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Preamp/Processor under $1000?? (1 Viewer)

T_Mac

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Aug 22, 2007
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Thomas
Is there such a thing? Most receivers at half the price have all the features I would want, but so many things I don't need, like power amplification, a tuner, and 30 artificial sound fields I'll never use. As well they are too big to fit in my audio rack. Everything I've seen in the way of preamp/pros are ridiculously expensive and often lacking features like HDMI upconversion and blu-ray DSP.


Why does so much less cost so much more?
 

gene c

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Aug 5, 2003
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Gene
Emotiva/umc-1 $699 shipped.


They don't sell anywhere near as many pre-amps as they do receivers so I'm sure that has something to do with the price. I'm also sure a lot of people just buy a receiver with pre-outs, like the H/K 254/Onkyo 708/Denon 3310, and use it as a processor. The Onkyo 885 and 886 (as well as the almost identicle Integra 9.8 and 9.9) were thought of as excellent processors for the money but with the exception of the balanced outputs they weren't much different than the Onkyo 875/876 receivers which carried the same price and were heavily discounted a few months later. I had an 885 for a bit and it was nice but an 875 would have worked just as well for me. I don't need a powerfull separate amplifier. Good used 885's now go for less than $700.


An NAD, Adcom, Arcam, Rotel or AudioControl pre-pro would be nice to have but they are so expensive. For most people a good receiver is more than adequate. In fact, I have a prestine Outlaw 990 that I'll be putting up for sale one of these days. I've decided to keep my Pioneer receiver instead.
 

Phil A

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Depends on whether you need to have the latest. If you watch accessories4less.com at some point they will have something like the Marantz AV7005 authorized factory refurb (and you can get an extended warranty) for that price point a bit down the road. I didn't need HDMI 1.4 in the main system and grabbed a used Integra DTC 9.8 at a good deal off Craigslist locally. It cost me $600 and I'm very happy with what it does for HT. I was impressed for HT by the Integra and then bought a factory refurb Onkyo 1000 for the secondary basement system at accessories4less.com.
 

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