Good AVR or decent AVR with Emotiva amp? - Page 2

i don't think they're good, but to be fair i have never owned one :P I've heard a lot of bad things about the cheap sony receivers. The Sony STR-DA5800ES is a lot more money than the typical sony receivers, it's definitely not bad, but i think mostly any other receiver in that price range is as good or better.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1443971/just-got-a-sony-str-da5800es/0_100

There are probably more threads/info around here if you search.

I see no need to go with Sony when it's quality is questionable and there are so many alternatives. I prefer Audyssey XT32 for room correction so would buy Denon, Marantz, or even Onkyo although Onkyo is on my sh!t list these days. As for external amplification it depends on what speaker's you have and how loud you listen.
Edited by Theresa - 2/5/13 at 3:08am

 

I had a Sony AVR a few years back. Can't remember the model number. It was OK - nothing special. These days, a good form of electronic room EQ is important to me, so I would always choose a unit with Audyssey MultEQ (at least XT and preferably XT32).  So that rules out Sony - and Pioneer (whom I have much respect for in other areas of home electronics) and Yamaha (from whom I have bought - and loved - one or two stereo receivers in the past). 

 

Unless there is some unique and compelling feature that you absolutely need on the Sony, I would steer clear. IMO other makes offer better value these days.

so when you try to turn it up louder currently you can hear distortion or how do you know it's as loud as it can go?

try turning it up louder? did you have your old klipschs set up properly with audyssey or whatever?

well if you set your receiver up with audyssey you should be able to turn it up to -10 to -5 with no problems. what volume were you listening to it when you didn't think it wasn't that loud? (unless your audyssey set L, R to like +10 dB or something, but that is unlikely.) and what were you using as the source? You can also try changing the angle of your speakers or the distance they are apart and your listening position. Speaker wire won't make any difference.

Do you have a dB meter?

 

If you have run Audyssey, you now have a system, assuming it is capable of it, which will play at movie Reference Level at 0dB on the MV (Relative setting). What level are you using?

 

Because Audyssey, if set up properly, aims to give you a frequency response that matches the Audyssey target curve, you may find it sounds quite different from what you were used to before. This will especially be the case if, pre-Audyssey, your frequency response showed a lot of large peaks and troughs. Once flattened out, it can seem "there is something missing" because there is - the distortion of the peaks and troughs! Best advice is to listen for a week or two without changing anything and see if then you don't prefer the flatter response that Audyssey has created. 

 

Here is a comparison between my Audyssey ON and Audyssey OFF graphs for example. Bear in mind my room is heavily treated so if yours isn't, then the ups and downs in the graph would be much greater fr your 'before' graph than it is for mine - but you can see what Audyssey is doing well enough. Green is ON, purple is OFF of course.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'\d also suggest you check out the Audyssey 101 setup guide linked in my sig if you haven't already done so. This will ensure you follow best practice for the Audyssey measurements.

 

Speaker wire won't make any difference so long as you are using a decent gauge of wire already. 14 gauge should be fine. 

Doggone double post. see below

another vote for "turn it up more (probably)." A lot of people are thrown by volume controls denominated in decibels and calibrated to a reference level. In a nutshell, at "reference level," (zero on your volume dial) each of your speakers (except the sub) should put out 105 dB if they are receiving sound at full tilt from a digital medium (called 0 dBFS). And that's way loud. at least IMO. Whether and how much particular music hits 0 dBFS depends on a million factors, but you get the idea.

Decibels are logarithmic. So 10 dB is either ten times more or 1/10 the power depending on whether you turn up or down. And, btw, a 10 dB difference is typically thought of as half (or twice) as loud, subjectively. So if for example you are looking at a number like 30 on your receiver and thinking you've certainly turned it way up from the starting point, welll, it's likely -30 and you are using 1/1000 of the power it would take if the master volume were at zero. Every three decibels doubles or halves the power (and is about "one notch" louder or quieter), 10 dB changes power by a factor of 10 (and sounds twice or half as loud).

And depending on your room, etc, the studio 20s are likely going to at least get most of the way to reference (what will happen is they'll start to "compress," getting less than 1 dB louder for each dB more power they are fed. This largely effects lower frequencies . . .

Anyway, before you spend a couple thousand on speakers, try simply turning it up.