Wait for the Yamaha RX-V2600. That thing will have everything including support for HDMI 1.2. It has upconversion, THX, XM radio and virtually every other feature you can thing of. Should be around $1300 to $1400
instead of spending that much on a reciever... look into panasonic SA-XR class-d recievers instead. mine totally spanks the crap out of my onkyo unit in every way... EVERY WAY.
i've read rumors of people trading ther $1200 denons in for panasonics, and after making the switch, which was SUPPOSED to only be a stepping stone that would allow me to get the 4 ohm magnepans i wanted, but that sounded SO much better, that i'm happy as a clam with my NHT superzeros now.
if you want HDMI, do give the SA-XR70 a try for a more than reasonable $300. you might be surprised at how good it sounds. it's pocket change for the budget you're proposing.
i was amazed at how good my SA-XR55 sounds. it's fast, detailed and relaxed with liquid midrange and a HUGE soundstage.
if you want harmon kardon... look into their class-d reciever. class-d amps kick major butt. they have the speed and detail of solid state with the imaging, warmth and ease of tube amps.
with the money you save, you could get a behringer DEQ2496 stereo digital room correction unit to tune your main speakers to within +- 1dB which makes a huge improvement along with a monarchy DIP 2496 jitter reducer/upsampler to add a little more detail and ease to stereo digital (especially CDs).
HDMI is very important for audio. coaxial digital will only pass 16/44 resolution even on most SACD and DVD-A players which will downsample their 24/96 and 1/192 data. HDMI will send 24/88 multichannel. HDMI is planning for the future too when high rez HD-DVD gets here.
had i known that my panasonic would sound so darned awesome, i would have sprung the $50 more for HDMI SA-XR70 instead, but it was a stepping stone to biamplifying magnepan MMGs i was intending to get and would be recieving crossed over analogue signals. if you're using paradigms, then you're not going to be biamping.
i really wish a respectable audio rag like "6 moons" (with many favorable reviews for class-d power amps) or "audioholics" would review a panasonic class-d and get the word out. i wouldn't hold my breath for "stereophile" to ever do it unless panasonic bough 100 pages worth of ads. that's for sure.
i trust my panny enough to put it toe to toe against a $1500 A/B reciever any day. any differences would have to be minor.
Terry54321
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I have owned a Bob Carver Sunfire Ultimate Receiver for over a year now and really like it. The Ultimate produced much clearer sound than the equivalent priced top of the line Denon receiver when I did direct comparsions in two different show rooms using multiple brands of speakers.