Page 1 of New Amp Advice Please

Hi guys.

time for me to bite the bullet and upgrade my amp from DD5.1 to either EX or DTS, pref DTS or both !

Can anyone suggest any models I could start looking at please ?

many thanks

Warney

What`s your budget? Also, how important is music replay? There are some great AV amps out there but, sadly, only a few are good with music. If it`s just for AV, then your options are wide open.

hi

budget is around £450 - music replay isn`t a concern, just looking to upgrade the current system with an onboard dts decoder etc

Warney

OK, Warney, here`s a shortlist of AV amps/receivers within your budget that you should consider;

Denon AVR-1802 (A solid choice - well featured, or AVR-2802 if discounted)
Harman-Kardon AVR-4000 (Great amps - very under-rated - own Lexicon)
Marantz SR5200 (Had great reviews - pretty good with music too)
NAD T741/T751 (Excellent with music as well as AV)
Onkyo TX-DS595 (The dark-horse)
Sony STR-DB1070 (Solid and, hey, it`s a Sony...)
Yamaha RX-V630 (Latest from the budget AV masters... should be good)

Most of these models RRP around the £4-500 mark, however, if you`re looking for a bargain, you might like to check out a few AV amp/receivers that Richer Sounds are discounting at the moment.

They have the Sony STR-DB1070 at half price for £299. It`s got all the bells and whistles including 6 channel matrix decoding. It`s a solid buy with the usual Sony style and build quality.

Alternatively, you could go for an Arcam AVR-100 which is also going for half price at £399. It`s a very classy piece of kit and sounds great, especially if you also want to listen to music. It lacks a few non-essential features but then it majors on sound quality. At the price it`s a steal.

However, the biggest bargain by far is the Nakamichi AV10 which used to retail at £1000. It`s a few years old now but has loads of power (100 atts/channel - these are real watts, most manufacturers lie through their teeth with AV amps, quoting huge w/pc figures that they just can`t sustain in the real world) and also carries DD & DTS decoding. As you might expect from Nakamichi it`s a very serious quality piece of kit and sound-wise shades all the others I`ve listed. Only drawback is that it lacks a 5.1 channel input so won`t be any good for DVD-A or SACD but then if it`s being used for AV only then it`s not a problem. At £299, it`s got to be the deal of the year! (so, be quick, I can`t imagine they`ll be hanging about)

In most all cases I`d say, try before you buy, as the compatibility between the amp and your speakers cannot be determined without an audition and it`s very easy to get things very wrong with disappointing results. However, in the case of the Nak, I`d say to hell with it! If you can persude Richers to offer a full dem, Great! If not, just buy it anyway, chances are you won`t regret it...

This item was edited on Saturday, 3rd August 2002, 12:46

Rommel,

thanks for the advice mate. I phoned Richer Sounds today and asked them about the Nakamichi but they didn`t have any in stock. However I will be taking a trip down there in the week to see what`s happening and to have a chat - they said they could get the Nak in stock within two days so I may opt for that one - however still looking until I go down and talk to them

cheers

Warney

No problem, Warney.

Be sure to stick to your guns about the price, though. Richers usually have them stickered higher in the store but are very happy to honour their "special" prices in magazine listings and on the web - just so long as you firmly let it be known that is the price you`re going to pay....

I`m not surprised they`re low on stock - I`ve already directed at least 3 of my friends to their doors to pick up a Nak. If I didn`t already have a TOTR Harman/Kardon AV amp and tube amp based sytem, I`d get one for myself. One of my friends had recently bought a Denon AVR-2802 but listened to the Nak and couldn`t believe how much better it sounded. Needless to say the Denon was immediately sold and a brand-new Nakamichi AV-10 is now sitting in his living room.... The killer is that he pretty much got what he paid for the Denon and saved himself another £150 by buying the Nak. I think he owes me a couple of pints....;)

Let us all know how you get on & good luck!

Sorry to stick an oar in, chaps, but didn`t the original post mention EX/ES decoding? Am I not right in thinking that the Arcam, Nak, etc don`t have these decoding options? Rommel - I`m sure you know these machines better than me, so perhaps they do, but aren`t they too old for that - perhaps they have their own proprietry modes....
DPL2 might also be desired ?
You`re right though, than an "old and good" might be better than a latest model with bells and whistles. My main hifi amps are at least 15 years old....

If you want to take full advantage of ES/EX, you`ll also need to budget for either one or two extra speakers (unless you run it in phantom mode for the moment).

Just my 2p

Consider Oar not stuck in ! I mentioned ES/EX but do not have the knowledge to know if this is superior to DTS etc. I am guided by people that know better !

I have a dedicated room set aside for the setup, 28 tv, although considering changing to 32. Two front mission speakers, kef centre and Kef rears - just about to but the sub at the same time as amp !

I know that the Nakamichi has a great reputation but if there is something better out there in the price range that someone thinks would be more suitable then I am more than happy to listen ;-)

cheers Richard

Warney

Well, yes, good point.

However, if you want a quality AV amp with ES/EX capability then you`re going to have to up your budget quite a lot. The Sony, Denon (AVR-2802), and, I think the Marantz all have 6 channel capability although I`m pretty sure they`re proprietry solutions. Thing is, extra channels are all very well, BUT, it`s more amplifier power and the budget gets stretched to the point where the power supplys in these amps just can`t cope. It`s a war of specification out there and sadly the real-world performance suffers.

Sure, there are amps out there with all the trimmings and great looking spec but performance-wise they struggle. When the budget is less than a grand, I`d always go for the amp with the best power supply and to hell with the toys. Why? Because it`ll sound a hell of a lot better and you`ll want to listen to it for longer and.... you won`t risk damaging your speakers by having them under-driven which is far more dangerous than the unlikely case of them being over-driven.

The Nak has excellent DD & DTS decoding and it`s heart, the 5 amplifier modules, are leagues ahead of the other amps I mentioned. It really can sustain 100w/channel into 5 simultaneously driven channels unlike most of the others which start to tumble dramatically. Also it shrugs off difficult loads - if you don`t believe me, have a look at Ken Kesslers review for Hifi News, where he substituted it for his normal Lexicon setup and had it driving an Apogee surround-sound setup. Anybody who knows hifi will also know that Apogees are notoriously difficult loads to drive - most AV amps would just permanantly trip their protection circuits or worse....

If after all this you still want a decent AV amp AND all (well most) of the toys, then go for the Sony. It`s a solid choice and sounds pretty good. It`s not nearly as good sound-wise as the Nak but it does have proprietry ES/EX decoding and a spec that`s hard to beat. To be strictly honest though I`d recommend you at least double your budget for a 6 or 7 channel system. It`s your choice, but if your sceptical, I`d urge you to listen to both the Sony (or any of the others) against the Nak back-to-back. Then you`ll understand my point...