Arcam AVR280 - equivalent to what current AV amps?

[gregvet]

Right then, I just put down a deposit for an Arcam AVR280 from my local shop. I really want the AVR600 but cannot afford it at the moment, and am hoping it will be a significant step up from my Sony DG820. Now the bit I am ashamed about is that I have not even heard it. I love the sound of the 600, and from the reviews and the guy in the shop this will be closer than most of the other amps I can afford currently.

So my question is, what current AV amps are at a similar level in terms of sound quality, ie. would the Yamaha RXV1900 beat it, or would I have to go to the Z7 to get a significant improvement. Is it on a par with the Onkyo 606 or the 906? I understand that features are limited in the Arcam, but am happy to work around these limitations, its sound I am interested in.

My other bits are Pioneer 51FD, apple TV, and KEF 2005.3 (soonish to be upgraded to PMC DB1i's) .

 

Cheers everyone 

 

 

 

[progwardy]

Hi gregvet,

It seems we're having similar thoughts. I am too poor to consider owning an AVR600 and started looking at the AVR 280/350 amps and will be interested to see any responses form the crowd here. In addition I have a problem in that SACD/DVD-Audio playback is important to me (the Arcam DV137/9 are appealing to upgrade my ageing Pioneer) and if I wanted to go blu-ray would require an HDMI to analogue switchbox to enable both HD blu-ray audio and multichannel audio playback. It all starts to make buying a 'legacy' (and officialy 'discontinued') amp in this day and age rather costly and perhaps a retrograde step (unless others can pesuade me otherwise!) Do Arcam have any plans for a model between the 350 and 600?

 

[Anonymous]

Would you like to have Cyrus 8/PSX sound quality?

Well try Onkyo 876 fed by one of these......
/www.airlinktransformers.com/transformer/bps2000-balanced-power-supply.asp

Job done!