AVR advice

[Wolfman]

Hi All,

I am a new member here seeking advice on selecting an AVR. I am currently running a 2 channel setup and want to increase to a 5.1 channel setup. My speakers are ML Odyssey’s and I will be using an external amp for them. So my question is this: if my amp has input sensitivity of approx .6v, will the poor SINAD results be audible and/or relevant? Will it be beneficial to purchase a Denon 3600 or Marantz for the reassignable amp flexibility?
My primary goal is to get multichannel decoding. I am not concerned with room correction, Atmos, HEOS, etc.. Other modern features are nice as part of the deal, but not necessary. Cheaper is better. Otherwise, I may consider selling all gear and starting fresh.

Thanks in advance for your advice, and especially Amir for this forum.

 

[Mocs123]

My opinion - If you are looking at a 5.1 system any don't care anything about room correction (a mistake IMO), or new features, I'd think an older high end receiver would do you well. You can pick them up used cheap, and it should do everything you want it to do. You could go with a pre-atmos flagship (or similar) for probably $500 or less.

 

[Dj7675]

Hi All,

I am a new member here seeking advice on selecting an AVR. I am currently running a 2 channel setup and want to increase to a 5.1 channel setup. My speakers are ML Odyssey’s and I will be using an external amp for them. So my question is this: if my amp has input sensitivity of approx .6v, will the poor SINAD results be audible and/or relevant? Will it be beneficial to purchase a Denon 3600 or Marantz for the reassignable amp flexibility?
My primary goal is to get multichannel decoding. I am not concerned with room correction, Atmos, HEOS, etc.. Other modern features are nice as part of the deal, but not necessary. Cheaper is better. Otherwise, I may consider selling all gear and starting fresh.

Thanks in advance for your advice, and especially Amir for this forum.

My 2 cents FWIW. If you are going to a 5.1 system, get a Denon (Marantz hasn’t been tested here yet). I would get either the X3500 (which can be had new with 3 year warranty for $500). Also, if going to add a subwoofer as the .1 suggests, using room correction is immensely beneficial. Audyssey is excellent. If you don’t want Audyssey messing with your speakers, you can limit the correction to just 2-300hz. As Amir has said in several different places... room correction is mandatory for the low frequencies. In the low end there can be massive peaks and nulls (somtimes as much as 30db) which is very audible and can be greatly improved. While you aren’t interested in Room correction I would get a receiver with XT32 and experiment with just low end correction at least for the low end. Also, it will set your speaker levels and distances automatically as well.

 

[Wolfman]

Mocs123 and DJ765,

thank you for your replies. I have read good things about AudesseyXT32 but was under the impression that importance of room correction had more to do with low frequencies and that all r/c software was capable of that. Some more others of course.

DJ765 — was there another AVR you were going to recommend above?

 

[Dj7675]

Mocs123 and DJ765,

thank you for your replies. I have read good things about AudesseyXT32 but was under the impression that importance of room correction had more to do with low frequencies and that all r/c software was capable of that. Some more others of course.

DJ765 — was there another AVR you were going to recommend above?

In regards to all of the receivers do room correction, that is true to a certain extent. However, some do it better than others. For example there are 3 versions of Audyssey... XT32 being the best and those come with sub ht eq for sub eq. In particular if you opt for dual subs, Audyssey is very, very good at EQing 2 subs. The other one I was going to mention was the X3600 but must have lost my train of thought! I would go X3600 if you want to try to squeak every bit of performance out of it with external amps for stereo listening. The X3500 is excellent up to 1.4V output (not quite as good as X3600). But if you need 2V for the external amps go with the X3600

 

[Wolfman]

I only need .6V for external amp which leads to my primary question; how relevant are these under performing SINAD results if my amp’s input sensitivity is .6V?