AV amps & music

[Stiffy]

I'm trying to sell my main amp at the moment to have a change.
I've got quite a few ideas about what I might replace it with but wondered if anyone knows if there are any good cinema/receiver amps
that offer quality 2 channel performance or are they all naff.

There's a new Yamaha RX-V377 for £189.00 which gets quite good reviews but I can buy their 2 channel AS 300 for the same money,
not to mention many other good used 2 channel amps.

I just wondered if any of the AV amps were any good at music because I could kill, or at least maim 2 birds with 1 stone.

[istari_knight]

I've not tried any "modern" ones [ie made in the last five years] but have tried a few legacy models which were perfectly capable in stereo mode... Those most noteworthy are:

Denon AVC-A1XVA
Arcam AVR300
Pioneer VSA-AX10i
Sony STR-DA777ES

Unfortunately they all sell for £250+ so may be out of budget.

I'm not convinced any lesser models would be good enough for 2 channel, the whole killing two birds with one stone things is very alluring I've been there myself & you can delude yourself into wishful thinking that in this day and age with technology & miniaturization surely these huge companies with equally huge r&d budgets can make an amp that sounds good in both 5.1 & 2.0 ? The second you sit down & listen to one the dream is shattered, 2 channel, "direct" or otherwise is just another mode & fidelity is readily sacrificed for more exciting explosion effects & crisper dialogue

Thats my experience anyway.

[Spectral Morn]

I'm trying to sell my main amp at the moment to have a change.
I've got quite a few ideas about what I might replace it with but wondered if anyone knows if there are any good cinema/receiver amps
that offer quality 2 channel performance or are they all naff.

There's a new Yamaha RX-V377 for £189.00 which gets quite good reviews but I can buy their 2 channel AS 300 for the same money,
not to mention many other good used 2 channel amps.

I just wondered if any of the AV amps were any good at music because I could kill, or at least maim 2 birds with 1 stone.

Sadly very few AV amps can match a dedicated two channel amplifiers performance. The issue usually lies with the preamplifier section in the AV amp were signal paths are complex and compromised by all kinds of digital surround sound processors.

I know that feeding a quality two channel pre-amplifier into the power amplifier section of an AV amp (if the AV amp permits that) can offer a reasonable compromise but even quiet highend AV amps (£1000 +) used this way can't match similarly priced or even cheaper dedicated two channel integrated amplifiers.

There just is no real way of doing this in my experience and at the budget you have in mind two channel performance is not on the radar of the AV amp manufacturer, home cinema performance is and that's it.

My advice is stick with your two channel amp, get an AV amp and use a Beresford speaker switching box to connect the two up to the same left right front speakers. Assuming this is still available http://www.homehifi.co.uk/S/tc-7220.htm That is the only way I know a HiFi and AV set up can be used in the same area without extra two channel speakers being required. In saying that though the left front speakers being used need to be from a speaker range and size that sound good as two channel speakers. Centre and rears should be from the same make and range so the soundfield is seamless and properly integrated. Using different makes and from a different range results in a poorly integrated sound, one gets a Venetian blind effect with the different tonal balance/voicing being obvious.


Regards Neil

[Spectral Morn]

I've not tried any "modern" ones [ie made in the last five years] but have tried a few legacy models which were perfectly capable in stereo mode... Those most noteworthy are:

Denon AVC-A1XVA
Arcam AVR300
Pioneer VSA-AX10i
Sony STR-DA777ES

Unfortunately they all sell for £250+ so may be out of budget.

I'm not convinced any lesser models would be good enough for 2 channel, the whole killing two birds with one stone things is very alluring I've been there myself & you can delude yourself into wishful thinking that in this day and age with technology & miniaturization surely these huge companies with equally huge r&d budgets can make an amp that sounds good in both 5.1 & 2.0 ? The second you sit down & listen to one the dream is shattered, 2 channel, "direct" or otherwise is just another mode & fidelity is readily sacrificed for more exciting explosion effects & crisper dialogue

Thats my experience anyway.

I own the Denon AVC A1SR and in my experience its compromised re two channel performance, though connecting a pre up to it sounds ok but not good enough.

A lot depends on ones aspiration and experience regarding how far one is prepared to compromise two channel performance, for me the compromise was way too much.


Regards Neil

[istari_knight]

I own the Denon AVC A1SR and in my experience its compromised re two channel performance, though connecting a pre up to it sounds ok but not good enough.

A lot depends on ones aspiration and experience regarding how far one is prepared to compromise two channel performance, for me the compromise was way too much.


Regards Neil

The A1SR & A1XVA are quite different beasts Neil The former was a king in its day but that was a very long time ago now. I reckon the A1XVA could stand up to most 2 channel amps currently for sale under £500... So admittedly no great shakes but its very listenable unlike 99% of home cinema tripe.

[Macca]

My A/V amp, which is Sony, is adequate in two channel mode but that's about it.

Going up the range all you get is more watts and an on-screen display, SQ doesn't improve. I think that is pretty much true for most a/v amplifiers.

As Neil says it depends on your expectations. I've a couple of pals who use Onkyo a/v amps for 2 channel listening and are perfectly satisfied, and indeed they do get a perfectly listenable and agreeable sound, but it will never drop any jaws.

[Spectral Morn]

The A1SR & A1XVA are quite different beasts Neil The former was a king in its day but that was a very long time ago now. I reckon the A1XVA could stand up to most 2 channel amps currently for sale under £500... So admittedly no great shakes but its very listenable unlike 99% of home cinema tripe.

The problem remains, main focus was AV performance not two channel. The A1SR is an old amp but I would rather have it over any modern AV amp re its weight and scale of AV performance (hooking an Oppo up gives me modern sound options but being honest 6 speakers is more than enough) but two channel sucks as it does with every other Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon integrated AV amp I have ever heard. Lexicon, Arcam, Anthem and Parasound separate AV pre - power amp combinations do better but realistically any of these are still AV focussed and not two channel. I have no doubt the A1XVA is a better AV amp, but two channel I doubt it very much. I did hear one of these once and it didn't cut my particular requirements re two channel, plus it was massive and the A1SR was plenty big already.

I tried my best to find away of doing this, to my satisfaction in one particular room were I didn't want two set ups I failed to do it. I ended up with two separate systems one for AV one for two channel.

I concede my requirements, expectation regarding two channel sound quality may be greater than others but in my view its somewhat disingenuous not to mention the two channel failing regarding AV amp and in particular very cheap ones, never mind dearer ones. Of course your mileage may well have varied and your particular expectations more easily satisfied but in my view the only way to do this and minimise the issues is either use a dedicated two channel pre into the power section or two setups with speaker switching selector into the same left right front speakers. No compromise is two set ups in the one room, but some don't have the space to do this, I had a long room so could.

To put some meat onto this, I worked for six years in a shop that did both two channel audio (my responsibility) and AV/Home Cinema/multi room set ups, and I got the opportunity to see and try every amp that came into the shop, at every price point from a few hundred pounds to many thousands and none bested cheaper dedicated two channel amplifiers. The only thing that has changed since then is the extra AV features now required by the AV market. Two channel has only ever been paid the barest lip service to and I doubt anything has changed regarding that. Frankly it would be massively expensive, requiring massive boxes, plenty of shielding to adequately give delicate two channel signals the clean path and power supplies, analogue to not compromise those delicate two channel signals.

But the AV market isn't really interested in this and AV customers for the most part are not that interested in two channel, though there are some who are but not enough to persuade AV manufacturers to make products for this. The AV market is driven by bling and sound processing features but AV ones not two channel ones.

I certainly think older AV amps are great value for money, as like the computer market (not including MACS in this) because like them they lose massively re S/H value because the market is features lead as I have already said. Thus one can buy a £3000 AV amp a few years old for peanuts and if one has a good DVD/BluRay player with built in sound processor then this is the way to go, unless one wants or needs all the latest video processing, video routing options, in which case all in one contemporary amp is the way to go, though I prefer to make all video connections directly to the screen avoiding extra external processing.


Regards Neil

[Stiffy]

Well it looks like the AV route is a non-starter because my main focus is 2 channel for music.
It would have been nice to have the best of both worlds if there was no sacrifice to be made.

I'll focus on the 2 channel thing at the moment and will probably just settle for a soundbar at a later date.