Own birth day present - Marantz SR-7005?

[rendu]

Hello, pretty soon I will become 40 and I was considering the possibility of giving myself a hi-fi present to celebrate. Everytime it is getting more difficult to convince the wife to spend on hi-fi so this my be my last chance for another decade and it is the perfect excuse.

Anyway, the budget is 800 pound and I am looking at the possibility of replacing the receiver but I have serious doubts that I can get anything that will make a real improvement in sound (not just features) over my current Arcam for this amount of money.

Rigth now I have an offer of a Marantz SR-7005 for this amount but reading the reviews and the comments from other posts I have serious doubts that this will be a good option.

Any thougths? Other alternatives to spend the money? I was also looking at the possibility of an 500 pound receiver + 300 pound stereo amp hook together but that idea itself just looks like "double trouble" in all respects.

Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.

 

[lesmallett]

Have you been looking for a while now?

Anyway I have the Marantz and it is fantastic, no complaints. Think you need to take the plunge otherwise you will be 50 and still deciding. I have never regretted taking the plunge.

 

[WishTree]

I think I was having an Arcam AVR 200 or some 2XX number which I do not remember. However I bought it after listening to AVR 600 from Arcam hoping that some magic of Arcam should be there.. But I was so disappointed and sold it again (bought used) with in 2 weeks.

The point is modern day receivers are so good that sometimes it makes me wonder the extra money that I am spending on the HiFi setup seems very.. diminished returns.

If I have to choose one piece of equipment only for electronics then it will be the Marantz SR6006. I was using Onkyo xx9 (almost all the models with preouts) as well as Yamaha Aventage 10xx series and none of them are as good as SR6006 as the filmtracks music is very engaging with SR6006. Also I love the AirPlay feature built-in as well as networking abilities. I guess the SR7005 is slightly more powerful and even better but for me SR6006 is very easy to live with at the current asking price!

Hope it helps