[NEC baby]

I have a question for people who may be using an external amp to drive the mains with a receiver as a stereo pre-amp.


You will see in the following thread that I'm currently shopping for a receiver and my main goal is the quality of sound for music listening. Movie sound is important but secondary and decoder features is not really important.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=510724


So I've basically narrowed down my choice to the Arcam AVR250 and the Cambridge 540R. Both are pretty good at playing stereo analog music. Obviously the Arcam is better but I'm not sure it's worth the price difference $900cnd for the 540R and $1900 for the AVR250.


Now, one option I was thinking is to buy the Cambridge and later on buy an external amp to drive my main for ultimate music quality. Is that something many of you do? Could I achieve even better sound quality by doing so than buying the Arcam?


Thanks for your comments and opinion.


Cheers.

 

[Babs]

I have a 540R and like it as a receiver. I'd like to use it as a pre-pro later myself with a BIG multichannel amp. I think it would do well.


One thing to consider though. The 540R has no trigger out to power up the amps. So, unless you want to manually switch them on/off, you'll be looking for amps with auto on/off functions. Otherwise, they stay on all the time unless you go with a more tricky power switch solution. That is one feature I do wish the little 540r had. That would make it a perfect little pre/pro.


Other than that, I love the sound quality (if not quantity) through my Paradigm Studios. You Canadians make some pretty good speakers. I'll bet the Cambridge is very similar tonally, but not quite all that the Arcam has. Great power supplies in both of these though. I've seen people say the AVR300 is the finest audio quality they've heard out of ANY AV receiver, ever.

 

[gwsat]

I have a Yamaha RX-V2400, which I paid less than $700 for. I use a 200w per channel Carver M400 Cube Amp, to drive my front speakers, Celestion SL6s. The 2400 won't switch external amps on and off so I simply leave the external amp on all the time. But when the it is not driven it stays cold, anyway. The external amp for the fronts is a good solution for me because it allows me to use all the 2400's power to drive the center, surround, and back surround channels.