Best AV Receiver for Music

[Scotty]

Confused - much info out there. Thought I'd turn it over to you experts

System upgrade - having trouble deciding on the receiver. My focus is on the best stereo sound - I will be streaming digital music from either a networked PC or a USB drive. I want networking, USB (obviously), 7.1, and basic zoning. I want 5.1 surround for watching movies and I want it to sound good - but I will sacrifice on this end to make up for the best sounding music.

Suggestions?

[mixter_t]

If you really want the absolute best quality sound you should consider the Outlaw 990 Pre and get a 5.1 amp to go with it. The Outlaw 990 uses very High-End DACs. The DAC in the 990 is just one model under the DAC that's in the Benchmark DAC1 which is used by professional studios.

[JERRY MCGOVERN]

I am using the Pioneer Elite VSX-39TX 7.1 Receiver and it sounds great! Especially for all those concerts on Blu-Ray DVD's.........

[wes]

Originally Posted by Scotty

Confused - much info out there. Thought I'd turn it over to you experts System upgrade - having trouble deciding on the receiver. My focus is on the best stereo sound - I will be streaming digital music from either a networked PC or a USB drive. I want networking, USB (obviously), 7.1, and basic zoning. I want 5.1 surround for watching movies and I want it to sound good - but I will sacrifice on this end to make up for the best sounding music. Suggestions?

It all depends how much you want to spend here are three options, but first forget AV receivers and go with separate.

Option one: Bang for the buck: EMOTIVA www.emotiva.com
Emotiva UMC-1 Audio/Video Processor price: $699
Emotiva XPA-3, 3 Channel Amplifier ($649)
Emotiva XPA-2, 2 Channel Amplifier ($799)

Option Two: Audiophile Classé www.classeaudio.com
Classé SSP-800 ($8,000)
Classé CA-5200 ($10,000)

Option Three: Money is no problem Mark Levinson www.marklevinson.com
Mark Levinson Nº 502 Media Console
Mark Levinson Nº 436 Power Amplifier (5 or 7)

[CharlyD]

While all the receivers suggested thus far can produce outstanding audio, only the Pioneer has networking capability. I'm completely stumped as to why hi-end vendors can develop these very sophisticated boxes with such extreme attention to audio and video quality and not add the network stack to and CODECs to support networked audio. The Denon receivers and processors also offer fine audio performance and include audio streaming capability.

[pfalzgraf]

I'm happy with the Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH. It provides an ethernet interface and will directly stream web sites that are in a (downloaded?) menu. The menu system is not pretty, but if you want pretty more than good sound there may be an option like that available.

There is also a feature that I have not used that permits streaming from your own PC, but I can't tell you any more about it.

This receiver really takes advantage of its digital signal processing. There is an option in the auto equalization program that corrects group delay. When it is used the impact and perception of reality is dramatically improved.