Right choice?

[jefft1314]

I recently purchased a pioneer vsx-d912 and a set of rm6700's with a psw303. I love it, I think it sounds absolutely awesome. I purchased hte pioneer reciever for around 360 or 380 dollars with a service plan. (four years for like 30 bucks) (I'm an employee of circuit city, but I swear I do actually have some knowledge) Did I make a good choice? I really like the connectivity options on the receiver as well as the sound quality, plus it's one of cnet's highest rated receivers. The Pioneer also has an automatic room adjustment feature, which is pretty cool and saves me dropping 70+ on an spl from radio shack. I just became aware that Denon makes a receiver (the 1804) that retails for five hundred bucks, but I could get for about the same price as my pioneer if I ordered it online. Is anybody on here familiar at all with that receiver and how it sounds? Will I notice a difference in sound quality if I ordered the Denon and returned the pioneer using the rm6700's?

[jefft1314]

The specs on the Denon are technically better, as it will handle 6 ohm speakers as well as having a lower signal to noise ratio, though the pioneer has more power. But I know enough not to base everything on the specifications of a product.

[Early B.]

I vote for Denon.

BTW -- it would be nice to own an SPL meter, regardless of whether you have a receiver with auto calibration. And they're a lot cheaper than $70.

[dave shepard]

I have both the Panny SA-HE200 (in the closet) and now the Denon 3803. The Panny was in the first HT set-up I had last year and worked a set of RM7200's and did a real good job it sounded real good and I would recomend and have recomended it to people getting into HT on a tighter budget. I swiched when I found myself getting into this real bad (just ask the wife, now she just goes with it) and knew that the Denon would give me the expandability to do so, the Panny does not, but on the cheep is hard to beat. I don't know about the Pioneer you have. I would recomend the Denon for the ability to let you grow into this hobby, just make sure you get some apropreate size decent speaker wire, I had 16ga (from Wal-Mart :o ) and had some issues with sound then went to 12ga monster and that made a huge differance. If you are anything like the rest of us here get something you can expand on.

Dave

[LuSh]

"I recently purchased a pioneer vsx-d912 and a set of rm6700's with a psw303. I love it, I think it sounds absolutely awesome"

I'd assume you'd made the right choice then.

[danger boy]

jefft,

how long have you had the Pioneer? i'd say, keep it for a few months.. if after that time you feel it's not performing like you want.. then maybe look into getting the Denon. Denon has quite a following in here.

Look for a receiver with pre outs, those are good to have. so that if you feel your receiver lacks power.. you can add an external amp. lots of people go that route.. i sure did. the external amps could be added later down the road as needed. it will give you more power to your speaker, which is a good thing. and it will improve the sound quailty as well. Does CC sell amps?

[jefft1314]

I've had the system for less than a week now. I'm overall very happy with it, but as a college student, I don't exactly have money burning a hole in my pocket so I wanted to see what people thought about the choice. The pioneer does have preouts on it, this thing is completely loaded with features, and like I said, the sonics on it seem pretty good, but it's not high current either. I'll probably end up keeping it just because I've returned too much stuff to circuit city since i've started working there. I think I'm gonna go listen to the denon at a local store though and check it out for myself. CC unfortuantely doesn't sell amps.

[jae68]

I've always liked Denon too.

[wire]

Denon :)