Yamaha, Onkyo, or Denon...Which is better?

Sonance'84

moe.ron
Subscriber
Yamaha, Onkyo, or Denon???

im in the market for a new a/v receiver, and was wondering all of your opinion's about brand names. with circuit city going out of business, i can get a discounted receiver...which is the plan. also, the whole reason for this is to upgrade to dolby trueHD and DTS-HD master audio. must have HDMI v1.3 too. im looking in the $500-700 MSRP range. i hear good things about all of these brands, but just want to know what you all think has the best bang for the buck? thanks

cory
 
All three brands are great, but bang for the buck is probably gonna be the Onkyo. Denon is the most expensive of the three. My friend and I went to Circuit City Saturday, and their prices are ridiculously high. You're not going to save any money there, from what we saw. Their Sony BDP-S550 BD player was $399. My friend got one, the same day, at Best Buy for $329. My friend also got an LCD tv at HH Gregg for a very good price. If you have one of those close by, check with them. The price they had on the tv wasn't bad to start with, but my friend said he didn't want to spend that much, and they knocked off another $200. He went ahead and bought it.
Good luck!
 
Yamaha, Onkyo, or Denon???

im in the market for a new a/v receiver, and was wondering all of your opinion's about brand names. with circuit city going out of business, i can get a discounted receiver...which is the plan. also, the whole reason for this is to upgrade to dolby trueHD and DTS-HD master audio. must have HDMI v1.3 too. im looking in the $500-700 MSRP range. i hear good things about all of these brands, but just want to know what you all think has the best bang for the buck? thanks

cory

With some of the great vintage gear you have from Klipsch and Sansui you might be disappointed with some of the modern digital amp sections. There is nothing like getting a receiver with preamp output and running it into a bridgeable amp for the center channel and a power amp for the front. There are some great deals to be had on ebay on HK and Adcom power amps. Also, I would look at Marantz. If you have a blu-ray with analog output you can get a refurb Marantz 7500 with over 100 wpc that sonically is wonderful.
 
DONT GO TO CIRCUIT CITY!!!!!!!!

What folks dont understand is that when a company goes under they hire a professional liquidator to handle all the sell off of stock.....this company gets a percentage and often inflates the prices to a at times "made up" level so you THINK your gonna get a deal.....your not, you may end up saving 5-10% and you may in some instances actually pay more. People have a funny way of thinking it must be a sale just because its called a sale.
 
With some of the great vintage gear you have from Klipsch and Sansui you might be disappointed with some of the modern digital amp sections. There is nothing like getting a receiver with preamp output and running it into a bridgeable amp for the center channel and a power amp for the front. There are some great deals to be had on ebay on HK and Adcom power amps. Also, I would look at Marantz. If you have a blu-ray with analog output you can get a refurb Marantz 7500 with over 100 wpc that sonically is wonderful.

I recently found this out by combining systems and running my TT through my Pioneer THX HTR, dismal results. I used the preamp outs on the Pioneer to go to my Yaqin pre then to a Onkyo M501 amp, much better.
 
With some of the great vintage gear you have from Klipsch and Sansui you might be disappointed with some of the modern digital amp sections. There is nothing like getting a receiver with preamp output and running it into a bridgeable amp for the center channel and a power amp for the front. There are some great deals to be had on ebay on HK and Adcom power amps. Also, I would look at Marantz. If you have a blu-ray with analog output you can get a refurb Marantz 7500 with over 100 wpc that sonically is wonderful.

the system i have as my signature is my music only setup. its not even in the living room. im looking for a a/v movie receiver, not for music. i will end up getting some klipsch surround speakers or something to go with it. i dont have a big living room. also, the marantz 7500 doesnt do trueHD or dts-hd. thats specifically why i am upgrading.
 
i know about the liquidators high prices too. im going to wait it out until they really cut prices. plus, i know what the price should be at circuit city, because they are usually within $50 of best buy's prices. i have common sense, and wont buy something from CC if best buy has it cheaper, NOT on sale. the yamaha im looking at has pre-outs too. its the rx-v663bl.
 
onk or denon are both really good. But i find onkyo has a warmer sound IMO. Id stay away from lower-end yamaha.
 
Of those three brands, I would go with Yamaha (in fact, I did for home theater). Denon is fine, but it costs more for the same level of performance. With Onkyo, I would stay away from them for two reasons.

First, at other web sites (such as www.audioholics.com), some people have reported problems with reliability. But even if that were not the case, I still would not buy an Onkyo surround receiver because:

Second, Onkyo surround receivers cannot properly decode DPL. DPL is Dolby Pro Logic, which is a matrixed format. "Matrixing" is a troublesome word, in that it is used to describe two different processes. The kind of matrixing that is done with Dolby Pro Logic (and the center rear channel in Dolby Digital EX and the matrixed version of dts-ES) is where they take, in the studio, more channels than the finished product can contain, and mix them down in a special way to fit on those fewer channels. To make life simpler, let us confine our discussion for the moment to Dolby Pro Logic (hereafter referred to as DPL).

With DPL, they have 4 separate channels in the studio. The front right, front left, front center, and rear (also called "surround", which is why it is "S" in the quote below). These four channels are then mixed together down to two channels in a special way:

The L and R inputs go straight to the Lt and Rt outputs without modification. The C input is divided equally to Lt and Rt with a 3 dB level reduction (to maintain constant acoustic power in the mix). The S input is also divided equally between Lt and Rt, but it first undergoes three additional processing steps:
• Frequency bandlimiting from 100 Hz to 7 kHz.
• Encoding with a modified form of Dolby B-type noise reduction.
• Plus and minus 90-degree phase shifts are applied to create a 180 degree phase differential between the signal components feeding Lt and Rt.
From:
http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/...onal/208_Dolby_Surround_Pro_Logic_Decoder.pdf

Your DPL decoder at home reverses this process to give you 4 channel sound from a two channel source. This whole scheme was developed for theaters to use, so that there would only need to be two channels of sound on the film. There was not room on the film to easily add more channels, and also, this way, they could use existing projectors with two channel readers, which then feed the signal to a special decoder. But it also is perfect for two channel VCRs and 2 channel sound on analog TV.

Now, of course, they can do sound differently than when DPL was invented, and they can keep the channels totally separate from each other. Dolby Digital and dts (in their 5.1 versions) do just that.

Basically, the matrixed Dolby Digital EX and the matrixed dts-ES mix the rear center channel in the right and left rear in a manner similar to how the front center channel is mixed into the front right and left in DPL.

Now, finally, we can get to the other idea of matrixed sound, and that is where you make up channels that never existed in the original recording studio. This is what happens, for example, when you apply DPL IIx to an ordinary two channel CD. The recording studio did not have a mix for 7.1 sound; they had a two channel mix. The processing that is done at home in this case moves sound that was intended for the front right and left speakers to other places. Hence, it re-directs, or mis-directs, the sound to other places. Now, whether this creation of previously non-existing channels is a good thing or a bad one is a matter of preference. But it simply is not what was originally mixed, whereas the result of using DPL on a DPL encoded movie soundtrack is not creating any new channels that did not previously exist, but is only recreating what was in the mixing studio before it was forced onto only two channels.

So, if one uses DPL II or DPL IIx on a soundtrack that was originally encoded as DPL, one is re-directing, or mis-directing, sound to where it originally was not intended to be. Whether you like the result or not is what should determine whether you do this or not. But do not imagine that you are simply decoding the sound; you are processing it in a way that was not intended when it was originally recorded. It is like using "Hall" or "Studio" or some other DSP mode to process the sound in a way that is, hopefully, pleasant.

Onkyo omits DPL decoding, and some DVDs have DPL soundtracks on them. Onkyo will tell you to "decode" DPL soundtracks with DPL II (or DPL IIx), but as discussed above, that is not really decoding the signal, but processing it in a manner not intended by those who recorded it. Most, if not all, other brands give you a choice, so you can use either DPL or DPL II (or DPL IIx) if you prefer.

With your price point, I would probably buy a Yamaha RX-V663 (which can easily be had for less than MSRP).
 
Of the three, get Denon due to being the best quality of the three. However, I would go one better and get thee the Marantz option if you can. The warranty is better and Marantz is better sounding and better supported. Support your local middle to high end store if they will serve your needs!
 
Pyrrho, I don't disagree with the technicality of the difference between DPL and DPLII.

But, with all due respect, that would be one of the last reasons on earth as to why to avoid the Onkyo. IMO, of course.
 
I love my Onkyo TX-SR805............... :D
Dolby Pro Logic IIx is very different from Dolby Pro Logic II. Pro Logic II will take a stereo signal, and matrix it to 5.1 surround. Pro Logic IIx takes a 5.1 surround signal, and makes it 7.1 surround. Pro Logic IIx is not meant to be used on a stereo signal.
 
Pro Logic IIx is merely an extension of Pro Logic II that provide 6.1 or 7.1 sound from stereo or native 5.1 formats. DPL IIx works just as well, or better, on stereo than DPL II if that's what one chooses to do.
 
You're right. My bad........
I had read it was only for use with 5.1, but I went to Dolby's site and looked it up. I hate when you have to double check everything you read. :(
 
Of the three, get Denon due to being the best quality of the three. However, I would go one better and get thee the Marantz option if you can. The warranty is better and Marantz is better sounding and better supported. Support your local middle to high end store if they will serve your needs!

thats what im gonna do. i went to my local hi-fi shop and looked and listened to a marantz sr-5003, and i am sold. screw getting a "deal," i decided to get quality instead. now, i just need to save a little more and ill be able to buy it. thanks for all the feedback everyone.
 
thats what im gonna do. i went to my local hi-fi shop and looked and listened to a marantz sr-5003, and i am sold. screw getting a "deal," i decided to get quality instead. now, i just need to save a little more and ill be able to buy it. thanks for all the feedback everyone.


I personally think you made the right decision.....Im new to HT and bought an Onkyo 606.....after 2 weeks it developed a hum....a very annoying hum.....I returned it for the Marantz SR5003 and, while only having it a short time, I love it.....it dances circles around Onkyo......the video is better and the sound is better.....and it should be for $380 more......the 2 things I think that Marantz should work on is a quick setup guide.....which they don't include and the remote.....they don't have codes for cable TV boxes and DVR's
 
I personally think you made the right decision.....Im new to HT and bought an Onkyo 606.....after 2 weeks it developed a hum....a very annoying hum.....I returned it for the Marantz SR5003 and, while only having it a short time, I love it.....it dances circles around Onkyo......the video is better and the sound is better.....and it should be for $380 more......the 2 things I think that Marantz should work on is a quick setup guide.....which they don't include and the remote.....they don't have codes for cable TV boxes and DVR's

i have a logitech harmony one remote that i can use, but i wont have all the features that the marantz remote has. so, i might just have to use both remotes when watching a movie or something.
 
i bought a onkyo 706 about a mouth ago. all was good for a week,then i started to have a poping sound in my speakers. did a search on the net found this to be big problem with onkyo. i then took it back and got yamaha rv-x863. cost 50.00 more on sale but,imho,alot better unit. i love the pure direct mode for audio.
 
This is a pretty damning thread for Onkyo. Not moving to interpretation here, just making an observation.:eek:
 
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