Old stereo amp or modern AV receiver....which sounds best?

[Pistol Pete1]

Been looking at ebay recently for bargain 2nd hand stereo amps from the late 1990's to try with my Denon AVR 2310 and KEF Q500's....

I'm just keen to see what difference there is between a good, but older (and hopefully cheaper!!) stereo amp over modern av receivers. After all stereo amps haven't changed in performance by a massive amount in the past decade, right?

Anyway, I completely forgot that my old Pioneer A-605R (5 star review...1998ish!!!) is sitting in my parent's lounge collecting dust.

I'm going to collect it off them over the weekend and power it up and give it time to settle, as it probably hasn't been used for 5 years.(Hopefully still works!!). I will post my findings on here.....

Anyway, my question (not seen manual yet) is this:

The Pioneer, from memory, can power two sets of speakers. Does this mean I can disconnect my Q500's, that are bi amped to the Denon, and use all 8 banana plugs to plug into the two sets of speaker terminals on the back of the Pioneer? In effect using the Pioneer's ability to drive four speakers, but in this case only two speakers being 'bi amped'???

The KEF Q500's are rated at 8 ohms.....

Anyone?

EDIT: Pioneer A-605R is more like a 1994 model, not 1998......time flies!!!

 

[Pistol Pete1]

It's ok....got the answer to my question.....

It wouldn't be bi amped, but bi wired using both sets of speaker terminals....and it can be done

(thanks scene, for your clarification)

 

[Timbot]

And, now that you've tried them both, the answer is...?

 

[Pistol Pete1]

For 2 channel stereo using the Marantz CD63 KI player.......

OMG........I'm

The Pioneer wins, hands down........no comparsion at all!!!!

I was expecting a difference, but nothing like this.....deeper, tight bass (now the Pioneer has been running for 3 hours!), better clarity, vocal presence...on the whole a more musical presentation!

Thinking about having two set ups now, and then change over the speaker cables, at the speaker end, when listening to music.......surely the wife will be able to work that one out???

If not, maybe a Beresford TC-7220 will help....

 

[ear]

Have yet to hear a pioneer stereo amp that I dislike..

 

[Pistol Pete1]

After the Onkyo 606, I thought the Denon sounded pretty good with 2 channel.....

I guess it shows that if you want the best of both world's, you can't compromise....

This is the only Pioneer I've ever owned, but a friend of mine from school days had the Pioneer A400, which I always thought sounded pretty good.....it probably influenced me to get the A-605R; that and wanting a remote control with an amp at the time....

 

[ear]

it comes cheaper to have 2 systems.not always cheap if you must have an AV amp with pre outs..

 

[Anonymous]

Hi not sure if this is helpful or not but i thought i'd share

I too have a denon 2310 and wondered if i could improve on the stereo sound. I borrowed a cyrus 8 power and had this running from the pre out's on the denon, and the sound was much improved. I felt i could do better still though and in the end bought a meridian G56 power amp, which apart from being a lovely thing, sounded far better than the cyrus. It seems all amps are not created equal. The system now sounds really sweet and iv'e promised myself (and the misses) that i wont buy anything else.

However Meridian G02 Pre amps crop up on certain auction sites now and again

and the audiolab 8200DQ sounds interesting

Oh well

 

[Pistol Pete1]

Ok........

Three other people have heard, at length, the Pioneer A-605R in action with a variety of music....

Then after 5 minutes (takes a while to change the cables over), I put the first tune on using the Denon 2310....

I took about 3-5 secs for all three to notice the difference.......the denon was described as 'dull' and 'lifeless' in comparison to the Pioneer.....

The Pioneer was described as a 'much fuller sound'......looks like I'll be keeping the Pioneer then.....

 

[ear]

the smoothness of the pioneer must work wonders with the kef's.only way a Av amp can compete with stereo amp is in 5.1 or 7.1 music mode

 

[Pistol Pete1]

Which I'm not keen to do, as cd's are 'designed' for 2 channel playback.......

One drawback of the Pioneer........it shows up bad recordings!!!!

 

[ABM78]

Trying to do the same thing myself, although I have a terrible mix of different speakers in my 6.1 set up, I still enjoy the whole home theatre sound I have/had. Using a Pioneer BD51-FD through analogue connections to a Sony 1200es connected to B&W 685's was just too bright and fatiguing for me (wharfedale 9.1's round out my 6). I changed bought a pair of Dynaudio excite X-12's and difference was made straight away, but still not happy added a NAD 545BEE again now starting to take shape, but still not totally happy, so looking for a second hand amp on a tight budget, been looking at some older NAD's as I enjoy the warmer sound that I have achieved so far but still at occasions still a bit bright so clearly must be the amp. The missus doesn't quite understand though! I think if I could do it again I could live with my movies in stereo as long as my music brought a smile to my face....then again the movie I watched last night did have some spooky surround effects...

 

[Pistol Pete1]

I've come to the conclusion that two separate systems is the only way, ABM78.......

Will be re-wiring everything today, and getting both set up so it's wife friendly!!!!!