Please Help - A/V Receiver vs Hi-Fi Amp Confusion

[admin_exported]

Hi All. Hope someone can help me with my upgrade dilemna over my
speaker setup. At the moment, I have a PC, connected to a Videologic
Sirocco Speakers (9 years old, 2.1 set-up with its own amp. I know it's
not audiophile quality but this has served me well all through Uni and
more and was best I could get on a student budget at the time).

Now I have cash and want to upgrade my PC setup where I mostly listen
to music (nearly all of my CD's are ripped losslessly using EAC)

I'm thinking of getting:

- Cambridge Audio DAC Magic (budgeting £200 - £250)

- B&W 685's or 686's Bookshelf Speakers (budgeting £300 - £350)

- Possible Subwoofer (not too sure on model / price) (~£100 - 150 ?)

- Amp or A/V receiver (budget of anything £300 - £500)

My main question is whether it's best to get an actual Hi-Fi amp, or an
A/V receiver. Although it will be mainly used for audio, at some point
in a few months I might use all this kit as part of A/V set-up for the
TV.

If I get an actual A/V receiver, i'm thinking that it will be able to
do just a good a job as if I got an actual Hi-Fi amp, but it would be
more versatile in the fact that in the future, all I need to do is add
extra B&W speakers to the setup and I got a surround sound system.

Altogether I'm budgeting ~900 - 1200 including cables, and once I know
what kit I want - I may try to source the kit 2nd hand to cut some
costs.

Any ideas on the A/V vs Hi-Fi amp decisions? Many thanks!

 

[smuggs]

well im not the best to answer as i dont own both. But i am in the middle of getting a 5.1 set up and i love music so i was thinking the same thing. I went and listened to a lot of £400 av amps and they were not as good as a £300 stereo {c/audio 640}amp not sure why but with a cd on busy music like oasis it sounded almost like a song off an ipod. But when i jumped up to the 863 £600 yamaha av amp or the Denon 2309 it was pretty close so i would not buy both just buy a good av amp or for now just buy a £200-£300 stereo amp. The speakers i was testing them with was some m/audio Br5's which im ordering week friday. Good Luck

 

[Anonymous]

Hi Smuggs,

Thanks for the post and the advice. Will have to do a bit more looking around, but I'm thinking that even if it's a 3-400 quid A/V amp which might not sound better than a 300 quid HiFi amp, but with the DAC adn the speakers, at least

a) It should sound better than my current Videologic setup;

b) Still more versatile than a HiFi amp. I might at some point plug a TV in / CD player etc

Anyone got any other views on the HiFi vs A/V amp?

 

[Big Chris]

If music is your priority, you're better off with a 2 channel hi-fi amp.

Some higher end companies make 3 channel power amp add-ons with the processing to give you 5.1 sound without diluting your hi-fi capabilities, these may be out of your budget though.

Yamaha did a unit (I think it was called DSP-E800 or something similar), which had power and processing for 3 speakers to add to a hi-fi amp.

You could always take the path I took, in having 2 completely seperate and independant systems. 1 for hi-fi, 1 for A/V. There are disadvantages to this approach, speaker count and cost being the 2 main ones, but I know I have not made any compromises with either my Hi-fi or my A/V.