Got my HT set up and is time to upgrade again. I have a Marantz SR7007 that need to go. Now I’m between to get and SR7010 or an AV7702MK2 preamp together with a new Emotiva Gen3 XPA 5. My listening habits are 75% music and 25% video and music blue ray. I have only 1 space for view / listening and one set of speakers only. I was thinking of getting the SR7010 for video and get a separate stereo preamp and amp (Emotiva XSP-1 and some 2 ch power amp) sharing the same set of speakers (L&R and 2 subs) and a mean to disconnect one system from the speakers while using the other. Or just get the 7702MK2 with the Gen3 XPA with 5 channels and maybe a separate 2 channel amp to isolate the L&R speakers for stereo use. For me the benefit of the last is that is less complicated and less cost which I’m leaning too. What I’m looking for is, with what I can get which system will give the best 2 channel audio quality? My equipment is listed in the signature below.
Thanks....

Connect your mains to the SR7010 and you're set for HT and two-channel audio.

The notion you need two different systems, one for 2 ch audio and a different one for 5.1 (or more) was invented by an industry that wants to sell you as much gear as possible. The convoluted arguments they've come up with to justify it are amazing. The only one that possibly has some merit is that the size of the listening audience might be different for the two (hence the speakers' desired coverage area might be different) but even then, that is a bit of a stretch.

Equally amazing are posting like this one that make such outrages and unprovable claims.
There’s no conspiracy. Multipurpose systems are just that and dedicated systems are just that.
If you’re satisfied with either – BINGO! Well done, case closed.

Judging from the reply that followed yours, you exposed it alright.

Bi-wiring is scamming the customer into buying twice as much speaker wire as they need. [It's worthless.]
Bi-amping (passive) is scamming the customer into buying twice the number of amps as they need. [It's worthless.]
Bi-preamping is scamming the customer into buying twice the number or preamps as they need, [It's worthless.] however most people have a different name for it. They call this bogus practice "HT (home theater) Bypass". I explain the scam here:

A HT pre-amp with good room eq (dsp) is magnitudes better for stereo than a so called 'dedicated' stereo amp without room correction.


Note the cunning use of the word 'dedicated' in an earlier posting to imply that something is better but in reality it's not.

Agreed, and even if one is of the mind that when listening to 2 ch. there's no need for room correction but there is for 5.1 [there's no logic there, you still have a room, but it's a common myth] pretty much all 5.1 AVRs have defeat switches, for example "Pure Direct" or "Straight (feed)", and many even can memorize to turn off all the extra processing automatically based on which input the user selects. Nifty.

Blanket statements like this ignore the _context_ of the problem.

/sarcasm Who knew that I needed yet-another-AVR for a second room dedicated to solely 2 channel audio when I have _zero_ use for video in this setup.

I'll stick with a dedicated 2 channel amp Thank-You-Very-Much.

I was addressing the OP, not people with multiple rooms:

to OP:

just use the same pre for HT & audio. I run everything through my receiver and only have (had) an outboard amp for my front two speakers.. the rest all run off the receiver. The fronts always run (ran) off the outboard amp, so my receiver only had three channels driven, increasing the power available for those three speakers. It was more than enough to handle the content typically piped through center/LR/RR. It sounded awesome.

For extra fun, I only noticed a difference between the onboard amp and the outboard at volumes so extreme it was pointless (and it was a very, very good amp)... so I sold the outboard and just run everything through my receiver now. It still sounds awesome. If you get a high quality receiver with a good amplifier section, you will be just fine without the need for any extra gadgets. Not sure if Marantz qualifies these days, no experience there as availability around here is poor, but something like an Anthem certainly does.

If you did want to run outboard for your mains in a setup like this I wouldn't bother with a digital amp like I had, and would go for something a little more exotic that colors the sound more like a tube amp

I have multiple rooms, and just dumped a "high-end" preamp + sophisticated class-A and replaced that with a cheap AVR in a dedicated 2-channel room.

Result - improved sound due to less noise, more power and dsp functionality which allow proper integration of the bass system.

It would help your explanation if you can show some measurements.

If you like to try different options over time with your system, a pre-pro like the Marantz AV7703 (update to the 7702mk2) will provide a lot more flexibility to make changes. If you want to have a different amplifier for the L&R speakers that's easy, for example. Just use the amplifier for the L&R speakers and another for the remainder of the speakers. Swap amplifiers any time you want. If you want to try bi-amping, just add amplifiers and some splitter cables, and you are good to go.

If later you want to try a separate preamp that has a home theater bypass, or one of the DAC's that also has analog inputs with a home theater bypass, that's easy as well.

It also will be more costly, probably in the range of double the price, or more, compared to just an AVR and is unlikely to have any audible benefits, in fact using multiple units increases the possibility for ground loops [buzz and/or hum] compared to a single AVR. The OP should buy the right power for the speakers/room/seated distance that they expect to use and they should be all set.

I own a Marantz prepro by the way. The reasons I bought it over an all in one AVR were because of odd reasons that don't apply to most people like needing to leave it powered on all day as a video signal passes through during video dubbing. [It only consumes about 60 watts whereas AVRs consume much more.]

This form of bi-amping, called passive bi-amping, should never be undertaken by any consumer under any circumstances whatsoever. [Don't confuse this with active bi-amping: That's a different animal and properly requires removing the speakers internal crossover entirely, voiding the warranty.] There is no benefit in either the quality nor quantity of sound with passive bi-amping and it costs double the price in amplifiers and wiring, not to mention the added labor steps of preparing the extra wires and their visual clutter. The people in audio forums who report audible benefits have not conducted proper double blind tests and are being fooled by expectation bias that they think it ought to sound better and be more powerful hence their minds fool them that it is. Neither are true. You don't gain even 1 dB greater output. [Whereas buying a stronger, single power amp with double the power truly does have benefits, 3 dB added power output, and the cost is often less than "twice" plus no added wires are needed.]

People in the know, a small segment of the audio universe that's in the minority unfortunately, refer to passive bi-amping as "fool's bi-amping" for a good reason.

And I do actually have very detailed measurements of this equipment.

But why on earth should I bother to do the work required to present those measurements on an internet forum?
The class-A is my own design, all other amplifiers are form other manufacturers, and I would never publish any measurements of those.

But I have something much better.
I have published a listening test of different amplifiers, and this test is executed in a way that lets you test for sonic differences yourself.
One of the amplifiers in the test is a commercial off-the-shelf AVR.

This test confirms that there are no differences in sound between reasonably good amplifiers used correctly, within their limits.

There is no controversial or revolutionary new knowledge in this, "it is known".
As long as all faults introduced by dacs, amplifiers are below threshold of hearing, it makes no difference for sound quality if on amp is better.

I don't know about where you are but around here there is an old saying that goes, "One picture is worth thousand words.". As I've said, it would help to explain your "improved sound due to less noise, more power".

The point, regardless of multiple rooms, is why do you even waste everyone's time with conspiracy NONSENSE such as "one for 2 ch audio and a different one for 5.1 (or more) was invented by an industry that wants to sell you as much gear as possible." ???

To pull a wikipedia: [[Citation]]

To quote the late Carl Sagan: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

Do the Math:

* A 5.1 $1000 AVR, let's be extremely generous and say, has roughly 75% of circuity for audio. That's $125 of parts/channel dedicated to audio.

* Now compare and contrast to a two channel $1000 amp which has 100% of circuity for audio. That's $500 of parts/channel. The fact that the circuit designer doesn't have to worry about "video noise leakage" means the (audio) quality _should_ be better. This isn't rocket science, just basic engineering.

I had a chance to listen to the Cambridge Audio CXA80 and Yamaha A-S801 this week. Immediately I could tell that the A-S801 was "brighter". That wasn't my cup of tea, but that's why we have coffee, water, etc. drinkers. Not everyone has the same preference(s).

For 2 channel music I can understand why some go separates -- they want quality, convenience, coloring, etc.

Now I agree the monkey wrench is DSP room correction -- but some people DON'T want their music "colored".

Second, even IF the industry wanted to sell you as much gear as possible, THEN no-one would even produce an AVR -- everyone would "conspire" to sell only separates which is clearly not true.

Can this year's AVR beat last decade's 2ch Amp? Probably. But it isn't always so clear cut.

Like I said, context is important. _Which_ variables_ are the person trying to optimize for?

Separates exist to solve _real_ problems, not manufactured, nor "invented" ones.

I have: using a single AVR's CD input for one's 2 ch. source and turning off all room processing [because apparently room's don't exist when listening to two channel sources ?!] is cheaper than buying a secondary integrated amp or preamp and power amp for said source, yet sounds audibly indistinguishable under properly conducted, double blind, level matched comparisons.

The burden of proof is to provide that very evidence Sagan asks for and it falls squarely on the industry asking us to buy double the number of components (or more) for the same room and same front pair of speakers. Their extraordinary claim is that stereo amps sound audibly different/better than AVRs (with their processing turned off) despite showing nearly identically flat frequency response, low distortion, noise, hum, channel separation, and adequately low output impedance when driving real world speakers.

Since you are repeating this same argument across the forum, I'll repeat my response here. The problem with this argument is that it doesn't take into consideration that the AVR may have distortion that is inaudible. You can throw all the money and engineering you want at improving over the AVR in that circumstance. But you don't end up with improvement in sound quality once you reach that threshold where distortion is inaudible. You are just overbuilding/overengineering.

You're assuming that RC only corrects room problems and has no potential detrimental effect on SQ. I haven't found that to be the case, particularly above Schroeder. In fact, ARC, which is Anthem's room correction, no longer even allows correction above 5 kHz.

So yeah, just because there is a room it doesn't mean we need room correction.

Aside from that I generally agree with what you're saying except that there are exceptions and you're not really allowing for that in many of your posts. I know, it gets tough to make a cogent and brief post when you're including a bunch of fine print, but it should be sprinkled in there so it doesn't look so absolute.

You should read this all the way to post # 61.

Another difference people may not be aware of, which I am because I worked in the industry selling high end amps, preamps, integrated amps, and AVRs for a little over two decades so I was privy to their dealer costs, is that stereo separates usually have a higher profit margin than AVRs; that is, AVRs generally have a lower markup than do high end stereo separates so they are less profitable to the dealer.

What's the most profitable scenario for the dealer? Selling the customer a high margin power amp, a high margin preamp with the HT bypass feature, and a lower margin AVR on top of that.

If one doesn't like room correction, for whatever reason, they can turn it off when they don't want it. They don't need to buy two distinct audio systems because they can't figure out how to turn room correction off for the times that they don't want it.

You really want to improve the sound? Room treatments! Do that first before buying new equipment. It will make your system sound clearer, tighter bass, improve decay times, etc. Once you have done proper room treatments, then you can decide if you need to upgrade equipment or speakers. While there are many room treatment companies out there I am only familiar with GIK since I have used their products. They provide free room analysis and tell you what you really need.

Oh, totally agreed.

I actually took the effort recently to go digital to my amps, bypassing my prepro to avoid a DAC conversion, but I can't say that I heard any difference, although I really wanted to . I thought I did, but then proved to myself I really didn't .

Well, to split hairs, 2 channel audio came first and everyone was quite happy with their 2 speakers, a stereo receiver and or amps and a nice record player.
Then surround sound came to be. So it was the 5.1 AVR that was invented and marketed to sell more gear and not the other way around. So two speakers became 5 then, 7, then sub 1 and sub 2 and maybe sub 4 and 8, then heights, then overheads and on and on we go, boxes everywhere. Pleas sir, may I have some more.
I'm not going to jump in on the amps are better, so prove it road. I will say that how much volume and slam one seeks from an AVR with 80 to 120 watts or so, possibly going into some 4 ohm speakers at slammin "Through the Never" Metallica concert volume, may put it past its comfort zone where it starts to give out and sound strained and or shuts down in surrender. Why have that limitation. For those occasions, and let me tell you, they do come up and my main speakers do dip below 4 ohms, I have a nice Crown K2 on them, the amp signal lights going brighter and brighter as the volume is cranked, the drums banging, guitar smoothly screaming, couch vibrating, no limit in sight. At that point, I start thinking about my neighbors and also my ears, drop it a db or 2 and say, "Yeah, they'll be fine". and stretch its legs.

I never said all amps have the same power.

Let's invent one of these convoluted arguments I mentioned for the sake of argument. As in the OP's scenario we are using the same front speakers, in the same room, at the same seated distance. The customer oddly declares: "When using my system for video I only listen to the nightly news, never action movies, and only need to hear the newscasters at normal voice volumes however when listening to stereo sources I play loud Mahler and slamming rock 'n' roll so I need high power. O.K., a weird scenario, but let's work with it.

Here are the three possible solutions:

A) Buy a high power AVR and turn off all processing when listening to stereo sources because, *ahem*, "When the sound has no accompanying video image the signal coming out of the front L and R speakers needs to be different than the when the signal has an accompanying video image" [this is absurd however it is the myth we are being asked to buy. In truth what your front left amp channel should do when powering that front L speaker it is connected to for a given room has nothing to do with if there is an accompanying video image or not.]

B) Do the same as above however buy a mid level AVR with preouts and add a stronger outboard amp for the front L and R channel pre-outs.

C) Do what the greedy dealer wants you to do and buy a needless high end preamp with the "HT Bypass" feature, a high end power amp, extra RCA wires [They'll invariably have the highest margin of all the parts when bought from an audio salon, BTW], and a mid level AVR with preouts. [See my block diagram below.]


Even if we buy into this wacky, absurd scenario that video is never loud, but audio is, A and B make sense. C does not.

Attached Thumbnails

 

However pretty much everyone is in universal agreement 5.1 movie audio is discernably different from 2ch and more faithful to the original sound as it would have been heard in a commercial movie theater. HT Bypass on the otherhand is a stupid, worthless, inaudible feature created exclusively for dealer greed.

No, one channel center speaker came first. Usually in the shape of a horn. Then came 3 channel in movie theaters and even more channels with a contraption that did steer the sound to the additional channels mechanically with switches (Phantasia ?). When two channels started to appear it wasn't even stereo as we now it today.