Good Evening, I am upgrading my 1999 Sony home rcvr w DTS and 5.1 with a new receive. I am looking to have the best MUSIC quality and not so much on the DTS movie sound. I listen to a wide range of music and am looking for top notch sound/streaming capabilities. I have read about DAC's and like the idea of having that built into the rcvr if possible. I 90% of the time stream pandora. I will be getting a set of floor speakers (JL audio prob.) to go with the receiver. any suggestions ???? TFL ! I would like to stay under 400$

For my sound system I have had a Harmon Kardon, Yamaha and another one I forget the name of all over the last ten or 12 years now. They all turned out to be crap. Two years ago I bought a Sony for around two bills and that has been the best receiver I have ever had. I love that damn thing.

Go to Accessories4less.com and pick the Denon or Yamaha that meets your $400 budget.

Stick with those two brands (and Marantz) and you're good to go.

Denon AVR-X2400H is what I would pick:

https://www.accessories4less.c...ceiver-w/heos/1.html

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I have read about DAC's and like the idea of having that built into the rcvr if possible.

You need to be more specific. By definition, any piece of equipment that has a digital input (HDMI, optical, SPDIF coax, USB, streaming over network or internet) and has an analog (speaker or line-level) output has a DAC in it. That's what a DAC is - a Digital to Analog Converter. Without a DAC, you can't turn a digital signal into an analog one.

I doubt there is a receiver made now that doesn't have a DAC in it.

Of course, DAC quality and capabilities vary.

golddot, need more info.
How many speakers do you want to operate at one time. Stereo only, surround sound 5.1 or 7.1 or?
How much power is needed to drive the floor speakers at what you think are good levels?
How will you input the Pandora?
Will you need Bluetooth?
Will you need speakers in other rooms?
Wireless speakers or hard wired?

All the major makers have a line of a/v receivers that list around $400 and are usually available around $300. Most have similar features and are about equal reliability.
My brother and I both separately chose H/K as having a slightly better sound in the stereo mode.

i will , at first have, 2 good floor tower speakers, my room is about 40x40', with tall ceilings, concrete floors, pine walls and no carpet.
i have to bluetooth the pandora via my cell phone, bluetooth i think we be a must
will not need speakers in other rooms, and the ones in the living room will be hard wired. eventually MAYBE will put in a good set of surround satellite speakers to supplement floors for just watching movies

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I have read about DAC's and like the idea of having that built into the rcvr if possible.

You need to be more specific. By definition, any piece of equipment that has a digital input (HDMI, optical, SPDIF coax, USB, streaming over network or internet) and has an analog (speaker or line-level) output has a DAC in it. That's what a DAC is - a Digital to Analog Converter. Without a DAC, you can't turn a digital signal into an analog one.

I doubt there is a receiver made now that doesn't have a DAC in it.

Of course, DAC quality and capabilities vary.

I have looked at a peice of equipment that enhaces sound, let me see if i can locate a link...

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_...dioQuest-Beetle.html

it is my understanding these enhance the ausio quality from my cell phone audio and "uncomrpess it" to HD levels..

I wouldn’t plan to use your phone or receiver as the source. Get a dedicated streaming source.

$400 for music only I’d be looking to buy used. I’m partial to Integra receivers for music. But you may need a USB fan.

40x40’ is a nice sized room.

thanks konata, I am blessed with a big home, but have NO internet or wifi or even sat interent available right now, so far I just stream music off my phone.

quote:

Integra receivers

i like to sit in my lazyboy, scroll FB and lissten to music, so I can not use any cords that tether the cell to the receiver, gotta be wireless, 400 is my MAX amount, so I am not sure i can swing those integras

ideally, at some point i want to be able to toggle between my two floor sprks for music and then switch to a dedicated set of spkrs for my movie watching, if thats possible

Same room? That’s possible and you could use the floor standing speakers as fronts still. Unless your TV is in a different plane than the speakers. Still possible as many receivers support A/B speaker zones.

If used receiver market is not convenient, I’m not sure how much difference in audio quality is to be had between new $400 Denon/Marantz, Yamaha, Pioneer, Onkyo receivers. Any of the Japanese brands will probably sound decent. It’s a search for UI, features and sales.

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I have looked at a peice of equipment that enhaces sound, let me see if i can locate a link...

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_...dioQuest-Beetle.html

it is my understanding these enhance the ausio quality from my cell phone audio and "uncomrpess it" to HD levels..

OK, so there are a couple of parts here.

>enhance the ausio quality from my cell phone audio

Nothing can really "enhance" the audio quality. The best you can really do is get equipment that causes less deterioration of the audio quality.

E.g., if you compare the sound quality between headphones plugged directly into your phone versus headphones plugged into a good DAC plugged into your phone, it will sound better through the DAC. That's not because the good DAC makes the audio quality better - it's because the DAC in your phone is garbage and reduces the audio quality a lot.

>and "uncomrpess it" to HD levels

This is not true at all. The music in your phone is almost certainly compressed using a lossy compression format (you have to work at it to get uncompressed or losslessly compressed audio). That means to make the files smaller, data is thrown away (think taking a nice, clear, high resolution image file and turning it into a low resolution blurry JPG). It is impossible to recover that data once it is lost.

To make that worse, Bluetooth audio streaming typically uses different, pretty bad lossy compression formats to transmit audio - so your compressed file is then compressed again a different way to send it over Bluetooth.

There are some very recent Bluetooth standards for higher-quality audio transmission, but many phones and many pieces of audio equipment don't support them yet.

The particular unit you linked appears not to support any of the newer, higher-quality formats for Bluetooth audio streaming.

While Bluetooth CAN be done pretty well, it usually isn't, and from a sound quality perspective you are generally MUCH better off either using a hard-wired connection (in this case, that would mean a USB cable to your phone) or streaming over WiFi, which allows for much higher data transmission rates than Bluetooth does.

I happen to be an acoustic engineer and recovering audiophile:
1. Once music has been compressed, it can't be "uncompressed" back to HD quality. When the info is gone (compressed) it can never be recovered.

2. Virtually all modern DACs are so good that you can never hear the difference. So base your choice on other factors: convenience features, general electrical construction quality, manufacturer reputation, etc.
Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, Oppo, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, ...all make reputable stuff.

3. IMO the biggest factor is the speakers. They are the only mechanical transduction component that still requires physical quality and some "skill" to build. I am partial to JBL Studio series, and Harman Kardon also makes some good ones. There are a lot of other good ones too, but it is another black hole of separating marketing hype from true quality. Suffice to say that good speakers will probably not be cheap, but there are a lot of expensive speakers that are crap.

quote:

Originally posted by golddot:
I am looking to have the best MUSIC quality

IMHO, the BEST MUSIC quality does not involve streaming, cell phones, wireless connections, etc. I see streaming music as a convenience (I personally don't use these services), but because of their lossy, highly compressed file formats, I don't equate it to quality audiophile sound. IMO, good sound starts at the source.

For a budget of under $400, you might as well buy any name brand Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo, etc that has the most power in 2 - channel mode. The ebay seller "safeandsoundhq" has a lot of good deals, and is trustworthy. Bought an open box (not used) Denon x3300w from them a year ago for a very good price and they ended up sending me a brand new/unopened one instead.

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
Once music has been compressed, it can't be "uncompressed" back to HD quality. When the info is gone (compressed) it can never be recovered.

There is lossless compression, but you have to go out of your way to find it or use it.

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:
Virtually all modern DACs are so good that you can never hear the difference. So base your choice on other factors: convenience features, general electrical construction quality, manufacturer reputation, etc.
Denon, Onkyo, Yamaha, Oppo, Marantz, Cambridge Audio, ...all make reputable stuff.

I think this is pretty much true these days.

The big exception here (which you obviously weren't talking about) is mobile devices - they use much lower-performance DACs in order to reduce battery consumption.

The other consideration is that, while it's also easy to make a very high-performance preamplifier or amplifier stage, for whatever reason, companies often don't.

(Again, with mobile devices, the headphone amplifier often has poor performance compared to a dedicated device because of power consumption concerns.)

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
IMHO, the BEST MUSIC quality does not involve streaming, cell phones, wireless connections, etc. I see streaming music as a convenience (I personally don't use these services), but because of their lossy, highly compressed file formats, I don't equate it to quality audiophile sound. IMO, good sound starts at the source.

I generally agree with you if we're talking about streaming-service 256kbps MP3s sent over Bluetooth.

With the right equipment, though, you can stream uncompressed or losslessly compressed audio from your phone or other streaming source over WiFi to a streaming receiver to a reclocking DAC and have audio quality as good as whatever audiophile digital source you like plugged directly into the DAC.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:
There is lossless compression, but you have to go out of your way to find it or use it.

Yes; I have used RDAC and Monkey's Audio.
Straying slightly off topic: I am really disappointed that minidisc died. I have an extensive minidisc setup and I thought that ATRAC was a much better-sounding compression scheme than MP3. Oh well....

Anthem and Denon both make fine receivers