PCA Forums

Hi guys. I'm in the market for a new receiver. Believe it or not, I still have my old Pioner Stereo receiver that I bought back in 1973 (when I was a senior in high school)! It still works, but one of the monitor buttons is now acting up to where it makes intermitten contact. I've been out of the audio stuff for quite a while. Last time was back in 1980 when I designed and made my own speakers. So it's been a good 20 years, and I don't know squat about what is good anymore. What are my options, and where can I buy someting decent without getting ripped off?

I currently have the following:
35 inch tv
DVD player
CD ROM player
Cassett deck
turntable
vcr player

Denon makes some good stuff.

Onkyo and Craver. I would skip most the retail stuff that say BestBuy and sears ane montgomory wards sells. Circuit city sells some higher end stuff. But it all depends on the amount of Bank U plan on droping.

Greg

I like my Yamaha home theater natural sound receiver.
If you go for the higher end Yamaha stuff its nice.
I hear alot of Americans say Onkyo is high end which makes me laugh cuz we don't even see it here in Canada anymore.
It was very cheap stuff here 20 years ago, I still have an old Onkyo top loading cassette deck for my garage...haha
WW

Companies and products change. Zenith and RCA used to be high end. Sure onkyo makes less expensive stuff but if I were to go to a store and there was an onkyo and a sony same price same functions I would not think twice about getting the onkyo over the sony. Like harman Kardon used to be High end with high quality. now they are High price with Low quality. And I just got a yamaha reciver and like it alot but I only got it cause I found it at an awsome price Other wise I probably would have held out for something else.

Greg

A good place to check stuff out at is sterioreview.com

<A HREF="http://www.stereoreview.com" TARGET="_NEW">http://www.stereoreview.com</A>

It was very cheap stuff here 20 years ago

LOL.. yea because you know things haven't changed ONE BIT over that time period.

Guys I didn't mean to imply that Onkyo is crap now or not it's just that I hear alot about it but for some reason it's very rare up here in Canada now.
i am not disagreeing because I haven't heard an Onkyo receiver for a long time.
WW

LOL guys. I've never even heard of Onkyo. I don't really care what name is on it as long as it's a quality unit and not a piece of crap. I know back in my hey-day, Marantz and Sansui were king.

Thanks for the link to stereo review. I'll check it out.

My price range will probably be $500-$1000. Can I get something decent for that amout?

mail comming.

Greg

Between 500-1000, most certainly you can do well. I'm the proud new owner of a Sony V333 ES, which is replacing the top-of-the-line GX900 ES. The sound quality is like night and day. And the V333 costs about 700. But I would suggest the 444 or 555, just for the additional features and a bit more power (which is *clean* power, compared to Sony's consumer line).

I was quite pleased with a Denon loaner I had last year (it blew out my passive radiators). A friend just upgraded from a GX800 ES to Denon, and he's very happy.

I would suggest a coax cable over optical for the DVD.

Onkyo Onkyo Onkyo antything from this company rules.

slugbait why coax over optical? Im using a monster optical cable for my dvd's audio 2 my receiver and I think it is really nice. Something I dont know?

Greg

I believe coax has gold and copper, while optical doesn't. Not sure. Most people won't hear the difference with AC-3, but I've heard DTS shines better.

I got my player from Magnolia, and the guy selling it to me was the manager...not a green salesman. He recommended coax. Then after getting home, I saw the same recommendation at a couple of home theatre forums.