Video Asylum

Posted by cfraser (A) on June 20, 2002 at 15:29:09

In Reply to: Re: Agree on that, AVR320 and up posted by wheezer on June 20, 2002 at 02:26:07:

Hi Mitch,

The AVR520 and AVR8000 could do that, as they have separate amp inputs to go with the preamp outputs, with jumper bars between them. I believe all amps are identical, so there'd not be much use swapping amps, except you could use a "good" amp for the fronts, and use the "front" amps for the two back channels (7.1 etc.). The AVR520 is cheap, the AVR8000 is not. The point of the 320/520 is they do just about everything and have good flexibility, and are a good "first" AV receiver so you can find out what's really important to you without spending a lot. The expensive receivers have better amp and power supply sections. I'd just as soon use my own separate amps, and IME you don't need much power for the surround channels anyway, for a typical home-sized room. I have found that doing the center channel half-decently has greatly increased my HT enjoyment, from the audio side for the stuff I watch (just DVD's). Also, the AVR320 and up have adequate bass management features for integration with other gear/speakers. This is another thing I learned: it's tough to do a half-decent setup without a sub, even if you don't care about the LFE stuff, so you need bass management flexibility. Even if you have all large full-range speakers, you won't be able to mount the surrounds in the proper positions in anything resembling a normal room. In a typical room, better to use smaller speakers (mid-sized) mounted PROPERLY with a sub and bass management properly adjusted.

Yeah, more than you asked, I'm rambling as usual, but I have enough gear here to try lots of stuff and arrangements. What I found out is you have to find out for yourself, like other audio stuff, and the AVR320+ can let you experiment cheaply. You won't learn this stuff from books or dealers (usually).

The HK tuner section is not bad, but it's not analog... Sensitive, and OK for casual listening, seems a pretty typical synthesized tuner with a slightly hotter than usual front end. Tons of presets. The video switching is good, no noticeable signal degradation on S or component switching here. That said, I feed the RP56 component video straight into the TV now, since I only have one component source. You see, I found out you need the S-video inputs to your TV anyway because your (and my) DVDP need the S video outs for the default menus, for initial setup and if power fails (to set them to component out). Also, I believe the AVR's only put out their menus on S-video; not 100% sure of that, since I needed the S for the DVDP anyway I just left it like that for all menus.

In case I didn't mention it before, the 520+ also decode HDCD if that's of interest.