AV receiver thats good with stero for music?

nightrider1470

nightrider1470

nightrider1470

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I have about 7-9 speakers am looking to install in my kitchen and lounge, for music and movie playback. I know its usually advised to run a 2 channel stero amp for music but I want to power more speakers.

Is there a certain receiver which can produce great stero for multiple channels?

:)
 
Do you want multiroom or hifi? Do you want both rooms playing different music or just good quality stereo playing the same track in both rooms?

Many AV receivers will allow you to power a second zone using the outputs for speakers 6 and 7. Out of those the main two that come to mind with good stereo music performance are Yamaha and Arcam. Arcam is generally accepted as the best musically, but you do pay for it - you can just about get one for your budget at the moment - they have a trade-in offer where you can trade in any AVR for 20% off RRP.
 
For that price, you could get a top end Yamaha RXA3040 which is 9.2 speakers and even Dolby Atmos enabled :p

It has a second zone, and apparently, it will auto switch off the second zone when presence speakers are required, and back on when not. Therefore if you are watching a film and decide to make a tea half way through, you can pause the film, turn on the music on the second zone in the kitchen, make the tea, and then when you come back start the film again and the kitchen music stops.
 
El_Watcher said:
For that price, you could get a top end Yamaha RXA3040 which is 9.2 speakers and even Dolby Atmos enabled :p
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Depends how important music playback is for you. As I said, Arcam is generally accepted as the best in this respect. If music is not so important then Yamaha is a decent second-best.

No idea how Focal speakers sound on Arcam kit. If Yamaha sounds good with Focal I'd go that way if it were me.
 
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covenantuk said:
Depends how important music playback is for you.
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It will also depend on the music source. If you are just plugging in an iPod, I am not sure sound quality will differ massively between the two amp brands.

Plus with a budget of £2k, the only new Arcam you can get is the bottom of the range AVR380 (or maybe AVR450 if on sale).
You would have to listen to them together to see if the bottom end Arcam does sound better than the top end Yamaha.

Plus to me the Arcam looks awful (like designed by Poundland).

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Whereas the Yamaha looks like it had some thought in its design.

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Up to you though.
 
El_Watcher said:
It will also depend on the music source. If you are just plugging in an iPod, I am not sure sound quality will differ massively between the two amp brands.
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If anyone thinks of spending £2k on an AVR and then plugging in an iPod playing 128k music files, then they have priorities very skewed.

I think you need to listen to an Arcam before commenting. Yes they're expensive, but I've not heard another AVR that comes as close to replicating 2-channel hi-fi levels of performance with music as the current range does. That said, they're not for everyone and need auditioning for speaker choice.
 
Having hear top end Yamaha, I'd save some money and buy an Anthem MRX510, does a half decent job of music. (I can only compare to £3k 2 channel amp and separate DAC combo)
 
For that budget, I'd be inclined to investigate a processor and seperate power amp. Marantz has a few around at prices that are not likely to be sensible s/h. Would almost certainly lose less in depreciation than a new receiver and I'd expect a processor to have the edge.
Another thought is that you could use locally placed power amps or active speakers in say the "other" room. Chose the right components and you can use balanced connections, which would be better for longer runs.
 
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