Which receiver with Wharfedale 9.5?

vkanon

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Hi Everyone,

I'm looking to set up a system which will be used primarily for music and also for movies. Requirements are as follows:

- Usage will be 80% for music (2-3 hours daily) and 20% for movies (2-3 movies every week). We currently listen to movies on a set of PC speakers connected directly to the DVD player. I'm sure anything I buy will be much better so my preference is heavily weighted towards music as opposed to movie audio.

- The kind of music which will be listened to is Hindi film music on FM, Hindi film music mp3s (both new and old) and Classic Rock (Eagles, Clapton, Pink Floyd...) mp3s.

- The room is very large. It's an odd shaped room (almost L-shaped) measuring about 610 sq.ft. At its longest it is 42 ft and its widest it is 18ft. The attached pdf gives the layout.

- The living area, where the movies will be watched and the system will be placed, is about 220 sq.ft but without a right wall. The attached pdf gives the layout.

- My biggest worry is that I'm auditioning these systems in 225 sq.ft. sound proof room sitting directly in front of them. Whereas the room I'm going to be listening in is almost 3 times that size. Moreover, the listener will often not be in the middle of the speakers but way to the right. The music needs to be reasonably clear in the kitchen area too, even though the speakers are not placed there.

- On the speakers front, I've heard Polk Audio, Yamaha and Wharfedale. I have decided on the Wharfedale Diamond 9.5 as they are within my budget and I really liked the sound. Liked it enough to not want to audition any more speakers. The specs are available here
Product - Products - Wharfedale Hi-Fi

- Based on my review of the market, the recievers I have narrowed down are Denon AVR-1610, Yamaha RX-V475 and Onkyo TX-SR507/577 - more or less the bottom end from all three vendors. Service is important. Don't want to be stuck with a system whose spares are difficult to come by or whose servicing company changes every two years. I heard the Wharfedale's with the Yamaha RX-V475 and liked the sound. But I've been told that they will sound even better on the Denon 1610 since that is a better receiver for music. The specs for both the amps can be found here for Yamaha
RX-V465BL

and here for the Denon:
Denon USA | AVR-1610

The Yamaha has more power, which might be relevant given that the room is large. I think the Diamond 9.5s are 6 ohms and the Yamaha outputs 130W/ch against the Denon's 110W/ch at that impedance.

Net, net the question is this. In a large room, with music/stereo sound being the primary criterion, which receiver should I pair my Wharfedale Diamond 9.5s with? Should it be Yamaha RX-V475 or Denon AVR-1610?

Any help from the experts on this forum would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Vidyut
 

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The Yamaha has more power, which might be relevant given that the room is large. I think the Diamond 9.5s are 6 ohms and the Yamaha outputs 130W/ch against the Denon's 110W/ch at that impedance.


Regards,
Vidyut[/QUOTE]

Don"t believe in the ratings . Generally they are inflated , particularly of ONKYO and YAMAHA in comparison with DENON . Denon 1610 has Impressive figures for output power,fidelity firewall and frequency response. My choice is for Denon . Don"t use this receiver with 4 ohm speakers, performance will be dramatically curtailed . Diamond 9.5 is good combination.

Regards
 
Hi Vidyut,

I am using Wharfedale Diamond 10.5 setup with Denon 1610... I like it a lot....

Cheers!

Rajat
 
vkanon,

I see that you have zeroed-in on the Wharfedale 9.5 which is an excellent choice.

Since you have mentioned your usage pattern to be 80% music and 20% for movies, have you considered any integrated two channel amps? I am sure they would be much better suited for music, but yes, you will miss out on movies part (surround, center and subwoofer).

Also, you might want to consider changing your source of music from MP3 to either original CD's or even download CD quality FLAC/WAV files and then burn them ). MP3's are lossy compression and more for music-on-the-go.

Just my view.
 
My first system,which I have recently disposed off was Wharfedale Diamond 8.4 FS,Sub and Center with Yamaha AVR RX V 650.Although I spent a happy 2-3 years with them and was happy with the setup,in retrospect I feel that a simple combination of front speakers and a two channel amp would have been better.Since you primarily want to listen to music I would advise that you go for an Integrated Stereo Amp.Best options NAD C 355 BEE or Marantz PM 8003.(Both cost around 40 K.You could go one model down in both Nad and Marantz and still get great sound, if you want to spend less on the Amp.) The money you are planning to spend on center/sub/surround will be better spent in buying a Nad C 355 BEE.I have now purchased a Nad C 375 BEE.The Clapton/Eagles/Dire Straits I here with this amp is far far better than the same with my previous AVR.In fact you can't even compare the two.The Nad is a clear winner!Even watching movies you will get a better sound with a stereo amp although you will not be able to attach a sub/center/surround.An entry level Nad CD Player,a basic Sony DVD Player and some decent cables and interconnects and you will have a good setup.If you can audition your speakers with both an AVR and a Stereo Amp,you will be in a better position to decide.
 
Krishna, Rajat,
Thanks for suggesting the Denon so unequivocally. Been reading up on the comparison a bit more since you guys suggested it. My impression (based on the net only) is that the Denon has more predictable power supply (since it's independent for each channel) and is less likely to have firmware bugs. I guess that's what I'll explore now instead of the Yamaha.

Ajay, Prashant,
Since this is the first time I'm going for a system with separates, I think I'll stick with an HT receiver for audio requirements. But thanks for suggesting the stereo setup.

Everyone,
I still have a little doubt on the power front since the room is large (see pdf attached with first post). The Diamond 9.5s are 6ohm speakers rated at 30-150W RMS. The Denon 1610 is rated at 75W/ch at 8 ohms and 110W/ch at 6 ohms. The 1910 is rated at 90W/ch at 8 ohms and 125W/ch at 8 ohms. The question is, how much difference will 20% more power make?

The price diff is quite substantial (15k) and I won't be using the other features (7.1, zone B etc.). Just wondering if a 20% diff in power is worth the price diff or not, given the large room. I don't think I can audition the combination, so I'm just going to have to go by learned opinion.

Thanks
 
By the way, some of the listening will be on FM radio. Does anyone know of any difference between the FM tuners on the Yamaha and the Denon receivers?

Thanks
 
Everyone,
I still have a little doubt on the power front since the room is large (see pdf attached with first post). The Diamond 9.5s are 6ohm speakers rated at 30-150W RMS. The Denon 1610 is rated at 75W/ch at 8 ohms and 110W/ch at 6 ohms. The 1910 is rated at 90W/ch at 8 ohms and 125W/ch at 8 ohms. The question is, how much difference will 20% more power make?

The price diff is quite substantial (15k) and I won't be using the other features (7.1, zone B etc.). Just wondering if a 20% diff in power is worth the price diff or not, given the large room. I don't think I can audition the combination, so I'm just going to have to go by learned opinion.

Thanks
Hi
One of the main difference between 1910 vs 1610 is the Video upscaling-1080p & Zone 2 feature of the former. Other than that there are few additional HDMi interface & I/O options and not to mention more power headroom. Moreover 1910 is a full 7.1 receiver & 1610 is a 5.1 with 2 pre-outs for extra 2 channels (Either surround or Heights-PLiiZ configurable).Pls correct me if I'm wrong.

If you are using or if there is a possibility of adding a FullHD screen in future I would recommend the 1910 for it's fully loaded features and powers the Diamonds efficiently.
If you're on a tight budget 1610 does the job well except upscaling.
I'm not sure about the FM-tuner part but I'm sure there won't be any issues with that.

All the best,
Samuel


PS: Please check the attachment. Pardon me if it looks funny,I made it with MS-powerpoint.:eek:hyeah:
 

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Hi Everyone,

An update for those who are interested. I finally had a chance to compare the Yamaha 465 and the Denon 1509 on the same speaker set (Wharfedale Diamond 9.5). I am told that stereo music on the 1509 will sound the same as that on the 1610. A comparison of the specs (found here http://www.denon.co.uk/site/popup/index.php?p=vergleich_real&Pid=390&vPidN[0]=415 ) seems to point to that. The differences seem to be more updates for HD audio and video decoding and it doesn't look like they'll affect stereo performance at all.

Anyway, on to the difference between the Yamaha and the Denon. First off, the low frequencies were certainly more pronounced by the Yamaha than they were by the Denon. Drums, thunder sounds (in Ghanan Ghanan from Lagaan) etc. were more impressive. Even the not so low frequency sounds were a lot richer and had an extra bit to them. Clapton's guitar in Wonderful Tonight was deeper and Toni Braxton's voice in Unbreak My Heart was clearly huskier.

The Denon 1509/1610 (assuming they sound the same) did better in a different aspect altogether. Most of the voices sounded slightly clearer. It sounded like some of the sounds were more separate from each other than they were in the Yamaha. When a man and a woman were singing together, the Denon seemed to do a slightly better job of separating the woman's voice from the man's. Similarly, if there were some bells tinkling along with drums playing, they were slightly clearer and crisper. With the Denon, the tinkling bells held their own against the drums but with the Yamaha the drums kind of overshadowed them. This effect was not very pronounced though. My wife picked it up but I noticed it only after she pointed it out.

I'm not sure whether these differences were due to settings or they are just in the nature of the two amps. I made sure they were both set to the same levels on base (+2) and treble (+6) and were playing at the same volume setting (-6). Don't know if it was the Yamaha's extra power which made the difference.

Net, net, the Yamaha RX-V465 did a great job with the base. It was a much richer sound without being boomy at all. The Denon seemed to do more justice to every sound, but lacked that little bit of magic which the Yamaha added to the music. Prices - the Yamaha is 24k and the Denon is 26k.

Finally I listened to the Denon with a sub-woofer (Wharfedale PC-10+, cost=17k) added. This made things much better. The music certainly had more depth and matched the sound produced by the Yamaha. We turned the sub woofer on and off while listening to the music, and the difference was clearly there to hear. If anything, there was now too much base and some of the sounds were a little jarring/boomy though not too often. Does anyone now if there is a setting which can make this better?

So, if anyone's looking for a comparison between the two low-end receivers from Yamaha and Denon, then my amateur assessment is given above. My net conclusion : the comparison is really between the Yamaha alone versus the Denon and a sub-woofer. The Denon alone didn't work for me. The decision now rests on two things
1.Is there any way to make the base on the subwoofer sound less boomy/jarring?
2.Is it worth the extra 19k (2k price diff for the receiver and 17k for the S-W)?

Will take a day to figure this one out and decide.

Thanks.

PS - Samuel, thanks for the drawing.
 
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Hello Everyone,

I've decided to go in for the Wahrfedale 9.5s with the Yamaha RX-V475. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and especially for their encouragement to audition.

Looks like Wharfedale is available from two dealers in Bangalore - Vector Systems and Total Sound. Has anyone had any experience with these two dealers? Especially when it comes to servicing the speakers?

Vector Systems is asking for 70% advance. Is this the norm or is it too high?

Regards
 
I've decided to go in for the Wahrfedale 9.5s with the Yamaha RX-V475.

Good choice. While upgrading my kit over the past year, I used my new 9.5s with my outgoing Yamaha RX-V440 for about 3/4 months before replacing the receiver. I was very satisfied with the sound signature for movies and especially for music in stereo mode. I would have been happy to live with that pairing, but then upgraditis raised its ugly head!
Needless to say, the new Denon can get a lot more out of my 9.5s than the Yamaha could, but that is another story.
Bottomline, I expect the 475 to be a better receiver than the 440 and the pairing with 9.5 is going to result in great sound. Enjoy !!!
 
What I have always found with Yamaha is,vocals sounds thinner,& in Denon fuller,accurate.

I heard 1610 with polk sub/sat,It sounded good with wide soundstage,crisp.
As it was connected to sat,it was not sounding very very good with music.
I heard Den 1910 with psb BS system,sound was very clean,Dynamic & better than 1610.
 
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