grow disenchanted with a piece of equipment, replace it and struggle to like the new whatever?
My Denon DRA1025R receiver had been giving me trouble, the protection circuit would shut it down occasionally, it took the blame for tweeter failures in my Polks , and in general seemed ready for either a full bore rebuild or replacement. (Much of that has been covered in previous posts.)
So a brand new, entry level two channel receiver in the $500 range replaced it.
Right out of the box I thought, "This is going to sound great," because that's what all the reviews said. I tried to believe that. I really did. The bottom end just wasn't there, so numerous room treatments and speaker placements were tried and finally it's about as good as it's going to get. Well, it may be that a couple bass traps will help. And it seemed the left channel was always weak. I blamed the room, my hearing aides and my imagination and just used the balance control. In the end I found myself not siting on the couch engrossed in music for any length of time.
Fast forward to last week. Our surround receiver/controller just pooped out. We replaced it with an Onkyo TX-RZ820 and are quite pleased with it. On the off chance that the old unit would drive a two channel garage system it was benched and checked. It drove the Baby Advent II's quite well, volume can be adjusted with the remote - it has to be, the volume knob does nothing - and surround sound isn't a concern, DC offset was measured and both channels were under 5mV. That led to, "I wonder what the specs are on my new receiver?" Left channel 6mV, right channel 19mV. Maybe not a problem, but I expect better out of a brand new receiver.
That made me curious, so a quick trip was made to the garage to get the Denon and bring it in. We've have some cool weather the past couple weeks so it took some time to warm the beast up. After running about an hour the offset came out a 1mV left channel, and 2.3 or 2.5 mV right channel.
Hooked into the speakers and played a bit it seemed to be doing alright, so the tape decks, TT, CD player and computer were connected. Everything worked, and by 8:00 PM I was sitting on the couch listening to "The Baroque Trumpet" playing on the R2R deck. Come 10:00 PM and I realized music hadn't been this engrossing for a long time. This morning Manheim Steamroller's 30/40 was put on the TT and side A of LP 2 was played. Toccata is the first cut, and there was the bass that has been missing.
Is it that the Denon is a 125W/channel and the new receiver is 100W/channel? Or the difference in DC offset in the new one? Or is it just that the Denon is a better match for my speakers. Whatever, the Denon is going to get whatever it needs and my year old fancy one will be the backup receiver. Or maybe part of the garage system.
My Denon DRA1025R receiver had been giving me trouble, the protection circuit would shut it down occasionally, it took the blame for tweeter failures in my Polks , and in general seemed ready for either a full bore rebuild or replacement. (Much of that has been covered in previous posts.)
So a brand new, entry level two channel receiver in the $500 range replaced it.
Right out of the box I thought, "This is going to sound great," because that's what all the reviews said. I tried to believe that. I really did. The bottom end just wasn't there, so numerous room treatments and speaker placements were tried and finally it's about as good as it's going to get. Well, it may be that a couple bass traps will help. And it seemed the left channel was always weak. I blamed the room, my hearing aides and my imagination and just used the balance control. In the end I found myself not siting on the couch engrossed in music for any length of time.
Fast forward to last week. Our surround receiver/controller just pooped out. We replaced it with an Onkyo TX-RZ820 and are quite pleased with it. On the off chance that the old unit would drive a two channel garage system it was benched and checked. It drove the Baby Advent II's quite well, volume can be adjusted with the remote - it has to be, the volume knob does nothing - and surround sound isn't a concern, DC offset was measured and both channels were under 5mV. That led to, "I wonder what the specs are on my new receiver?" Left channel 6mV, right channel 19mV. Maybe not a problem, but I expect better out of a brand new receiver.
That made me curious, so a quick trip was made to the garage to get the Denon and bring it in. We've have some cool weather the past couple weeks so it took some time to warm the beast up. After running about an hour the offset came out a 1mV left channel, and 2.3 or 2.5 mV right channel.
Hooked into the speakers and played a bit it seemed to be doing alright, so the tape decks, TT, CD player and computer were connected. Everything worked, and by 8:00 PM I was sitting on the couch listening to "The Baroque Trumpet" playing on the R2R deck. Come 10:00 PM and I realized music hadn't been this engrossing for a long time. This morning Manheim Steamroller's 30/40 was put on the TT and side A of LP 2 was played. Toccata is the first cut, and there was the bass that has been missing.
Is it that the Denon is a 125W/channel and the new receiver is 100W/channel? Or the difference in DC offset in the new one? Or is it just that the Denon is a better match for my speakers. Whatever, the Denon is going to get whatever it needs and my year old fancy one will be the backup receiver. Or maybe part of the garage system.
