Thanks for your reply, much appreciated
I’m happy to replace internal components if needs be.
I can get peak under the hood of the amplifier if needs be. I also found an Arcam Alpha 8 I’m interested in that has pictures of the internals, looks good from what I can see.
I’ve noticed that Onkyo, gets good reviews for the price/performance ratio. I would prefer two sets of speaker terminals though.
As for Yamaha, I’ve not had any experience with them. When you say Pro-Logic, do you mean what sort of models? The DSP A-**** models you mentioned have fancy digital processing.
Yes, both amps have digital audio processing. The 2070 has all analogue input (no coaxial, no optical) and so processes in Dolby Pro-Logic only when in surround mode. Although there are video inputs on it they're basically on a passive switch apart from the REC OUT connections. The upshot is that the presence of (defeatable) DSP and the video switching is benign. The internal construction, the use of wholly separate transformers (not just taps or separate power rails but two completely independent transformers), the signal paths and the whole design ethos resulted in an amp with an extremely low noise floor, pretty-much unburstable power and enough headroom that it never seems to run out of gas.Someone has gone in to the 2070 with a fine-tooth comb here
https://www.avforums.com/threads/yamaha-dsp-a2070-digital-sound-field-processing-amplifier.1628933/
The 3090 comes from the same school of thought. However, it does have Optical, Coax and even an AC3 RF input for Laser Disc. Both are immensely capable examples of top down engineering to make statement products.
For a long time I shared the standard opinion that AV Receivers don't do music. That was my experience listening to-, installing- and owning the typical £600-£1000 AV Receivers. It was still my experience when I made the change to a pre-power AV system. Forum warriors and reviewers raved about the TAG AV32r-192bp, so that's what I got. It was stunning for movies. Music though was a bit cold and uninvolving. Later I had an opportunity to listen to the TAG against a Roksan AV pre-amp. For movies the TAG walked it, but playing music the Roksan showed what a company does that listens to music. Suddenly there was joy in the sound and foot tapping and excitement to listen to the next thing and the next and the next. There seem to be people who love hearing little details, and maybe that's there definition of 'better', and it seems there are people who like to hear the band playing as a whole unit. I'm in the latter category and it's maybe why Lexicon, Classe, B&W and to a lesser extent Meridian never really did it for me.
The Roksan experience showed me that it was possible to do music with some AV gear, but with a trade-off for movies. However, that was pre-power systems and not integrateds. What changed my opinion on them was an unintentional consequence of repairing an old Creek 4040 amp.
At the time I was running a Yamaha RX-V765 I'd taken in p/ex. I'd got back in to Yamaha after installing a couple of RX-V771s on jobs where I needed pre-outs to run AV with conventional stereo systems. Anyway, I was putting the Creek through it's paces and thoroughly enjoying my regular demo discs when it occurred to me to see just what the power difference was in real life between the 35W/c budget British amp the supposedly 95W/c from the Yamaha. There was a measured difference, but nothing like the almost 3:1 power deficit. But what I did notice was that the Yamaha sounded much closer to the Creek than I would have ever suspected.
What surprised me even more was the Yam could hold a tune and easily resolve the differences in quality between playing in Stereo mode vs Pure Direct, and differentiate the source player in direct vs standard mode too. Now I'll be totally upfront, none of this was done in blind testing or ABX, and I do tend to listen at er... healthy volumes
... and my JM Lab Electra 905s are excellent at revealing the difference in gear and recordings. Someone else doing the same tests with different gear at lower volumes might not hear as much difference. However, I'm more open to the idea that certain AV receivers do make reasonable 2 channel amps for Hi-Fi use in the right setting.
That brings us back to these two Yamaha behemoths. Unfortunately for you neither is suitable for your needs. They don't have two sets of main speaker outputs.
