i have never heard of audiophiles talk about pioneer so i can't comment. might be good to stay away.
yeah perhaps the evo is beyond even paulmoney's reach. i went one down on the wharfedale diamond 9.6 but they're a bit off balance despite good clarity.
good luck hunting!
go with the yamaha 665 - very very well reviewed (RRP was something like $2600-2800). the only advantage of the denon 2809 is the 'other features' which i dont use (sorry cant name them cant remember what they are). that'll give you a lot of room for speakers - that could be a personal thingy. best is to plug in the yamaha at his showroom to a couple of sets of speakers and your fav cds and decide.
what about comparing pioneer's LX70/71/72 with Yamaha's AV receiver?
if Yamaha is slightly better than Denon for sound handling, then is Pioneer any better in handling the sound than Yamaha?
For $1400 I'd be inclined to rate the Yamaha higher (Disc - Yamaha owner). Best you audition them with yoru preferred front speakers and favourite CD. Beforehand you could open up an excel spreadsheet and list each spec to see if this tells you anything. Eg Burr Brown DAC's vs ??. $1400 vs??
Understand your conundrum, I went through the same a couple of weeks ago and it did my head in.
Best piece of advice I can give is use your ears. What might sound good to one person might be completely different to somebody else. Go to a good store, and get them to set up what you want in their demo room. Take your favourite CD and movie and try it out. If they dont want to do that, then best thing is to take your custom somewhere else.
You say you listen to more music than need the system for home theatre. In that case, my best advice would be to spend as much as you can on a great pair of front speakers. And really, size does matter. For movies, all that really matters are the effects, the boom, bang etc which even bose can do well. Music is far more subtle and you can tell the difference between speakers.
If you dont want to spring for a sub, centre and surrounds immediately, then do it later. The great thing is that all these things are usually compatible. A good centre and sub is paramount. Surrounds not as much as they only provide the effects.
In terms of receiver, spend a decent amount of money. You'll find these things are quite heavy, largely due to the power supply. Make sure it upscales component to HDMI. Makes a difference when watching new dvds.
In terms of a blu-ray player, I got a PS3. Not necessarily for the gaming capabilities, but rather for its networking ability and the fact that it has a sizeable hard disk. Being able to access TV shows etc from your network is pretty cool.
Remember once you spend a decent amount of money on this, you shouldn't have to replace anything for a long long time. And once you set it up right, its beautiful and you'll wonder how you did with anything else.
I had a similar budget to yours (slightly higher) and this is what I bought (after hours and hours and hours of research!):
A/V Receiver: Yamaha RX-V1900 ($2300 from Harvey Norman, down from $3200)
I have decided to go with Wharfedale Pacific Evo 2 40 front speaker.
as for receiver, been doing a bit of reading in the past few days, decided will either stick with Marantz(musical) or Yamaha(maybe a bit cheaper than Marantz).
Do you think Yamaha Rxv1900 is an overkill? I have to admit I quite like it mainly because the appearance, but I am not sure its functions/gadgets are worth another $1000ish when compared to Rxv665.
as for the centre and surround, might stick with Evo series, and for sub, maybe a 2nd hand Velodyne on trademe or a decent brand in near future.
good man! buy what your heart needs - seriously, otherwise you wont be able to sleep soundly and keep thinking of upgrading - more expensive in the long run! (speaking from personal experience) i know nothing about marantz sorry - the name sounds 'classy'!
Thanks Joker97, you are right about having a good night sleep, cant remember how many times I bought something cos its cheaper and then still endup upgrading it to the one I want later...
bought from Northshore Autosounds,
Yamaha VX1900 Yamaha CDC697 Wharfedale EVO2 40
I got them like 50% off the RRP, if it wasnt for not having enough $ in the bank, I would have bought the whole setup from them. definitely going back ot get somemore
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