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In Reply to: Arcam AVR-100 Receiver vs. Integra DTR-7.1 Receiver" posted by Eric on March 21, 2001 at 13:53:44:
Eric:I am a high-end, 2 channel, tube audioman by heart. The confusion that "surrounds", ( no pun intended ) Home Theater receivers has kept me at arms length from it for a few years and it's complexity, and changing format generally has kept me away....Will that be DTS, or no DTS?, digital input for music or analogue?, etc. etc.
It finally came to a place where I said, "I am going to conquer this thing they call Home Theater by finding out for myself what sucks and what is acceptable by applying the same principals I learned from two-channel evaluating. Let's face it right off the get-go...No receiver, not even the Arcam as good as it is, is going to take you where even a fairly inexpensive tube amp is going to musically, this is more an exercise of "mental preparedness" but I have found, High-End Home Theater reciever manufacturer's are starting to pay a little closer attention to this, much more than they did even a 2 yrs ago.
My current HT/Music set up is very modest, yet, I am surprised at some of the sounds that come of it. Because I finally started to get involved in the "listening" instead of the "reviewers opinions" of Home Theater receivers, I found that you CAN integrate the two with success if you pay attention. That said, I auditioned the following:
Denon- AVR-681, 3300, 4800.
Marantz- SR-7000, SR-8000 (this one was decent musically too)
Onkyo- TXDS-575, 777, 5.1, 6.1, 7.1
Sherwood- Newcastle
and a few Pioneers to boot.....In the final analysis, they all had trade-off's and merits more pertaining to Home Theater than music. Now enter the Arcam. No, she's no tube job, but I was surprised at the level of musicality that came from this unit. It certainly was considerably better (in the same price class) that ALL the others tested.**** This is only my personal listening evaluations****
Use good interconnects, cones, power conditioning, or any other leftover Hi-Fi tweaks you have laying around and I tell you, it is way better than it should be musically for a HT receiver. I am only running a pair of Monitor Audio Bronze 2's and PSB Subsonic-5 sub, and Tannoy MC-1 center channel, and even the processing is very good, maybe not quite as good as the upper line Onkyo's or Denons, Marantz's, but music is truly enjoyable, and I have 20k worth of high-end gear upstairs!.....Yes, a break-in is IMPORTANT....approx. 110 hrs. before I started to notice an appreciable difference, especially in the top end frequencies. Mate it with an efficient speaker, and don't expect "The Who" to show up in your listening room and you will be notably impressed!.... Now my second choice would have been the Marantz SR-8000, followed by the Denon 4800, but to my ear, the Arcam's simplistic approach as usual, captured my Audio/Video ear.....buy with confidence unless you are prepared to spend double!
audioman
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Follow Ups
- Re: Go with the Arcam if music is your bag first and foremost - audioman 22:27:36 03/21/01 (0)
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