High end AV receivers, worst investment in audio?

And most were not, yet still have those who want them and are willing to pay.

It helps that they're generally built like tanks and at least of a portion of that stuff still looks good. Honestly I wish the current trend of mid century design being back in fashion would bleed over into electronics. Move away from black boxes and the current trend of industrial looks. Give me stuff that's not only quality on the inside but looks good. Part of the problem to me with new AV equipment to me is that most of the stuff is bland and looks the same. There's nothing to make you go wow and get excited about it.

TOTL gear from that era is still desirable because it outperforms much of what is commercially available today. The stuff that didn't is still cool, think of a '69 Dodge Dart. It was every-man's beater back then, now a "classic". Pretty much everything from the golden age of Hi Fi appeals to someone. If there is such a thing as the golden age of AV, that stuff will likely have it's collectors.

I definitely would consider the 60s-70s a golden age of Hi Fi. They were at a whole different level when it came to design and marketing those products and it was all pretty distinct. I feel like companies now could stand take some lessons from that time period.
 
Maybe I am just an old fool, but the source material going into all this high class AV, isn't even worth turning on in the first place. How many cars can you watch flipping across a bridge or blowing up.
Wifey is the primary viewer of our HT and enjoys watching all her shows along with an occasional movie at moderate levels.

For me, its a matter of making all the content - most of which is devoid of crashes and booms - just sound natural. You're there.
 
Now the totally rediculous waste of a LOT of money is whole home systems. Crestron crap and AMX and ??? Network AV servers and AV over LAN. Custom programmed and installed.
Fortunately today that can be easily achieved with standard computer, network and media gear.

Wifey travels a lot and enjoys watching movies on the airplane. I started ripping movies and serial TV show collections sometime ago and converted them to a "m4v" format for her iPad. I've been using LMS on my office PC for years to feed music to streamers located in the listening room and garage. Along the way, we also acquired a couple of small Roku players for streaming Netflix and Amazon using WiFi. I recently discovered they offer a free app which can access the movie content stored on the office PC as well.

Now, we can stream any video content to the the two Roku players using our existing computer and network infrastructure.
 
I wish the current trend of mid century design being back in fashion would bleed over into electronics. Move away from black boxes and the current trend of industrial looks. .

I wish that a lot of products (audio, computers) would move away from black and back to silver, beige, etc. The big reason......I can read the printing on them much easier !
 
@matteos

Constant headache? Care to elaborate?

Just curious because it is rare for me to have to mess with anything other than pressing the power switch, volume, or source selection.

The HDMI board and handshake issues. I have to have a HDMI adapter to even get a picture on my TV. It doesn't play well with my PS4. I couldn't get TrueHD or any real 5.1 from that, neither would it work with my Blu-Ray player. I sometimes get TrueHD with my PC hooked up to it when I watch BluRays... Sometimes. I don't get real 5.1 from Netflix or Amazon most of the time... 90% of the time I get stereo that the AVR makes fake 5.1 out of. This is a Marantz unit from I think circa 2010.

Honestly it's crap.
 
In retrospect, I guess “investment” may be the wrong way to look at new audio gear in general. I doubt any of us would go out and buy a new piece gear thinking of it as a long term investment. In our mostly “throw away” society, I just can’t see making a significant investment in something that will likely be obsolete in a scant few years. That’s why, when I buy a vehicle, I choose one that not only fits my needs but will traditionally hold decent resale value. With Audio, maybe McIntosh will hold decent value over time but the new ones are WAY out of my price range.

I’m glad and appreciate this thread has garnered some great discusssion and content. There were a couple of exceptions in my opinion but Celt but that to rest.:thumbsup:
 
I wish that a lot of products (audio, computers) would move away from black and back to silver, beige, etc. The big reason......I can read the printing on them much easier !

I’m ok with most computers staying mostly black as someone in IT. Mostly because it tends to age better than beige especially on a 5 year cycle. But yeah legibility can be awful in some applications.
 
My brother dabbled in vintage audio like me for a few years and finally threw up his hands and dropped $3 on what was in 2011 the TOTL 7.1 Yamaha HT receiver.
Sounds ok but has its quirks mainly because he routs all his stuff through it, so,
If you;re watching a ballgame, lets say, and I come over and say "Hey I just picked up this awesome new records" and go to play it, it cuts the video feed when you hit phono.
Yea, he routes everything through it which is in violation of my decades long rule of always keeping audio and video signals seperate.
Oh well, it's his house and I did well to get him into good sound and vinyl again....
Unlike his neighbors who all have soundbars..... Yech.....
Guess who throws the best parties on his street? Yep, you would be correct.
 
I’m ok with most computers staying mostly black as someone in IT...But yeah legibility can be awful in some applications.
I think the operative assumption is that you're using the remote for controlling gain, source, EQ, etc. instead of a bunch of knobs. While the face of my Emotiva processor has a number of buttions, I rarely use them. There is, however, adjustable blue backlighting to display certain functions.
 
I think the operative assumption is that you're using the remote for controlling gain, source, EQ, etc. instead of a bunch of knobs. While the face of my Emotiva processor has a number of buttions, I rarely use them. There is, however, adjustable blue backlighting to display certain functions.

True but it's nice when a company actually bothers with good aesthetic design instead of phoning it in particularly if they're selling something as TOTL which seems to happen a lot these days. I think it's an area where McIntosh deserves a lot of credit. Not that I can afford their gear but they're still making gear that's visually unique. Though that turntable of theirs is ugly to me.
 
The HDMI board and handshake issues. I have to have a HDMI adapter to even get a picture on my TV. It doesn't play well with my PS4. I couldn't get TrueHD or any real 5.1 from that, neither would it work with my Blu-Ray player. I sometimes get TrueHD with my PC hooked up to it when I watch BluRays... Sometimes. I don't get real 5.1 from Netflix or Amazon most of the time... 90% of the time I get stereo that the AVR makes fake 5.1 out of. This is a Marantz unit from I think circa 2010.

Honestly it's crap.

That would be frustrating.
 
Not that I can afford their gear but they're still making gear that's visually unique.
That's one way of putting it!

I'm just not much on aesthetics beyond quality construction. I'm watching the monitor, not the electronics. I suspect you'd find the Audio Research/VTL gear in the music system boring as it has more of an instrument grade appearance. :)
 
Anybody spending big bucks on an AVR receiver probably wants one that supports the latest HDMI standards (4K with HDR support). People often use AVRs as HDMI switches, so everything gets routed through that. I'd imagine that if someone wanted a high-end receiver they'd also have a newer TV (4K with HDR). If someone was willing to use it just for good sound, then it's competing with much lower cost amplifiers and receivers, etc.
 
I'm thinking from around 2000-2008 was the golden age of HT receivers.They may have outlived their original ht purposes but have an extended life for pure fantastic stereo sound.I like them a whole lot.

True. With the wasted energy of the 5 or more channels that are not used, the better HT receivers sound darn good in stereo. Even the lower line receivers in the 80 wpc class like my Denon AVR-2805 and Marantz SR-4001, both of which I got for peanuts put on a good show.
 
Anybody spending big bucks on an AVR receiver probably wants one that supports the latest HDMI standards (4K with HDR support). People often use AVRs as HDMI switches, so everything gets routed through that. I'd imagine that if someone wanted a high-end receiver they'd also have a newer TV (4K with HDR). If someone was willing to use it just for good sound, then it's competing with much lower cost amplifiers and receivers, etc.
Agreed if you desire to use it for switching.
I've found the sound isn;t horrible, though maybe not on par with a good 2 channel amp.
I keep a 120wpc Denon AVR in the closet just for the amp section if ever needed.
It sounds just as good to me as a 1997 Denon 1314R integrated amp sitting next to it.
 
Agreed if you desire to use it for switching....

Which really is the better way to do it, IMO, if one is running a true surround system.

Using the TV for a HDMI switchbox and feeding the audio back to receiver/processor from the TV's optical/coaxial output as some do is often problematic. Most TVs will not pass multichannel audio from external sources so only stereo comes out and forces the surround system into matrix modes rather than the much better discrete surround. Of course, if one has only a stereo system connected for HT then it's no biggie to do that.
 
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