Good AVR or decent AVR with Emotiva amp?

a receiver would have no trouble to power studio 20's, no need for separate amps especially since you have a subwoofer.

well, what's your price range and are you interested in refurb at all or only new, and where are you located

do you have a center channel?

well, my suggestion is http://usa.denon.com/us/product/pages/productdetail.aspx?catid=avreceivers(denonna)&pid=avr3313ci(denonna) , but call http://www.avsforum.com/avscience and see if you can get a good price on it. the measurements of the year before model (3312ci) is here http://www.hometheater.com/content/denon-avr-3312ci-av-receiver-ht-labs-measures . should be identical to the 3313ci. you don't need an external amplifier for bookshelfs a small center and in-ceiling surrounds imo, you wouldn't even notice a difference unless you're watching movies at 0 dB.

but if for some reason you do want an external, the 3313ci is an excellent processor and has pre-outs for an external amp to add later.

Since you don't seem to be interested in playing movies at reference level but mention wanting to play loud music, you might want to look at a decent AVR with pre-outs for L/R and an emotiva 2 channel amp. Since you also mentioned Marantz, an NR1402/NR1403 would be a reasonable decision. You could start with just the AVR and if you found the music wasn't to your liking at loud levels, add something like an emotiva XPA-2 for the L/R channels.

I dunno about adding a 2 ch amp just for music, the denon can do 150 Wpc in stereo, and the max power handling on his speakers is only 180w, that's not even 1 dB increase in volume.

I'd look at NAD T757, Anthem MRX 500, Cambridge 551R or Arcam 360, the Cambridge and Arcam use high quilitly parts like toroidal transformer and all metal casings and their main focus is giving their customers the best sound not a ton of features you don't need.
Edited by Ryder125 - 2/2/13 at 12:01pm

Read the reviews on the Cambridge and Arcam I doubt you'll find you need a rc with such solid sounding avr matched with great speakers like the studio 20. Look at the Pioneer Elite like the SC-61 or if your budget will allow it the sc-68, I've found you can find elites for much less than the mrsp, seeing how you like to listen loud that D3 amp will have no problem doing that and you'll get a really good room control and all the features possible. Also, you can try out outlaw separates which gets high praise and offer 30 days in home trial I believe. In your price range there are so many good options.

rc doesn't really have anything to do with how the avr sounds, it's to do with how the room reflects and where the peaks and nulls are..

no, you should get decent rc, what i was saying was in reply to ryder, he was saying he doubts you need rc. but unless your room is designed for audio you need it. but you shouldn't base it just on rc, you should base it on features and looks and warranty and price. all these receivers being suggested are all going to sound excellent and if set up properly would all be indistinguishable from each other.

You actually don't have to figure out very much.

Buy the AVR and see if it runs out of power in actual use.

I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the external amps out there are not doing anything but absorbing power and money. Especially people who add 150 watt amps to AVRs that put out 100 watts. That's only a few dB of power and barely audible at best.

The smartest things I see in your existing system are some nice speakers and a good sub. The sub does more to extend the clean loud sound that you can get from your AVR than any other electronics.

Most people's next frontier is room acoustics, not a fancier AVR.

I don't understand why people buy megabuck AVRs. The final feature I'd pay more than a nickel for in an AVR would be Audyssey Multieq XT32, and that can be obtained in good AVrs running like maybe $500 or so.

I've looked at the service manuals for some megabuck AVRs (I'm an EE with decades of audio experience) and they really don't differ significantly in terms of electronics that would improve SQ, from stuff in the $500 range. No such differences show up in spec sheets or published lab tests.

People say lots of things about build quality and the like, but I've been there and done that and I don't see a difference. Parts quality differences are far less than they were 40 years ago. So much is just plain standardized. From a reliability standpoint most of the big reliability mistakes that are being made are things that small no-cost differences in assembly that you can't see without destroying the equipment. In volume, it costs no more to do it right or wrong.

People love their cute little toroidal power transformers, but toroids are not all win-win from a performance standpoint, and lots of high quality equipment doesn't use them.

the inclusion of ausyssey multeq XT32 hasnt quite got to the $500 avr, with the exception of 2 times as far as I know. Twice since November last year the onkyo 818 was available on sale briefly in the $500ish range. A more realistic number would be $700-$800 range for the cheapest commonly available avr with audyssey multeq XT32, again being the onkyo 818. Others with XT32 are in the $1000+ category with the denon 4520 and onkyo 5010 being among the most expensive. Though when onkyo (and others) announce any new models the prices will likely drop quickly.

Now audyssey XT on the other hand, is very common on $500 and cheaper avr's.

I guarantee you will not need an external amp. I have Studio 10's and the loudest I listen to them is using only about 1W of power per speaker. Also I agree with everything Arnyk said.

Do you mean your average levels or peak?

 

If you meant literally the "loudest" as a peak, then 1w 89db sensitivity 12 feet is 81db from 12 feet away. So, compressed pop/rock of 70dB average and dynamic music or films of 61db average?

That's like conversation level.

 

If you meant the average level is 1w, then that might be 100w on 20dB peaks. 

 

Some receivers can output twice their average level for brief transient peaks. Some have a more rigid power supply and do not.

i only measured on lossless music, and measured peak. but i have a smaller room so my listening position is only 2m away.