Help with purchasing a new receiver (1 Viewer)

[Sharpke]

I am getting ready to move into my new house so I have demoed numerous receivers and would love some opinions. Here is the specifics.

-Room is 17x20 with 19' ceiling
-Equipment will be located in a separate closet away from the TV (already wired with 7 runs of RG6 and 1 run of Cat5e)
-Have a two source whole house amplifier that covers 4 rooms
-Sony DVD ES with the 400 disc
-Speakers are as follows:
Fronts VR3 Boston Acoustics
Center VR10 BA
Rears (3) In-wall BA 381s
Sub PV 1000 BA

-Features I want
-enough power and good clean sound
-component conversion (that does not degrade video quality)
-Separate out for whole house amplifier (2 would be nice)
-Auto setup is also a neat feature

Receivers ranked
1. Yamaha 2400 (meets all the features though I am concerned that it is underpowered)
2. Denon 3803 (great value at 6thave)
3. HK AVR7200 (I have not seen/heard this one but have heard goods things about it)
4. Pioneer Elite 53 (no component up conversion)Sounds great!!
5. Marantz 7400 haven't checked it out yet but have seen bad reviews on the 7300

Also, would be nice if it came in silver not that I like silver but Sony has not done us any favors with the ES equipment all being silver.

My goal is to stay under $1,500.

 

[Bob Elliott]

I just received a HK AVR-7200 and all I can say is WOW! The sound is crystal clear and spectacular. I don't think i will ever put the volume up past 1/2 way. So far I went up 3/8 of the way and the music from one room fills the whole house and you can hear it outside.

I got it for $1000 from JandR.com.

I just checked onecall.com and they have it for $899. I ordered a PA-4000 from onecall. I was amazed that they had it to my house in 3 days. Both places are registered dealers with HK.

 

[John S]

19' cielings!! Wowsers.....

With that sort of cubic room volume, power will be your best buddy for sure.

I can see your fears as far as volume goes....

I have a 30x20 room with 10' cielings, I think a 3803 would have been enough, but just barely, in other words, I just don't think it would have had much if any headroom at reference levels.

I have heard the H/K 7200, and it definetly is a nice unit, the extra forwardness of it, may be a real advantage in your particular room. The 7200 has the cat5 remote control for multi-zone too, it would probably come in real handy for you at some point, if not even right away for you.

On a Denon, I would suggest a 4803 minimum. Keep in mind, that with any of these units, if you don't feel you have enough power, extrenal amps can easily solve it.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

The HK AVR-7200 is a very powerful unit and will probably fit you best. It also comes for a good price as a flagship reciever and it's amp is incredibly powerful.

The Yamaha would probably be a bit under-powered as from what I have seen even though it is rated at somehting like 100W per channel it only delivers around 38 watts or so with all channels ran. :frowning:

 

[Dan Driscoll]

Room is 17x20 with 19' ceiling

Of the receivers on your list, I feel the HK 7200 is the only one even close to being powerful enough for your space. Another one not on your list that ourperforms its specs and might meet your requirements is the Rotel RSX-1065, which can be found for about $1500 used.

However, given the size of the room, I strongly recommend that you consider either the Outlaw 950/7100 combo ($1600 new) or, to allow for more flexibility long term, a seperate amplifier with a receiver as a pre-pro. Quality used amps would also help reduce the cost, as would starting with a lower level or used receiver, with the intention of upgrading the receiver/processor in the future. A few suggestions for consideration would be:

(amps, all 5 channel)
Sherbourn 5/1500A, $1100
Chiro C-500, ~$750
Outlaw 750, $750
ATI 1505, $900

(7.1 receivers)
Yamaha RX-V1400, $~700
HK AVR-525, $500
Denon 3803, ~$650
Denon 3802, ~$550

Just some food for thought.

 

[Sharpke]

Does the HK AVR 7200 have the up conversion to component? Around me the only dealer that carries HK is Circuit City which is pretty scary. No chance I will be able to do a good demo there.

 

[John S]

I don't know one person that has been happy with video upconversion on their recievers.

Great upconversion takes expensive hardware, they still charge a pretty penny for them in TV's even.

Just an FYI about it is all more than anything.

 

[ChrisLazarko]

I own the HK AVR-225 and it does composite and S-Video outputs well although it doesn't upconvert. I believe the AVR-7200 does up-convert and from some people around here and other places that I talk to it does a good job at component video (although I never asked if it upconverted). Being a flagship reciever though I would assume it does... Does anyone know? I am also curious.