Need advice on a new AVR, overwhelmed.

I find the comment on Marantz a bit odd. If it sounds good for music, why not movies?

Onkyo has sometimes had some of the best features and power for the price. I have seen more Onkyo failed posts than other gear, but maybe they sell more.

I have had good luck with Yamaha.

I would never buy a receiver that doesn't have room equalization for the subwoofer frequences, and in that area, Audyssey is still the way to go. I don't like Pioneers because all the ones I've ever checked don't allow individual crossover frequencies

current Marantz and Denons are basically twins except for their cases.

I own very recent Denon, Marantz and Onkyo models, and personally I don't think I prefer one brand over another. Actually the Denon is the only one that I've had trouble with.

I prefer Audyssey myself so would look at Denon or Marantz. The Anthem MRX300 is also worth a look if you can stretch a hair. It uses ARC which edges out Audyssey IMO.

With Klispch speakers being so efficient and clear , a good receiver is required to achieve the best possible sound with in your budget. I strongly suggest a Pioneer Elite VSX-52 or VSX-53. The sonic signature matches very well with Klispch reference series speakers not to mention the 52/53 has awesome dynamic's so your theater use will be down right scary.

Now a used SC-37 would even be a better choice with it's very good sounding ICE amps and additional power. It's probably IMO the best under 2200.00 receiver on the market.

Well you can get the denon 3312 for under you top budget threshold at Bestbuy in a price match to powersellersnyc.com or buy.com. It is a great receiver that probably does all you are wanting and needing.

it's not even CLOSE to the "best under 2200 dollar avr on the market"... the denon 4311 currently holds that position, and nothing else is really even close...

and they don't have a unique sound signature... and yes, i have owned 2 ice powered pioneer avr's, a sc-05 and a sc-09...

any modestly priced avr will power his speakers... after that, he needs to decide how much he wants to spend on features...

I would tell anyone that wants to listen that the Cambridge Audio 650R is the best receiver by far for under $3000, and nothing else even comes close.

If you read the article on it in Home Theater magazine, they also say it has the best audio quality of any receiver on the market and at $1600 it is a steal.

In addition to having a 1400 WATT power supply, twice as large as any other receiver I know of, it puts out 100 watts per channel with ALL 7 CHANNELS fully driven. Try that with any Japanese receiver! They can't, don't, and won't!

Amplifiers don't have a "sound signature"; they either have more distortion or less when they are called upon to deliver peak current to a speaker, which happens even more with movies than with most music.
The Cambridge has less distortion than any other, because it is the only one on the market with a properly engineered power supply with adequate current reserves for those peaks, which can easily be 100 times the current during normal passages.

If you are firm on the $900 budget, however, I would recommend the the Denon AVR-2312CI, which would be my second choice. Denon receivers have better power than the rest, and no shortage of good features.

Give it a rest with the 650R. It's nothing more than plain jane multi channel receiver. It has no video up scaling, only 3 hdmi inputs that do not support 3D, no room correction or network ability. Your magazine regurgitation is killing me. Also I think it's fair to point out the 650R adds a bit of artificial brightness to just about anything it plays.

You could buy a mid line avr from just about anyone and add an amp to it if you really think you need one. Even mid level avr's come with room correction, networking and support 3D.

^^^

he is still shilling that thing?

4311 is a no brainer buy. Preach on!

Lol yeah... But hey, it has a mass amount of analog connections if that's your thing.

I just don't like components that artificially color the sound like Cambridge does. Not to mention, for $1600 you could do much better with a separate amp and avr..

Since you want a receiver, I’ve been looking at the Denon 4311 and the Anthem MRX-300.
The problem with the Denon is that even though it is heavily discounted, it is still $1200+ right now and your budget is $900.
The Anthem is $999, still $100 over your budget. My advice is to pony up an extra $100 for the Anthem. Just an FYI: I think if you go into your local Anthem dealer, you may be able to talk them down off the $999 MSRP. I was able to get my dealer down to $999 out the door.
He was pretty bummed when I didn’t pull the trigger… hahaha.

Blaker, the cheapest price I've seen the Marantz for is $1600. I'm afraid that pushes you back over your budget again.
How important is Audyssey/room correction to you?
The Denon 4311 has Audyssey MultEQ XT32. The Marantz doesn't. If I were you I would get the 4311 or the Anthem MRX-300 before I'd get the Marantz.
Me personally, I think room correction is nice, but I think it is highly overrated. That's just my opinion.
How important is room correction to you? How important are certain features?
That's up to you to decide.

Ironically enough I'm in pretty much the same boat as you are price wise. I have not chosen anything yet either... LMAO.
Even more funny, I'm actually looking to go in a different direction, but that's another topic all together.
The bottom line, both the Denon 4311 and the Anthem will easily power your Klipsch speakers.

Yamaha Aventage line is another consideration if room correction isn't a huge concern. Ypao does ok aside from eqing the subs properly. Anti mode can fix that up.

4311 is hard to beat... Onkyo 818 has audyssey xt32 and it's $1000, but now you're in between the mrx 300 and 4311.


Get the Denon and don't look back.

Pioneer is the worst choice by far. It's menu system is horrid and pathetic. You must have it networked and you must have an iOS device to be able to fully use the on screen menu. Because what comes up on the tv is ugly as hell, hard too, sometimes anyway, and not everything is available in the on screen menu. That is pathetic and inexcusable and royally pisses me off about Pioneer them utter useless bozos.

I just bought a Marantz SR7005 yesterday/Sunday. It sounds better to me, then my previous Yamaha Aventage RXA3000. Not much but I like its brightness a tiny it better then Yamaha. It has AirPlay too. Te GUI is ok, but not great. It probably does what most people would want to be able to do. The remote has a backlight but the letters on the remote don't light up so it's useless unless the button already has letters on it. Overall the remote sucks in my opinion. The labels for some buttons don't make sense because it says say menu, but it doesn't bring up the menu as its I guess for something else. Other similar stupid buttons labeled weird. The Marantz doesn't remember to output sound for certain input. You can't tell it to output Dolby prologic for source sound format of 2.0. You can't tell it to do anything. It is automatic. It does have a used last setting, but it doesn't work really good. What. I want is prologic 2 movie for everything except digital. It doesn't do that. I e en have it set last used and on a 2.0 tv channel I said pro logic 2 movie. It defaulted back to. Stereo when I changed the channel making me manually change it to pro logic 2 movie. It has not made me manually dot his every time, but several. It works, but not like it should all the time. Onkyo and integra are the only brands that do this that's know of. In there you can say, if the input source format is 2.0 then output and you can choose whatever you want. There's many sound formats to adjust output sound format.

The sound of the Marantz SR7005 in my opinion is good. It's not too warm and not way bright. It's not harsh in the higher freq. You can adjust freq for each speaker and sub too. It's got decent Internet radio and I like it. I like the sound format info you get. I heard the Marantz SR7005 on the B&W CM5 and used my iPod touch connected to the front and played the single Precious by Depeche Mode. Sound was absolutely incredible.

The Denon and Marantz manuals are identical for similar equivalent models. The on screen GUI is also almost exactly the same. No idea on sound, but the Marantz has been rated to have better sound and is rated extremely high. Sound equivalent to amps costing thousands some reviews have said.

I'd say overall the Marantz SR7005 is good. But I'm more picky and have unique needs more so then anyone else. And I really mean -anyone-. So it's not as good as I'd like.

Man what is it with you and the ****** Cambridge? Well ****** to me. It's got No features like the rest. Sheesh it's a total joke.

I agree. That650r is a complete joke pos.

i sold an av7005 (pre-pro version of the sr7005) to buy a 4311 and have never looked back...

no idea what sr7005's street at these days, but if it's anywhere near msrp, it's well overpriced...

Everything in the world is way over priced.

Oops.
Open box means someone returned it and it can't be sold full price anymore.

If you can't get the 4311, pick up an Anthem MRX-300.