audiophiles......rate my possible setup!

[EngenZerO]

Originally posted by: flot

Originally posted by: purbeast0
you are going to have to spend atleast $500 on a decent receiver. like these other guys said, its the core of your system. you don't want to go low balling on it. good speakers won't sound good without a good receiver.

I disagree, drastically. While a medicore receiver won't help matters, its place in the home theater food chain is definitely second to your speakers. You can have a crappy receiver driving fantastic speakers, and it will still sound very good. Compare this to a fantastic recevier driving crappy speakers, which will always sound like crappy speakers.

You should be focusing your spending on the 3 front speakers, which as others have pointed out a few times, should match. Everything else is secondary.

I'm an "ex-audiophile," I ended up trading in my system for a Jeep Wrangler. Now I have a much more sensible setup - 6 matched B&W bookshelfs, a 10" sub, and a yamaha receiver... and I kept my old $300 speaker wire to remind me not to spend $300 on speaker wire again.

what you said is kinda right kinda wrong... i had to drive my ascends and svs off of my cheapo pioneer... they sounded ok.

once i got my h/k 430 you could definitly tell the difference in sound quality sounds were warmer and bass was more deeper and responsive. a reciever plays very heavily with speakers. each brand of recievers have a different sonic characteristics. so when you get speakers you should attempt to match those speakers with a well balanced reciever suited for the sound you want.

moral... a quality reciever will make your speakers sound better if you know what to look for...

 

[ATLien247]

Originally posted by: flot
I'm an "ex-audiophile," I ended up trading in my system for a Jeep Wrangler. Now I have a much more sensible setup - 6 matched B&W bookshelfs, a 10" sub, and a yamaha receiver... and I kept my old $300 speaker wire to remind me not to spend $300 on speaker wire again.

Now, see... I'd rather trade in my Jeep Wrangler (if I had one) for a dream HT system.

 

[flot]

Originally posted by: EngenZerO

what you said is kinda right kinda wrong... i had to drive my ascends and svs off of my cheapo pioneer... they sounded ok.

once i got my h/k 430 you could definitly tell the difference in sound quality sounds were warmer and bass was more deeper and responsive. a reciever plays very heavily with speakers. each brand of recievers have a different sonic characteristics. so when you get speakers you should attempt to match those speakers with a well balanced reciever suited for the sound you want.

moral... a quality reciever will make your speakers sound better if you know what to look for...

Well, yes. I didn't mean to imply that your receiver WON'T have an impact on what you are hearing. BUT I still hold that a receiver certainly shouldn't be your first priority, nor should it be what you spend the majoirty of your budget on. And I think it's safe to assume that most of today's mid/low-end receivers are all going to be of similar quality - which again is just not the case with speakers.

Basically my point is that the difference between a $250 receiver and a $500 receiver is not nearly as significant as the difference betwen a $250 set of speakers and a $500 set of speakers. You should shop speakers first, find those that you like, and then select a receiver to go with them. Not the other way around.

 

[iwearnosox]

Lol I just put a RX-Z1 in my bedroom. I'm looking forward to the results.

 

[EngenZerO]

Originally posted by: flot

Originally posted by: EngenZerO

what you said is kinda right kinda wrong... i had to drive my ascends and svs off of my cheapo pioneer... they sounded ok.

once i got my h/k 430 you could definitly tell the difference in sound quality sounds were warmer and bass was more deeper and responsive. a reciever plays very heavily with speakers. each brand of recievers have a different sonic characteristics. so when you get speakers you should attempt to match those speakers with a well balanced reciever suited for the sound you want.

moral... a quality reciever will make your speakers sound better if you know what to look for...

Well, yes. I didn't mean to imply that your receiver WON'T have an impact on what you are hearing. BUT I still hold that a receiver certainly shouldn't be your first priority, nor should it be what you spend the majoirty of your budget on. And I think it's safe to assume that most of today's mid/low-end receivers are all going to be of similar quality - which again is just not the case with speakers.

Basically my point is that the difference between a $250 receiver and a $500 receiver is not nearly as significant as the difference betwen a $250 set of speakers and a $500 set of speakers. You should shop speakers first, find those that you like, and then select a receiver to go with them. Not the other way around.

i agree with that... speakers should always come first before a reciever

 

[flot]

Originally posted by: ATLien247

Now, see... I'd rather trade in my Jeep Wrangler (if I had one) for a dream HT system.

I miss the HT setup from time to time, but I moved into a smallish apartment (occupied by normal people, not college kids who don't care if you are bombarding them with explosions at midnight) and it just wasn't practical anymore. Now I live in a smallish house, but I'm still happier with the more tamed down system. It's the same as everything else - a fun hobby to get into, but when you're out, you're out.... just wasn't worth throwing the $ at a $8,000 system when in all honesty I can get 90% of the enjoyment for 20% of the price.

Then again, maybe I'm just getting old.

 

[flot]

Originally posted by: iwearnosox
Lol I just put a RX-Z1 in my bedroom. I'm looking forward to the results.

It's a nice idea, but in my experience, the Jeep got more chicks than the receiver.