I'm in the process of putting together a secondary music-only setup with some JBL towers and wish to keep things somewhat reasonably priced (under $1500 for electronics - I already have the speakers) and the more I go through my laundry list of features I'd want, the more an AVR makes sense to me.
Things I need:
- Amplfier
- DAC (connecting a CD player and a USB hard drive with music on there)
- Music streaming capability
- Room correction (correcting only below the transition frequency)
An AVR seems to be able to check all those boxes without exceeding my budget. However, the only thing that gives me pause is that, objectively speaking, the DAC's and amps in these devices put up mediocre measurements compared to separate SOTA devices as measured here on ASR. Is there a way to put together something that objectively performs well, within budget, and has the capabilities above? Or am I just stuck with an AVR? Would the mediocre SINAD measurements be very audible during normal listening conditions?
Things I need:
- Amplfier
- DAC (connecting a CD player and a USB hard drive with music on there)
- Music streaming capability
- Room correction (correcting only below the transition frequency)
An AVR seems to be able to check all those boxes without exceeding my budget. However, the only thing that gives me pause is that, objectively speaking, the DAC's and amps in these devices put up mediocre measurements compared to separate SOTA devices as measured here on ASR. Is there a way to put together something that objectively performs well, within budget, and has the capabilities above? Or am I just stuck with an AVR? Would the mediocre SINAD measurements be very audible during normal listening conditions?