about having more input sources than you have on your TV, but it's a personal choice. I do all of my video switching (i.e. DVD, LD, VCR etc.) through my receiver. It makes life easier in that you don't have to get a million hook-ups to your TV, plus you can tweak your receiver sound field etc. via a graphics user interface (that's what my Kenwood calls it anyways) if you run the video through the receiver. Some will tell you that you don't end up with as pure a signal, but I don't know if that is true or not as I've never experimented with it. My DVD player is older, and doesn't have component video, so for me, I have one S-Video and 1 RCA running into my 32" WEGA. Some of the newer receivers can not convert RCA video to S-Video and even up to component video I think, but mine does't do that conversion being so old. Those units will run you close to 1K usd though.