Please help. I am purchasing equipment for a home theater. I just purchased the Polk RM 7200 speakers because I liked the sound and I wanted speakers that could be ceiling (rears) and wall (front/center) mounted. I have 3 small children and floor speakers/bookshelf were not an option.
Now for the million dollar question: What receiver(s) would you reccommend for these speakers? How important is THX certification?
You don't need anything close to $1K to get good sound with those speakers. The Polks are accurate and provide an amazing sound for their size, but they are not going to sound appreciably better with a $1K receiver over the choices I suggest here. Also, don't get hung up on "features" such as a massive number of DSP modes--a favorite selling point of mass market receiver brands as it is cheaper to include some DSP modes than it is to put in quality parts. Stick with high quality receiver makers and you can get a great unit for considerably less moeny that $1K and it will sound better. I used to have a Denon 3803, which went for over $1K, and it's sound was inferior to the bottom of the line NAD which costs half as much.
I would recommend you consider a Marantz SR-5400, which can be obtained for about $499. It is an honest 90 wpc receiver (Most receivers will not reproduce anywhere near their rated power because they are rated with only two channels active at one time, i.e., Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, etc.) There is only one power supply to drive all channels and if a receiver is rated only two channels at a time, it generally means that the power supply is incapable of driving all channels at their rated power. The Marantz has plenty of power and everything you would want, feature wise.
I also recommend the NAD T743 or T753. The 743 is about $550 and the 753 is about $799. Again, both have plenty of power and have everything you would want feature-wise (the 743, only rated at 50 wpc, sounds louder and cleaner than my old Denon, which is rated by Denon at 110 wpc!). But the NAD also has a dynamite remote that is very intuitive. The NAD is also a "faster" amp meaning it will sound more dynamic than most other receivers.
All three will work very well with your speaker system.
Hawk, Thank you for your post. I have a couple of follow up questions. Is there a reputable store online that sells Marantz? Can I connect a DLP projector to this receiver via a single cable and send various video signals (DVD, cable, HDTV, etc..) to the projector? I have had friends recommend Harmon Kardon, any thoughts?
Check out the new Denon AVR-2805. It has video up conversion so you can easily switch all kinds of video signals with a single component video output (to your projector). External bandwith range is to 100 MHz. MSRP on the AVR-2805 is $899 which is in your budjet.
Power is fully discrete 100 Watts Per Channel X7 (8 ohms, 20Hz - 20kHz, 0.05% THD)