Your inputs, please

Audiolab 9000A Integrated Amplifier
venkatcr said:
I am glad I moved away from Onkyo
Cheers
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venkatcr - How do you compare the denon/marantz/pioneer with same grade Onkyo. I have somewhere heard or read that denon and others are bit soft/polite compared with Onkyo/HK etc.
 
elangoas said:
My Onkyo AVR 818 which has Audyssey Multi EQ XT32 prompted me for 2 setup's.. A quick 3 point calibration & full 8 point calibration.. Whatever data collected by AVR, Audyssey doesn't allow customization..
.
Click to expand...

Well,you can copy the curve of Audyssey to Equalizer section and customize it.
Yes Audyssey settings like Dynamic eq can not be used though.
 
jmascreen said:
venkatcr - How do you compare the denon/marantz/pioneer with same grade Onkyo. I have somewhere heard or read that denon and others are bit soft/polite compared with Onkyo/HK etc.
Click to expand...

As I said elsewhere, I yet have a soft corner for Onkyo's sound. After the recent audition I would say the following:

1. Onkyo and Pioneer sound similar. Both have ample power and can drive most matched speakers well. I would not call them harsh, but yes, you cannot listen to them for extended periods of time. They will lead to ear fatigue. Between the two, Pioneer has a larger stage and more powerful dynamics. Both Pioneer and Onkyo push the LFE very hard and are ideal for bass heads.

2. The Denon sits just above the Onkyo and Pioneer in terms of softness. It does not push the LFE so much, though mid and high frequencies sound very much the same. In LFE, I felt that the Denon had more sharpness, and lesser decay.

3. The Martanz is definitely softer across all frequencies and has much lesser ear fatigue. It compensates this with greater clarity and separation of sound across all frequencies. In a song, for example, a guitar or a clarinet will not be hidden a vocal, and you can clearly hear them. Similarly in complex movie scene, every whisper, every crunch, and every guitar strain will be clearly audible. Dialogs are more pronounced.

All these differences are very small across the brands. Pioneer, Denon, Marantz, and Onkyo all deliver great sound for music and movies. If you are a movie buff, I would rank the brands as Pioneer/Onkyo, Denon, and Marantz. If you want a mixture of music and moves, Marantz will move to the top of the heap.

Cheers
 
I have been following this thread for a long since I am looking for a good receiver after my Denon X1000 stop working after the update. I talked to one of the Hi fi dealer guy yesterday and he is ready to give me a demo of Denon 2200 and Pioneer 930. He said that Denon is a very good receiver in terms of movies but Pioneer as more detailed punch then Denon. Ill give the feedback if something materialises in coming days.
 
An observation on Denon vs Marantz:
There are minor differences in UI among comparable models.
Looks like Marantz has few more operations available at a touch of a button on remote.
Denon forces you to traverse the menu to achieve the same results.
Cheap tactic on part of D&M holdings.
Cheers,
Raghu
 
raghupb said:
ACheap tactic on part of D&M holdings.
Raghu
Click to expand...

A question. Who bought who? Did Denon buy Marantz, or was it the other way around?

amedius said:
He is ready to give me a demo of Denon 2200 and Pioneer 930. He said that Denon is a very good receiver in terms of movies but Pioneer as more detailed punch then Denon. Ill give the feedback if something materialises in coming days.
Click to expand...

I did audition the Denon 2200 recently. It certainly is a very good receiver. I would have gone for it excepting for the fact that, to me, it did not seem to have enough headroom for my needs. If you have sensitive speakers that don't ask for more than 100 watts, the Denon 2200 is a good buy.

The Pioneer 930 is also very good, but uses a Class D amp. It delivers more power, though the power ratings are very similar. It will have a little bit more headroom.

Please do look at the features, and ensure they have what you need.

Cheers
 
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To me Denon sounds dull in music if you listen seriously. Marantz on other hand is musical and enjoyable. Denon goes well with movies.Still marantz sounds transparent in midrange.
 
Hi

I would agree with spirovious, Denon lacks punch......possibly their top models may do some amount of justice.......Marantz does well for both movies and music across all their models.....the NR series works well for small room sizes upto 250sq ft - 300 sq tf. The SR will be more than enough for room sizes above 300 sq ft upto 600sq ft....

If you play with the settings, you can get better performance and i have been a happy user for the past 3 years +.
 
I will be attending the Audio exhibition in Mumbai this Saturday.....and will then decide. May be some receivers on display there, will be sounding more better.......

And all these times we are talking of the receivers....but there should also be a good speakers to go with and specially the Sub. I have heard Yamaha receiver at my friends place around a month back and what a awesome sound.....I was nearly blown away. My friend pointed out to his super subwoofer..SVS model SB-2000. The tight punch was enough to hammer the drums all over the 20 x 16 feet hall.
 
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amedius said:
And all these times we are talking of the receivers....but there should also be a good speakers to go with and specially the Sub.
Click to expand...

This thread is NOT about speakers. It is specifically about AVRs. There are other threads that talk about speakers. Let us not confuse issues here.

Cheers
 
amedius said:
And all these times we are talking of the receivers....but there should also be a good speakers to go with and specially the Sub. I have heard Yamaha receiver at my friends place around a month back and what a awesome sound.....I was nearly blown away. My friend pointed out to his super subwoofer..SVS model SB-2000. The tight punch was enough to hammer the drums all over the 20 x 16 feet hall.
Click to expand...
Which were speakers paired with Yamaha?
In EXPO,chances are less to have dedicated HT. 70% will be music setups.
There was dedicated HT expo in Mumbai,but many were asking for dedicated music setup.
Lets hope we see few HT setups.:)
 
Thanks Venkatcr for detailed explanation, even I have a soft side for Onkyo and I do agree with you with over heating and HDMI issues with onkyo. My current Onkyo seems to a obsolete model I am on verge of upgrade. Will be going to a mid segment and will be auditions soon. My favorite Disk for demo/test is Twilight the base ball scene. Here to I will check some more options.

Any clue about HK models?
 
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venkatcr said:
This thread is NOT about speakers. It is specifically about AVRs. There are other threads that talk about speakers. Let us not confuse issues here.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Yes you are right....just shared some thoughts. thanks.

sash said:
Alright, i'm ready with my first thoughts on the Pioneer vsx 930. First i'll vent - is there anything more frustrating than pushing speaker wires through terminals behind the receiver? In tight spaces, this is such a problem.
Before i wired up the Pioneer, i went through the demo material on my Yamaha 473. This took all morning and helped me freshen up my impressions. This along with my recent audition of Pioneer LX 57 and 87 was my reference.
My demo material -
THX demo disc 2014 blu ray
Krrish 3 blu ray
Talaash Audio CD
I wired up the Pioneer, pushed in the THX demo disc and fired it up. Volume started at some -80 and i pushed it up until -20. Thoroughly underwhelmed. There was volume and body but it did not sound too different from my earlier receiver. There was some muddiness mainly from the subwoofer and the LCR did not "sparkle". But i was encouraged mainly because there was tremendous "body" in the sound. You know, the difference between a Verna and an i10 - both do 100 kmph but the Verna does it effortlessly. It feels very planted and you feel that you could drive it faster easily and that the engine is kinda relaxed but the i10 you know you are pushing it and you don't want to keep it at that speed too long. It's that kind of difference i'm talking in comparison to my older receiver. So you could feel that it had more power but the overall experience, while certainly decent, was nothing to rave about.
I usually do not run room correction. It's mostly to do with a sense of "losing control", not sure what the receiver is doing or why. I ran the Pioneer room correction. It is an elaborate process that not just attempts to correct the speaker distances and levels but also standing waves etc from the sub. It took around 7-10 minutes. After the auto setup, i went into speaker setup and attempted to correct (minor) few things like distance, level etc. Did not want to tinker too much but just tweaked some outliers. The pioneer shines in this area and lets you do the level change while emitting test tone continously so that you know what you are doing. This is true for subwoofer too. Very helpful.
I again put the THX demo disc and pushed the volume up to -10. The first track is the "THX cavalcade". This has a steady sound and then a sudden burst of volume (Venkat sir, i guess this is what you called the headroom) and in one word it was stunning. The treble was very sweet and the impact was in another league. Then came what i call one of the most challenging tracks in that disc - The hunger games scene where Jennifer Lawrence runs through the woods in a hail of fireballs. This is special because there is low rumble throughout the scene and used to be unbearable in my old setup (it was bettered with sub placement but was still not very comfortable). That scene was a cake walk after the auto correction. Somehow the rumble was gone and the scene was entirely watchable. I used to dread this scene before.
Next came what are my favorite show off tracks of this disc -
The arrow battle scene in the movie "Hero"
The sword cutting through wood planks scene in the movie "Hero"
The drums scene in the movie "House of flying daggers"
Man - these totally blew me to bits. What i found terrific was the sound decay. The sound was crisp and sharp with no hint of lingering. The sound field was so dramatic - both in the drums scene and the arrows flying scene. In the drums scene, the villain (appears to be) throws few pebbles into the circle of drums and they bounce from one drum to the other. This was so realistic, the volume so loud and the sound so crystal clear - i was spellbound. I can bet no commercial movie theater can beat my system in this scene. The sound was muscular, authoritative and effortless - i have the confidence i could have driven up the volume by another 10 ticks on the dial and it would still be as effortless. The best part was what was done to my sub - it doesn't give me a headache now. It is not as prominent as before and i don't think it should be. It comes alive when needed and then disappears.
When i played "Dil tu hi bata" from Krrish 3 i could sense a lot of mid bass from the front speakers but not much from the sub. I checked the settings again and saw that the LCR were set as "large" by the MCACC. I left it at that. The song played wonderfully but it is not the best that i have heard this song. I should blame the sub for it - maybe i need to tweak the settings a little bit more.
I played "Jee le zara" from Talaash in stereo and again the sound was fantastic. The gruffness in the voice of the male singer, the bass and the instruments came out very well but as i said, i'm not a critical listener of music so i can only tell that it was wonderful.
So what do i think overall? I think i have found what i was hoping i'll find and that is not something i'd say easily. Let me tell you that i could find no reason why LX 57/87 could be better than this. In fact for my room, i found this better than my LX 57 audition at the dealer and the equal of 87. It could be the speaker or the room or the setup but in my room the Pioneer 930 sounded better than what the LX 57 sounded at the dealer's - keeping in mind that the dealer was not technically well versed.
This was a great deal for me (you won't believe the price) but without warranty etc. I feel this buy will keep me happy for a very long time. Both Venkat and DNI's Alex were right - the 930 would be more than enough for my room which is 13 x 14 ft (Venkat's opinion on the power delivery of class D amps). I will write more once i have watched more movies on this setup.
Click to expand...


Please input more about your receiver...since its only few days left before I take my decision.....99 pct I am for Pioneer VSX 930

spirovious said:
Which were speakers paired with Yamaha?
In EXPO,chances are less to have dedicated HT. 70% will be music setups.
There was dedicated HT expo in Mumbai,but many were asking for dedicated music setup.
Lets hope we see few HT setups.:)
Click to expand...

speakers were floorstanders from POLK......
 
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amedius said:
Please input more about your receiver...since its only few days left before I take my decision.....99 pct I am for Pioneer VSX 930
Click to expand...
I will play more material this friday or over the weekend and post my impressions. I also want to play around with the MCACC Auto (which is sort of semi automatic mode and seems to be for advanced users). BTW, what speakers are you planning to run with the 930? Like Venkat said the Pioneer 930 would be great for high sensitivity speakers, you may or may not get the results i get if you have low sensitivity speakers (<90 db)
 
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