Mission M33 sounding dull on Denon AVR 1905?

[admin_exported]

Hi there

I was wondering if someone can give me some advice on my system. I have a Denon AVR 1905 Receiver with Mission M33 fronts, cheap mission center, B&W LM1 surrounds and PSB SubZero sub. The sound is okayish when watching Dolby Digital and especially DTS sources, but stereo sound is really unimpressive.

What could I look at to improve the sound? Is the amp under powered for those speakers?

I would really like to get B&W 683 / 685's, but cannot afford to get a new receiver and speakers. I won't really upgrade the center until I'm confident that I have the correct fronts.

Will post some pics of the room in the next post.

Thanks in advance for any advise.

 

[Anonymous]

Here are some photo's of the lounge, if that adds anything to the equation.

 

[Frank Harvey]

It could be that the 1905 doesn't quite have the nuts to do the job properly - if that is the case, the B&W 600 series isn't going to serve you any better. AV amps aren't really designed with music in mind - more for processing/scaling/switching numerous video inputs, decoding digital sound formats, running second zones, integrated radio etc etc. Hi-fi quality components take a back seat. I think a speaker upgrade might be on the cards, but I'd look at amplifiers first. Denon can sound a little soft, so try Yamaha as it should have a bit more life to it. An RXV2065 or RXV3900 would be recommended.

Another thing could be that you have rather a large room to fill - not just what we can see in the pic, but also the open plan bit just above out of sight. That's a lot for a system to fill.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Frank.

I really appreciate your input. I was not thinking of adding the B&W 600 series to my current amp, if I were to get those, I would upgrade the amp first and get the B&W's later. Only reason I'm asking is because I'm not sure if I must replace the amp with the B&W's in mind, or if by upgrading the amp I might not need other mains, just the proper mission centre speaker.

How would the Yamaha RX-V465 and Yamaha RX-V565 compare with my current Denon1905 on the mission speakers? Could I run B&W 600 series on that in the future? The Yamaha RXV2065 is a bit out of my price range.

The

 

[Frank Harvey]

It's David

They wouldn't be too different to be honest. You'd have to be looking nearer the £1k mark to make a decent improvement, and to be able to drive speakers any better than amps around £400-700.

 

[Anonymous]

What do you guys think of the Onkyo TX-SR606? Driving the missions as well as maybe the B&W 684 or 685's in the future using the bi-amp channels as well?

Here in South Africa we get screwed with import duties, the Denon 2310 is 1300 pounds here. Can get the Onkyo for 613 pounds.