Need advice on buying a stereo receiver

[bif]

My old Sony ES is in need of repair and I think I should probably just buy a new one. I just want a receiver. Don't need a home entertainment center since I'm just going to listen to music on it. I bought a relatively cheap Sony at Best Buy for $149 about six months ago for my studio and it's been fine. Is there anything out there that might be a little better? And where would you buy one?

Also, is there a forum on DU for stereo equipment? I couldn't find one.

[MaryMagdaline]

1. Check audio adviser - lots of good stuff up for sale

[Ferrets are Cool]

2. IMO, no one knows more about stereo receivers than this guy

[randr]

3. Technics ST-2700 series

Can be found used but cheap enough in any case.

[mr_lebowski]

4. You actually need a receiver (i.e. going to use the Tuner piece)?

And what sources are you looking at using?

And what speakers are you driving with this?

Any subwoofer?

Room size?

Lastly, which ES unit are you retiring here?

[bif]

9. Using it in our living room

Which about 16' x 20'. Driving a pair of JBL Studio Monitors. I'll be paying a cd player through it and an iPod. Plus the radio, of course.

[bif]

10. I'm retiring a GX49ES.

I've had it for ages. It's been great but I never do any critical listening. The problem is one speaker was cutting out. If I played around with the volume knob, it would come back. But now the FM reception has gotten terrible. So I think it might be time to ditch it. And the $149 unit I have in my studio really sounds decent!

[mr_lebowski]

11. Given all you've said, not sure why you don't just stick with the $149 unit ...

Which JBL Studio Monitors? Normally that set of words makes me think of powered units ... what model number are these speakers?

[bif]

13. They're 4410s

I have them on the floor on stands. They're pretty efficient so I think the $149 Sony will be more than adequate to power them. I'm not into the home theatre thing. Our tv room is dinky and we rarely watch tv. So I don't need anything in that realm. Just something to listen to my vast collection of music through. Seriously, I have so much music it's almost a sickness!

[mr_lebowski]

14. Cool, those are classics!

Yeah, a cheap receiver is likely fine unless you're really a critical listener. Meaning you sit there in the exact middle of the equilateral triangle, close your eyes, listen to the sound stage and where each instrument is located, with a keen ear for instrument timbre, etc ... and/or you like to listen really loud but you're getting distortion due to lack of power, that sort of thing.

[bif]

16. I never do that. Funny story about that

A friend of mine was a total audiophile. He spent thousands of dollars on his dream system which his wife made him set up in the basement. He had a chair perfectly aligned in position and he invited a couple of us over to give it a listen. He told us to pick out something to play. So my other friend and I looked through his collection of albums. It was all absolute shit. We couldn't find anything worthwhile to play! Or anything that would demonstrate his stereo's potential. It was all crappy rock from the late 60s and early 70s--ELO and Foghat and that sort of garbage. At one point he admitted that he went into a record store (remember those?) and asked a young salesgirl to pick out some classical music for him because he wanted to get into it!

[mr_lebowski]

17. ELO had some great songs, but they generally wasn't recorded in a particularly

high-fidelity manner. Foghat, otoh ... lol.

Here's the order of priority in terms of sound quality, IMHO:
1) Recording quality
2) Speaker Quality (including choosing speakers of a general size that's appropriate for the space they need to fill ... bookshelf speakers in a 5000 cu ft room are generally going to sound fairly weak, for example)
3) How your listening environment is set up, including room size/shape/reflectivity of surfaces, and where you position the speakers within it
4) Where you physically are in relation to the speakers when listening
5) Quality of non-speaker components like amps and preamps

If you're not being attentive to steps 1-4, the gain to be had by improving at step 5 is going to be very negligible. One exception being if you're really prioritizing loudness, in which case the amp's power could be pretty key.

Enjoy your cheap receiver until such time as you decide you REALLY care about the sound quality from this system.

[hunter]

19. Great advice.

Here in the 21st century the electronics is not the secret sauce.

Inexpensive electronic components, analog and digital, can amplify audio signals with clarity beyond human discernment.

Speakers and room acoustics are still art.

Back when the Beatles were recording their music on tape for vinyl records it was all art.

[Silver Gaia]

5. I am also curious where one could post for advice on electronic equipment

such as this, or televisions, AV receivers, speakers, or other home theater equipment. I have some questions in this realm, too, and would prefer advice from DUers rather than some audiophile forum where I don't know anyone. Just post here in the Lounge? Or is there a better place?

[Trailrider1951]

6. You might try this DU forum:

Consumer Advice

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1112

[Silver Gaia]

7. Thanks, but that forum doesn't look specific enough.

I am not so much looking for advice on what to buy as how to properly use what I've already bought, so need to talk to people who are into home theater and/or audio equipment and understand the lingo and the why and how of various things.

[mr_lebowski]

12. You can feel free to PM me ... I'm a huge audio/home theater nerd :) nt

[dhill926]

8. we're downsizing a bit, so I bought a more compact unit...

Denon D-T1. About $300 or so at Best Buy. Includes CD player and speakers. Bluetooth if you're into it. Better sound quality than I had anticipated. Fills a decent sized living room well....

[hunter]

15. Our audio systems are just loud enough to annoy our neighbors.

We don't run them at that level so they have all the dynamic range they need.

If my OCD ever met my Audiophile it would be a very expensive habit.

My wife and I have a huge collection of books, LPs, CDs, and DVDs.

All the CDs have been saved as MP3 or OGG; not FLAC because hard drive space was still expensive when I started copying CDs to our computer.

We play our LPs on a university music library turntable my wife bought surplus. It required a some refurbishment -- a few rubber bits, some lubrication, and a stylus -- but I enjoy that sort of work. I also figure the sound is authentic because most LPs were engineered for playback on similar machines.

But honestly, here in the modern world my wife and I read most books on our e-readers, stream most of our music to various counter-top speakers, and watch Netflix on our television which hasn't been connected to any external speakers for many years.

You know what I'd like to have now? My grandfather's huge "High Fidelity" vacuum tube amplifier. I don't remember the brand. That thing was a beast, with a big power transformer on one end, an audio transformer on the other, and multiple tubes, capacitors, and inductors in between, all under a big metal cage. It weighed at least forty pounds. In the later 'seventies when my grandfather sold his house and downsized nobody wanted it except for a neighbor kid who turned it into a guitar amp.

[OriginalGeek]

18. My neighbors complained about the livestream Goatwhore show I listened to a couple weeks ago

I don't know why - it sound good to me when I stepped outside.

It was the first live concert I have seen since Dec 2019. I really needed it.

IF you and Mr Lebowski start up an equipment thread I wouldn't mind reading it. I'm definitely interested but not very educated.

[jmowreader]

20. Pioneer has always worked well for me

The receiver I will use in the sound system I'm putting together for my new living room is a VSX-818. This you will have to buy used, but the new models are even nicer. The only real complaint I've got about it is that it has two HDMI inputs and I need three - I have a 4k Blu-ray player, a 400-disc DVD carousel and a Pioneer LaserDisc player with an RCA-to-HDMI adapter. (I have an external switcher for HDMI; all those cables will go to it and from there to the TV.) The Blu-ray player, DVD carousel and the 300-disc CD carousel all have digital outputs, but that's no big problem: this receiver has two optical inputs and one coaxial input, and all three will be used.

If you don't need the tuner, the A-10E integrated amp ($249) may be for you.

[bif]

21. Follow up on my original post

Ended up buying the Sony for $149 from Best Buy. Free next day delivery, so I avoided human contact. Hooked it up and it sounds great. I'm sure if I did a side-by-side comparison with my old ES, it wouldn't sound as good. But these days, I'm more into music than equipment. I think I made the right choice.

[Hotler]

22. Crutchfield.

https://www.crutchfield.com/