AV reciever upgrade (e.g. Arcam AVR 300) - any experiences

Ste

Ste

Ste

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Hi,

I've currently got a Marantz SR4200 which I got from ebay for £40 as a first foray into AV kit. It's damn good for the money, but I notice that AV kit that pre-dates HDMI seems to be an absolute bargain all around, to the extent that recievers like the AVR300 that were £1200 5/6 years ago are now fetching £250 on ebay.

Anyone got any experience with these? I've currently got an Audiolab 8000a driving the front pair and wonder whether I'd be able to ditch this and use the Arcam - would the 2 channel quality be comparable? I'm willing to make a bit of a sacrifice as I'm realising I use the setup for music less and less, and when I do it's usually rubbish out of itunes. But I still want good 2 channel performance. I've got a DACmagic that takes the signal from my PC and does a nice job of converting it to analogue, again, would I be able to use just a reciever like the AVR300 and ditch the standalone DAC?

Any other suggestions for recievers at this sort of price (~200-300 second hand)? Not bothered about HDMI, video upconverting, 7.1, etc. - just want the best 5.1 and 2 channel bypass options possible for that kind of money, along with an expectation of what the stereo music performance (either via onboard DAC or via bypass mode) could be like relative to an Audiolab 8000A / DACmagic.

Speakers are Mission M74i fronts, m7c2 centre m7ds rears. Not the best, but probably good enough for the SR4200 to be the weakest link in the setup. I'm using a PC and Virgin V HD box as source.

Any thoughts? Don't ask for much, do I... :)
 
Well the Audiolab is likely to outperform the Arcam in stereo, however Audioloab and Arcam have rather different sounds tbh, if you like one you may not be so keen on the other, they are quite different in presentation, Arcam is quite warm and full and (imo) a bit slow and imprecise compared to Audiolab.

The Dacmagic is likely to be 'considerably' superior to the Arcam's internal dacs, so I would certainly keep that, just use the Arcam as an amp, using the fairly forward Dacmagic might help alleviate some of Arcam's typical woolyness too, I must state that I have not heard this particular piece of Arcam kit though, but the older stereo stuff certainly used to sound like that to me, I have owned Audiolab kit in the past though and I do own a Dacmagic.
 
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I would agree that the audiolab is likely to outperform the arcam. But it should be reasonably close and personal preferences or system matching could swing it either way.

I have the arcam p1000 power amp, which is similar to the avr350 power stage, though far far beefier, especially with all channels driven (the arcam avr's power output usually falls down quite abit here). It's a decent amp, sounds very neutral, maybe a bit brash with my metal driver speakers though most solid state amps sound this way to me. It has good imaging, nice bass control though not the greatest bass extension and drive. Though I wouldn't characterize it as warm, it doesn have a hint of richness to the sound that reminds me a bit of my valve amp. It's also pretty good with voices too, something I rarely find with solid state amps, let alone multichannel amps.

If you can pick one up for less than £300, do it! I can pretty much guarantee that it will be leagues ahead of your marantz. And if you don't like it you can always sell it on for pretty much the price you bought it.
 
I agree with the comments above. The most important being that the two amps have a real difference in presentation style. The audiolab is dry. In comparison the arcam will probably sound more rounded, with better tonal colours, but less apparent detail. Whether you'll like the arcam really is down to personal preference. A further potential option would be to buy a cheap power amp for the rears and a legacy processor. I've seen lexicon and meridian units go for around 300 notes.
 
Thanks all, really useful. I wanted to try and reduce the number of units so power amps are out really. The main hifi is audiolab so it might be interesting to move to a different sound on the av side. As pointed out, it can be sold on for little/no loss, so should be fine!

Anyone got any other recommendations for AV receivers, around 300 second hand? Not interested in HDMI or lossless at this stage...
 
I doubt it. The 300 & its successor the 350 is more or less unbeatable for 2 channel sound compared with other AV receivers in its price at range at the time. I agree with others here the the Audiolab would be better for stereo though.
 
Chaps, I'm in a similar quandry. I'm got an 8000s and 8000p running stereo to MA GA10s. I'd like to add a second hand processor to give me 5.1 without compromising the stereo output. Any suggestions? I've got a spare 8000p which could be used to power rear speakers. I'm liking the Lexicon/Meridian ideas above but have little idea where to start looking. Budget would be up to £500 for the processor. I'll then free up some more cash for the satelites and sub.
 
Trick said:
Chaps, I'm in a similar quandry. I'm got an 8000s and 8000p running stereo to MA GA10s. I'd like to add a second hand processor to give me 5.1 without compromising the stereo output. Any suggestions? I've got a spare 8000p which could be used to power rear speakers. I'm liking the Lexicon/Meridian ideas above but have little idea where to start looking. Budget would be up to £500 for the processor. I'll then free up some more cash for the satelites and sub.
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The typical places to find a Lexicon or Meridian unit would be AVforums classifieds, hifiwigwam and similar.
As it happens, I'm in the process of selling a very good value for money Thule PR350b legacy processor for well under £300 (am I allowed to say that on here?).
 
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