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Which $2000 Receiver / floor standers


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Hi There, This is my first post so excuse me if I embarrass myself.

I am building my first home theater system and manages to pick up a rotel RDV 995 for a good price and now I am looking at recievers and speakers. Planing to spend about 2k on each.

I was thinking the B&W DM603's and a Nad T753. However I have gone off the NAD due to 6.1 and my preference is for 7.1.

What I would like is a 7.1 receiver with pre outs, about 80w rms per channel, video up-conversion and enough inputs to last me a long time.

Other speakers i like the look of are the Whatmough Opus 30.

I would love to test with my ears but due to time restraints and the fact that there are so many choices in this price range I am a bit lost where to start. Any pointers would be great.

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Hi Gimme' and welcome,

Dont forget in going 7.1 your really only getting an 'artificial' extra rear channel (onboard decoding). Most DVD's are only 5.1 and the decoder mixes both left and right surround to feed either 1 or 2 rears. There's also the added expense of additional speakers, which, if you stick to your original budget means a slight downgrade of all speakers to fit!

NAD is a highly regarded brand. Also look at Denon, Marantz and Onkyo in that price range.

Nothing wrong with Whatmough speakers either, and there's plenty of other good Aussie speakers around...............there's a links page on the Forum.

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Originally posted by GimmeHiFi

Hi There, This is my first post so excuse me if I embarrass myself.  

I am building my first home theater system and manages to pick up a rotel RDV 995 for a good price and now I am looking at recievers and speakers. Planing to spend about 2k on each.

I was thinking the B&W DM603's and a Nad T753.  However I have gone off the NAD due to 6.1 and my preference is for 7.1.

What I would like is a 7.1 receiver with pre outs, about 80w rms per channel, video up-conversion and enough inputs to last me a long time.

Other speakers i like the look of are the Whatmough Opus 30.

I would love to test with my ears but due to time restraints and the fact that there are so many choices in this price range I am a bit lost where to start.  Any pointers would be great.

You can get the Denon 3805 for $2k and it is a great 7.1 receiver and a good match for B&W's. Actually I run the 3805 with a full 7.1 set of B&Ws and it works for me. :) Also, 7.1 is certainly better than 5.1, but costs extra $ to get there. I'm just about to go to 7.2 :grin: Are u in Melb?

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Thanks for the tips, I'm in sydney.

The only reason I wanted 7.1 was to be able to run a second zone in the future when i can afford to build up to more speakers. I believe 5.1 is fine for HT use.

The problem I think is that when you go and audition different systems at different stores and on different days can be hard to pick the difference without an easy switch betweeen.

Whats the quality of Denon, Marantz and Onkyo?. I have had bad experience with yamaha are they better than them?

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Denon, Marantz and Onkyo are all good brands..........solid and reliable.

Denon and Marantz are essentially the same company having joined forces a couple of years ago. Onkyo also have a slightly more upmarket brand called Integra.

Shouldn't go wrong with any of the above.

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Marantz 7500, or stretch a little more for the 8500, (i know you can get the 8500 on sale ATM for around 2200) and get DVI in/outputs. both have 7.1, pre outs, video send for a 2nd zone and everything else you want and more than you need.

Over that look at HK but you wont get all the gear for the price just the quality, its a trade off i guess

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forgive my ignorance, as far as i'm aware there isn't that much material recorded in 6.1 or 7.1, so its going to be artificial/processes 6.1/7.1. So wouldn't 5.1 sound better since most movies are recorded in native 5.1 ?

I do like the B&W 600 series though...

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on the marantz units at least 7.1's give the extra two channels for you to do with as you please. Ie they are powered and you can use them as rear effects or you can use them as a 2nd zone 'powered speaker' or run them as a bi-powered option to your mains, well .

I guess as far as using them as a actual 7.1 setup it depends on the actual surround processors within the amplifier itself as to wether it sounds any better or worse.

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Thanks for the Tips, I think it will come down to what sounds best. Denon 3805 looks like it will do the job.

I am going to ask a basic question. How does bi wiring work. I have some Dm601 s3's at home and they have 2 sets of connections for bi wiring and I have read that you can use 4 channels to power 2 speakers. Is this the same as bridging a power amp?

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Nope, not the same as bridging, that will typically double your output. What bi-amping does is provide two independant signals one to the high freq's (tweeters) and one to the low freq (driver/s) if both your signals are 100w you still only get 100w at the speakers its not doubled.

As far as bi-wiring (2 cables from 1 signal) dont bother wasting your money it makes no difference just spend the extra money for the two cables on buying one better set of cables and let the x/over do what it is designed for, seperating the signal, wires alone cannot split a signal.

What is advisable is if you have a bi-wirable set of speakers is if they have one of those cheap connector plates between each of the + binding posts and each of the -'s make sure if its thin and cheap that you help it with a decent cable between the binding posts as well.

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Thank, I agree its a waste of time then.

I just went down to a store and they said they could do a H/K AVR630 (its just been superceded buy the 635 and the B&W 603's for 3,000 for both (1400 for the AVR and 1600 for the speakers) is this a good deal? I figure I am saving 25% on RRP which is about as mcuh as you can expect.

What's H/k gear like?

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Harmon KArdon have always made very nice gear, musical some might say. Its normally a little more xpensive than denon or marantz for equiv stuff but as i say a little more musical, but thats all opinion.

As far as reliability i dont know about their new gear sorry.

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hi everyone I'm new to the forum

Marantz SR-7500 is a great amp and very simmilar to the Denon 3805.

my opinion is it looks better than the Denon too. I run it with B&W DM305's that I bought 8 years ago and a JBL PB12 sub, it sounds awesome.

RRP is $2200 but I manage to get it for 1650 from HiFi supermarket in Melbourne

something for you to think about

cheers

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  • 2 months later...
Guest nEUROtic

I love my NAD t763 (RRP) 1999 which is 6.1, the 773 (RRP 2500) is 7.1 but as most have said nothing is encoded in 7.1, and for the size of my room it doesnt really offer me a lot of advantage. But when i was choosing (also having around 2K to spend) the NAD blew anything else i saw away (marantz and denon included)

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