Is the Yamaha AS500 a worthwhile improvement with music?

[lesmallett]

I currently use a Yamaha RX-1065 for Home Cinema and stereo duties combined with a Squeezebox touch and AE Neo 3 speakers.

My question, as above, would the Yamaha AS500 offer an improvement in music that is worth the cost and hassle swapping cables or fiddling with volumes when moving between home cinema and music?

 

[matthewpiano]

Personally, I doubt it but an audition is the best way to find out. The A-S500 is a very good budget amp, but you have an excellent receiver there and I think you'd probably have to buy a better integrated than the '500 to make the cost and hassle worthwhile.

 

[lesmallett]

Thanks for your reply. Sadly it probably means I'll have to spend more than I have to improve my music listening.

Shame as I was hoping to get more enjoyment from my music listening.

 

[Anonymous]

Shame as I was hoping to get more enjoyment from my music listening.

Sounds like a classic case of "upgraditis"...

The money saved from not buying the Yamaha gets a LOT of music...

Other than that, have you the full Neo package including sub?

One thing I did was to set up my front pair to "small" and set the crossover to 80Hz, even though at the time they were floorstanders which could get to around 40 Hz. Let the AV amp split the bass signal to the sub. With the sub handling ALL the sub 80 Hz info, the main speakers became far more clear, and the overall sound much more clean sounding.

 

[Cypher]

I would definitely audition the A-S500 because for me personally it's one of the worst sounding amps out there. The sound is so aggressive that I got tired of it after 15 minutes of listening.

Also try some Marantz and Nad amps.........they let you enjoy your music

 

[lesmallett]

My set up has the Neo centre and the Radience sub (which is the same as the new Neo sub). They don't get used with music though as have it on pure with an analogue signal into the amp. Have the speakers set to large as they sound better with home cinema in my room but not sure it makes any difference in Pure mode.

Upgrading is an illness but also a joy. Due to a back operatation I've spent too much time bored on the sofa looking for things to do to improve my enjoyment of music.

I know I should audition but it would still be hard to see whether the amp improves with my speakers and music source. I also don't trust my opinion until I've listened to something for a few weeks.

 

[kevinJ]

Do you have an external dac connected to the squeezebox or is that one doing the digital-analog decoding? The internal dac isn't the best one around.

Try using the digital connection to the amp and see if that changes anything.

Have a fast recovery of the surgery. I know how it feels (3 times surgery: fusion L5-S1, fusion L4-L5-S1, removal of all nuts and bolts).

 

[lesmallett]

Thanks, your ops sound much more serious. Mine was only minor, it just means I'm not allowed to play sport and exercise for a few months, hence the bordom.

Strangely I was thinking for ages of getting a better DAC but kept reading that you needed to spend big to get a significant improvement. Then my Touch broke and Logitech sent me a new one, I don't know why but this one sounds 5x better than the last one. Doesn't make any sense unless Logitech have made some internal interations, or my last one was a duffer.

Anyway this new one has improved my enjoyment of music.

Whilst it was bust I tried listening to music using the amps DAC from a Popcorn Hour and it didn't sound that good.

 

[Anonymous]

My set up has the Neo centre and the Radience sub (which is the same as the new Neo sub). They don't get used with music though as have it on pure with an analogue signal into the amp. Have the speakers set to large as they sound better with home cinema in my room but not sure it makes any difference in Pure mode.

Upgrading is an illness but also a joy. Due to a back operatation I've spent too much time bored on the sofa looking for things to do to improve my enjoyment of music.

I know I should audition but it would still be hard to see whether the amp improves with my speakers and music source. I also don't trust my opinion until I've listened to something for a few weeks.

Give my suggestion a try.

I have a Yamaha AV amp, and I now use it in "straight" for music, with the speakers set to small, which means the sub plays the lower frequencies. To me it sounds much better than "pure".

 

[lesmallett]

I'll give it a whirl. My problem with this, in my head, is I assumed the amp would digitise the analogue input signal and then put it back through a DAC adding lots of extra processing.