Yeah fair enough. However seen as my Marantz lasted me a good >15 years I'd like to think my AVR will do the same (hence I want it to support 4k/HDR/Atmos etc.). It's possible the Gales could get upgraded in the near future.
I'm basically getting the response on AVF that AVRs are terrible for music and I should go for a stereo amp, or an AVR with pre-outs for a stereo amp. Seems very excessive given the rest of my setup. Am I really likely to hate the music from something like the Yamaha in comparison to my 15 year old Marantz? I doubt it somewhat..
The rate of change of technology, no AVR is going to last 15 years. They'll still be working in 20 and 25 years, but connection formats and audio codecs and video standards are a constantly moving feast. Three or four years ago it seemed enough to have 4K scaling, and HDMI 1.4 covered that. Now you need HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 and HDR and Dolby Vision if you want to keep up with the Jones'.
The "AVRs are terrible for music" line does have some truth in it. God, I remember getting my first AVR way back. It was the award-winning Denon 3801. £800 of top spec all-singing-and-dancing multi-channel loveliness endorsed by all the mags. Absolutely incredible for movies. But bloody awful for music; and I mean fingernails-down-the-blackboard Oh-God-make-it-stop-make-it-stop awful. Lots of AVRs followed the same pattern. Mixing all that video tech and DSP signalling polluted the pure audio performance with a hash of digital noise. Lots of video circuits sharing the same power rails as the audio circuits. A laminated core transformer rather than a toroidal.. yadda yadda yadda. On top of that the guys designing AV receivers were not the same guys as making the Hi-Fi gear, so their audio expectations were different. But it wasn't universal.
Before we had HDMI or even Dolby Digital, Yamaha were one of the first to the crease with a Dolby ProLogic amplifier. Their DSP-A2070 @ £1500 in 1986-87 I think was, to all intents and purposes, a 3 channel version of a big stereo amp but with added multichannel capacity. For pure music it sounds legendary. So does the DSP-A3090 that followed it, and arguably the DSP-A1 that came after. But these were all in the £1500-£2000 price range. They were a different kettle of fish to the average AVR that came later (and cheaper) in to an ever-more crowded market.
The AV receiver market has been less concerned about music quality and more interested in the latests audio formats, and video processing and App control and more channels...and ... and ...and... The speakers that sell in the largest volume for AV use are sub/sat systems. That's because it has to "look neat". People are basing their purchase of audio gear on how well speakers can be hidden. That's like choosing a restaurant because they have nice chairs.
In absolute terms, and for the same money spent, then a decent 2 channel amp should sound better than the average AVR. But that's only if you choose the
average AVR.
A few year s ago I repaired an 80's/90's classic Hi-Fi amp for a friend. It was a Creek CAS4040 s2. In the 80's this amp redefined budget Hi-Fi amplification in the same way that the Rega Planar 3 changed turntables and the Mission 70 changed speakers. It's still a good amp by today's standards too, and that's why their price is increasing. After the repair I ran it with my JM Labs speakers (£1000) and a rather nice Denon DVD/CD/SACD player that does very nicely for music. The amp is only rated at 25-30W but it puts out a lot of current and the JM Labs (Focals) are very efficient so all was good.
For a laugh I decided to hook up my AV receiver to see just how big the gulf in performance was. At the time I had a Yamaha DSP-AX761 I think. I got a bit of a shock. It wasn't such a big difference at all.
In Stereo mode and set up only to drive the main speakers full range the Yamaha was good enough that I could tell the difference between the Denon with its video circuits switched on or switched off. The difference between running some Chord £40 phono cables and the freebie phonos thrown in with bits of gear was very evident. That difference got even larger with the amp in Pure mode. Everything I'd expect from a £200-£300 Hi-Fi amp was there. I've had a play with Denons, Marantz', Onkyos, Pioneers, Arcams, Anthems, Rotels, Lexicons, TAGs, Meridians, Classe, Krell, Linns, and others. The high-end brands can do music pretty well. Budget AV receivers do suck. But once you get to around £500-£600 it's not so cut and dry. Some brands aren't great, but others - and even then not every model - are occasionally surprising.
