First a little background, then my question. I have enjoyed music and
movies for some time and in '92 bought the Yamaha A1000. There
flagship at the time. I have been pleased with the performance of
this unit but can't afford to buy the flagships now priced at 4500
etc. I have been looking on the internet and found that Pioneer Elite
VSX 54TX or VSX 56TXi are available in this range. Also found the
Yamaha RX V2400 and the Sony STR DA3000ES. I would like to have the
second zone option if possible, but the main thing is which is best
for the budget? I know this is borderline high end , but there is no
way I can consider seperates. Any advice would be very much
appreciated. I have not heard any of this and just read reviews online
and they don't help much. Thanks.

(MJRMD) wrote in message ...
First a little background, then my question. I have enjoyed music and
movies for some time and in '92 bought the Yamaha A1000. There
flagship at the time. I have been pleased with the performance of
this unit but can't afford to buy the flagships now priced at 4500
etc. I have been looking on the internet and found that Pioneer Elite
VSX 54TX or VSX 56TXi are available in this range. Also found the
Yamaha RX V2400 and the Sony STR DA3000ES.

What's available locally or at a dealer that you can visit in your
region? Start by looking at those models.

I would like to have the
second zone option if possible, but the main thing is which is best
for the budget? I know this is borderline high end , but there is no
way I can consider seperates. Any advice would be very much
appreciated. I have not heard any of this and just read reviews online
and they don't help much. Thanks.

Assuming you're in the US, I suggest you do the following:

* Start looking and listening at your local dealers
* Use Google.com to find home theater groups
* Use Google.com to search groups and web
* Look at Sound & Vision magazine + web site (soundandvisionmag.com)
* If local library has back issues of the above, skim through those
and look for reviews.

If you do these above, I think you should be able to narrow down some
good choices pretty quickly. I suggest you shop and buy only locally,
so you can try before you buy and work with a dealer. Modern HT
receivers are very complicated and you'll want to make sure you get
one that's easy and convenient for you to use, has a remote that's
intuitive for you to use, and other considerations like that that you
can't make when reading shopping via the web.