Its time to buy a receiver now

[Gau]

hi
after posting in the speakers forum for a medium to low budget stereo speaker setup, i went out and auditioned a pair or paradigm atoms but ended up buying the mini-monitors. they are pretty good and they sounded great.
now, I need a receiver to go woth them. even though i am going to keep a stereo setup to begin with, a few yrs down the line i will upgrade to HT.
whats a reasonable receiver to go with? I dont want to spend more than 300$ or so. i've heard good things about yamaha and bestbuy has the yamaha 500w model (dont remember no.) for $199. yamaha also has 600w, 700w and above models that increase in price range upto $800 which i cant afford.
anyone have any suggestions for me? what should I look for with a receiver?
thanks
Gau

ps- i am also looking at the pioneer vsk-d914 for $340 shipped online
the Yamaha HTR-5760 is going for $360 shipped also

 

[PaulDA]

If a few years is more than three, I'd look for a stereo receiver or integrated amp, as A/V technology moves so fast these days. That's just me.

If a HT receiver is really what you want, at that price range you can get entry level models from any of Pioneer, Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, Harman Kardon. Look for the features you want and try them out. Examine the user interface, the remote, warranty, reliability. The number of options is quite high, so I suggest some reading on the forums available on the web to get an idea of what features are out there and what they do. Reviews in magazines or on the web are a good source of info about features, though they all tend to be glowing, so I'd take their final recommendations with a grain of salt.

Good luck, and have fun.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

It might have been the Yamaha HTR-5740 receiver for that price. I suspect the Paradigm mini monitors are a bit more power hungry than the Atoms would have been. If that's the case, you might want to step up in the receiver line up with Yamaha a bit. For better power, look at the HTR-5760 - which runs more money at Best Buy. However, from on-line vendors, it's only about $330 + shipping.

 

[Gau]

well, thats the problem. I dont know what 'features' there are in a receiver. Speakers.. need to sound good... receivers... i dunno. all i know is that they just need to be powerfull enough to drive the speakers.
i dont really want to go overboard with 'features'.

EDIT:
The htr-5740 is available at bestbuy for 299, I may go pick it up this evening. hopefully that will be good enough for the next couple of years, i dont really plan on adding any speakers to the setup till then.