Considering new receiver as a pre/pro

[CJ Paul]

With moving and having to disassemble my home theater, there is definately some gear on my "to sell" list. Since it will all be unhooked and boxed up, what better time. The main driving force behind this would be to raise funds for a new pre/pro, however, I think an actual pre/pro might be out of my price range, so I was thinking about replacing my receiver with a new one.

One of the main areas I see room for improvement is in the bass management. My receiver has a 90hz fixed crossover and I think its really limiting my ability to tweak my setup. I'd like to go lower and I think my mains can handle it, but my other speakers wont.

So what I'd be looking for at a minimum is something with flexible bass management (i.e. seperate settings for mains vs. center and surrounds) better implementation of 6/7.1. My receiver is ~4 years old so that technology was just coming out. Its not a huge thing, but it doesnt auto sense the signal UNLESS its DTS-ES discrete. The others I have to check myself.

Brands I'm considering off the top of my head are Pioneer/Elite, Denon, H/K (maybe) and I guess whatever else you guys might recomend. I wont be using the amp section of the receiver.

[Andrew Pratt]

What's your budget?

[David Meek]

CJ, if I may make a recommendation - also for the "must have" list, at least IMO, you should get a receiver that has an auto-room calibration feature like Yamaha's YPAO or Pioneer's MCACC. Well, that is unless you enjoy manually doing it with your SPL and Video Essentials.

[CJ Paul]

My budget is, well... Here's the deal. I'm not afraid of buying from a reputable but not authorized e-tailer (I know some people are horribly against that for various reasons) so I'll leave it at that... but one of the receivers on my short list is this Pionner (http://www.beachcamera.com/shop/prod...u=PRVSX1014TXK) which is ~$400 shipped WITH their 3 year warranty. So, I'm not saying my budget is only $400, but I may say, if I cant get what I want/need for ~$500, I'll hold off becuase the new DVD formats are going to have new sound formats too.

[Al Garay]

Have you read this thread? PSP is looking for something similar. Check your local BestBuy who have the Pioneer and Yamaha. You can try them out.

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=16496

[CJ Paul]

Yikes, the one guy says that the Pioneer wont do the auto EQ on the pre-outs. That's not what I heard over at AVS, but this is the kind of thing that makes you have to research for months.

[Glen B]

How about considering Outlaw Audio's ICBM dedicated bass management device at $249.00. It will work with any pre-pro or receiver.

http://www.outlawaudio.com/products/icbm.html

[Al Garay]

Good deal on used Outlaw 950 for $420

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=16609

[CJ Paul]

God, that's a good deal on the amp too Hmmm, I wasnt ready to move on this RIGHT now, I was in the planning phase. Thanks for the heads up though.

[David Meek]

CJ, if you are interested in the Outlaw, you might PM Kevin P for more info as he's been a long-time Outlaw owner (not sure of the model though).

[CJ Paul]

I am somewhat interested, but the 950 was released in like early 2002. Its barely newer than the receiver I'm looking to replace. I know I should be looking to make a move up in QUALITY if I'm going to upgrade, but I cant help but wonder how something like room EQ would impact the overall sound even if its a mid-fi receiver instead of a pre/pro.

[Andrew Pratt]

That depends on the your room and how tweakable the EQ is. I've read a lot of reviews that say the auto EQ features while good in concept fall short in reality...almost all of them required the user to go in and adjust the settings once it was done which mostly defeats the purpose other then for noob's

[CJ Paul]

Andrew, not only that, but I'm begining to discover that a lot of the auto EQ is just plain only partially implemented. Many of the EQs are like 5, fixed bands per channel and NO EQ is applied to the sub. However, the H/K AVR635 uses parametric EQ (but I dont know how many bands per channel) and does the sub (but I dont know if the results are even compareable to a BFD). That being the case, with what I've already discovered, I'm focusing my research on this receiver for now. I'll let you guys know if I find anything out.