Audioholics: pimp out all your audio shit

dudeman

I went with a Yamaha Aventage for my HT receiver and couldn't be happier. I found a deal like this on Amazon and I used the reward points from my credit card to help with the remainder of the cost. I ended up with a $1000.00 receiver for about $130.00.

lolobugg

dudeman said:

I went with Yamaha Avenge for my HT receiver and couldn't be happier. I found a deal like this on Amazon and I used the reward points from my credit card to help with the remainder of the cost. I ended up with a $1000.00 receiver for about $130.00.

NICE!!

mrussel1

I bought the 1030 last night. What a friggin' deal. I'm ready for it to be delivered, was so tempted to pay the $14 for one day shipping. At the end of the day, I went with the higher end one because of the better DAC and the second heat sink. There's a few other nuances, but that was important to me. I don't know if I will ever hear the difference or if it will really run cooler, but if I didn't, I would always wonder if there was better sound out there.

Now I really need to sell the Onkyo...

Dudeman - are you streaming music using the DLNA function? If so, are you doing 24 bit 96+khz? I'm wondering if it handles it smoothly. I'd love to be able to sell my squeezebox too. Those things still catch a good price since they aren't made anymore.

dudeman

I don't really have an opinion about music streaming or sound quality of music through the Yamaha. I bought it because it was a great deal but I really only use it for watching movies. I have played Pandora through it but music just sounds better through my stereo. Also, I listen to records and CD's. Aside from experimenting with Pandora, that's it. No iPod, iPad, iPhone.......nothing. I'm pretty low-tech when it comes to music.

About your streaming question; I imagine it should handle 24/96 just fine. It's a very capable piece of equipment.

Fixer13

In case anyone is on the fence about buying Sennheiser HD 650's, I just found them on amazon for $290 today. This seems like a good price point, given what I have seen on the market. Next up- a good set of balanced cables to go with my pono. I wanted a nice set of headphones and really wanted to try balanced cable mode. Looking forward to some Pearl Jam boots with these. Cheers!

mrussel1

dudeman said:

I don't really have an opinion about music streaming or sound quality of music through the Yamaha. I bought it because it was a great deal but I really only use it for watching movies. I have played Pandora through it but music just sounds better through my stereo. Also, I listen to records and CD's. Aside from experimenting with Pandora, that's it. No iPod, iPad, iPhone.......nothing. I'm pretty low-tech when it comes to music.

About your streaming question; I imagine it should handle 24/96 just fine. It's a very capable piece of equipment.

I ordered the 1030A and it is a beautiful piece of equipment. Ironically, the LAN board was bad and kept skipping on the high def sound. My squeezebox that was hooked to the same bridge handled it so I knew it wasn't connection. So after an Amazon exchange, it's up and running and sounds very good. In fact the Boston's I am trying to sell got a whole new life in them in clarity and sound stage after pulling off them off the Onkyo. The only thing I'm struggling with now is that I can't get it anything to play 2.1 The system wants to do 7.1 or 2.0 (stereo) but I want two channel with the bass below 80 on the sub. I love getting a new AVR, but it's always a long setup.

dudeman

Yeah, I know what you mean about the long set-up. At least the Yamaha has the benefit of YPAO. That saved me hours of experimenting with speaker placement.

As for 2.1 for music, I don't think you can do that with this series of receivers without using speaker-level connections to your sub and just sending everything above 80 hz back to your mains. Kind of a PITA, I know.

One more argument for a dedicated 2-channel stereo!

southp

Rega Elicit-R Amplifier, Rega RP3 turntable with Exact cartridge, B&W 805N speakers
Also hidden in the cabinets is my PC with M-Audio 192 Soundcard running Kodi Media Center

dudeman

Hey, southp. How do you like the B&W's? Do you feel like they go low enough without having to rely on a subwoofer?

mrussel1

dudeman said:

Yeah, I know what you mean about the long set-up. At least the Yamaha has the benefit of YPAO. That saved me hours of experimenting with speaker placement.

As for 2.1 for music, I don't think you can do that with this series of receivers without using speaker-level connections to your sub and just sending everything above 80 hz back to your mains. Kind of a PITA, I know.

One more argument for a dedicated 2-channel stereo!

Yeah, the YPAO is really easy. Much better than the Pioneer Elite setup. Although I found that it had my center channel way too low, like -7, so I needed to up that for movies. But yeah, it's the scenes, styles and everything that you have to setup to make it "one button" easy so your wife or kids don't fuck things up when they try to use it.
I think I will try to running the speaker level connections. That's a good idea. That's a bunch more wires I have to run behind a wall, but I think it will solve the problem. Thanks for that. Really a surprising oversight if that's the case.

Dedicated 2 channel would be great... but that's another set of speakers in the same listening area. I do have a zone 2 running speakers on the other side of the room, so kind of the same. They are Def tech's with the subs built in, and that routes to the subs below 80. The Yamaha really brought the best out of those too.

mrussel1

dudeman said:

Hey, southp. How do you like the B&W's? Do you feel like they go low enough without having to rely on a subwoofer?

Yeah, those are really nice Nautilus. Awesome bookshelves! I have an old pair of 201i's in my kitchen. They are 20 years old and still phenomenal.
I would be interested in hearing if the poster found them too 'bright'? I auditioned a couple sets of towers from them a few years ago and I got fatigue at higher volumes. I really wanted them, but they were tough for me.

dudeman

Dedicated 2 channel would be great... but that's another set of speakers in the same listening area. I do have a zone 2 running speakers on the other side of the room, so kind of the same. They are Def tech's with the subs built in, and that routes to the subs below 80. The Yamaha really brought the best out of those too.


I'm not sure about your model receiver, but on mine I can only route signals from the A/V inputs to the Zone 2 speakers. No digital or HDMI goes to those so it's pretty limiting if you mostly use music streaming or other digital sources.

dudeman

mrussel1 said:

dudeman said:

Hey, southp. How do you like the B&W's? Do you feel like they go low enough without having to rely on a subwoofer?

Yeah, those are really nice Nautilus. Awesome bookshelves! I have an old pair of 201i's in my kitchen. They are 20 years old and still phenomenal.
I would be interested in hearing if the poster found them too 'bright'? I auditioned a couple sets of towers from them a few years ago and I got fatigue at higher volumes. I really wanted them, but they were tough for me.

I always found B&W's to be on the bright side, much like my Klipsch's. The Klipsch's I have really benefit from the addition of a subwoofer. I'm always curious about other people's opinions and experiences with them, though. Listening spaces vary so much and the same speakers in my house might sound completely different in yours.

mrussel1

dudeman said:

Dedicated 2 channel would be great... but that's another set of speakers in the same listening area. I do have a zone 2 running speakers on the other side of the room, so kind of the same. They are Def tech's with the subs built in, and that routes to the subs below 80. The Yamaha really brought the best out of those too.

I'm not sure about your model receiver, but on mine I can only route signals from the A/V inputs to the Zone 2 speakers. No digital or HDMI goes to those so it's pretty limiting if you mostly use music streaming or other digital sources.

I have the rx-1030. And yeah, no digital sources can be limiting Are you streaming music from your PC or do you mean streaming as in Spotify? I know PC/DLNA streaming can be played in zone 2. In fact, I think the whole 'Net' input should be able to be played in zone 2 or at least "party mode" if you have that.

dudeman

I don't use streaming at all but on my receiver, the Zone 2 speakers can only output sources plugged into the A/V inputs. I have a dedicated CD changer connected to mine so I can play music in my pool yard/lanai.

juddboz80

Now to find some badass speakers to pair with these tubes!!

mrussel1

dudeman said:

I don't use streaming at all but on my receiver, the Zone 2 speakers can only output sources plugged into the A/V inputs. I have a dedicated CD changer connected to mine so I can play music in my pool yard/lanai.

Are you talking about your Aventage or your Marantz? For the 1K price of your Yamaha, it should be able to pipe streaming to your zone 2, unless you are saying you haven't even tried.

I have successfully played three sources to my zone 2:
Directv - orange coaxial output in Party Mode
Net - DLNA server using JRMedia. All my music is on here.
A/V - my squeezebox server which is serving all my PC music as well. This is using the analog outputs obviously.

I retired my 300 cd changer several years ago and run everything off my computer. It was a combo of decaying cds (and the era of remaster), HDFLACs, 300 discs wasn't nearly enough and the pause between tracks as the 300 discs shuffled around. Plus playlists were painful. Not trying to get you to change your ways, but your Aventage should open up lots more convenient possibilities with higher depth music to boot vs. CD's.

BIGDaddyWil

My dedicated 2 channel analog set-up:

Pioneer SX-950 & Pioneer CT-F9191 Cassette Deck



Pioneer PL-570 turntable



Pioneer HPM 60 speakers



Grill on

mrussel1

I wish I knew more about vintage amps and receivers, but that's a nice looking Pioneer. I've always been a fan of their products.

dudeman

juddboz80 said:

Now to find some badass speakers to pair with these tubes!!

Just awesome! Have to try as many speakers as it takes to find that perfect, synergistic balance between all parts of your system. That's all part of the fun, IMO!