Surround receivers

[CHHAS]

A friend of mine is trying to sucker me into getting a Harman/Kardon AVR 8500, it looks quite wicked, but does any of you know it or anything else in the pricerange that might be better ?

[Helevitia]

The 8500 is a serious piece of hardware. Do you really need something that crazy? I mean, it is probably overkill for most people.

I have an HK receiver(AVR 210)and I love it

Dave

[CHHAS]

Well, I probably don't, but I'm looking for something I'll be happy with as a pure 2 channel audio solution as well, and I am rather picky with that.

Not to mention the 8500 is really really neat

[Jammrock]

If all you care about is nice 2-channel sound, no need to go overboard on a huge surround rig. For roughly the same price as a H/K AVR 8500 (roughly 1700 euros, 12600 krone) you should be able to find a nice stereo preamp/amp seperates or an integrated amplier. My favorite is Rotel, but I don't know the availablity in Danmark.

Integrated amps:

http://www.rotel.com/products/integrated-amplifiers.htm

Stereo Preamps:

http://www.rotel.com/products/stereo-pre-amplifiers.htm

Stereo Amplifiers:

http://www.rotel.com/products/stereo-power-amplifiers.htm

I own the RB-1080 stereo amp and it is wonderful! Unless you are powering some big speakers in a big room though, all you need is the RB-1070 (should be around 7500 krone) or RB-1050 (~4500 krone). Hook that up to a nice Rotel RC-1090 (~7500 krone) with some B&W speakers and it will put the H/K 8500 to shame

Of course, I don't know what is and isn't available out there beside B&O, but if you find a nice audio dealer you can get better for about the same.

EDIT: looks like there is a DK Rotel dealer: http://www.radioactiv.dk/

Just my 50 uure.

Jammrock

[KvHagedorn]

What speakers are you going to be running with it, CHHAS?

[Sasq]

Is anyone else begining to pick up that speakers are the most important part of the system

Dan

[CHHAS]

I'm not just interested in two channel, I'd like to have a good surround setup, but I do not want my two channel sound to suffer from going for a surround receiver.

Currently I'm using an Onkyo A-809 Integra integrated amp to run my Avance Delta 3 speakers. I haven't decided on surround speakers yet, besides knowing that I won't be changing the front channels.

Another incentive for getting the AVR-8500 is the sheer number of options I'll have with multiroom sound and what's not. I might have to go have a better look at the thing tomorrow, but knowing myself I could easily wind up looking with my wallet.

[Wombat]

Multiroom sound? Are you really going to use that? My Denon has it, but it wasn't a selling point for me. Are you really going to be setting up two rooms such that this will be useful to you?

[KvHagedorn]

We do multiroom setups all the time, but usually we prewire the house ahead of time and then cut the speakers into the ceiling/wall. We use volume controls in the walls too. Best solution is to use a high current amplifier as a separate piece for this, with the speakers distributed by a niles sms10 speaker block, or if you want to get fancy (and expensive) go for something like the niles multizone receiver, with separate amps for every pair of speakers. I really don't like using the surround amp for the whole house system unless I have to.