It is time for me to replace my TV room receiver, and I have no idea
how to decide.

Basically, I have a small budget for this: about $300. For that I want
good sound -- 6-channel, I suppose-- in a small living room, and
decent FM reception. I'll be replacing my speakers later.

When I was young, I read and compared reviews, but there were far
fewer products and reviewers (2 or 3 magazines). On the Web I recently
sought out reviews of an Onkyo receiver offered at a good price, and
read someone's assertion that the sound was rough or grainy compared
with some other receiver. Now, I had always understood that there
wasn't a whole lot of difference at moderate listening levels and
sufficient power availability.

Can anyone help me in a simple way? I know if someone asked me What's
the best camera? I would have about 10,000 ifs, ands, and buts. Yet
knowing what kind of pix would be taken, irritation level, aesthetic
sensibility and so forth, I could be helpful.

"CaptMarvel" wrote in message
m...
It is time for me to replace my TV room receiver, and I have no idea
how to decide.

Basically, I have a small budget for this: about $300. For that I
want
good sound -- 6-channel, I suppose-- in a small living room, and
decent FM reception. I'll be replacing my speakers later.

At $300, you can't do better than follow Consumer Reports. Get the
Panasonic HE100.

Norm Strong

One word of advise would be to never trust internet or even salesmen's
opinions. Rather trust your own ears. I would try to find a place
that you can buy the equipment from that will allow you to return it
within 30 days. Then listen in your space with your other equipment.
If it sounds good to you then it is good equpment. There are few
places evidence the "emperor's new clothes" effect than in high end
audio and video. There's alot of decent sounding equipment out there.
To get the "best" you can pay multi kilobucks, but the law of
diminishing returns holds true here.

If you can't find a local dealer that will allow you to
exchange/return your equipment, one possiblity for you would be to
take a look at Outlaw Audio 1050 receiver. It's in the general price
range you mention. From what I've heard, their equipment does very
well for the money and they have a no questions asked return policy.

But the bottom line is to trust your ears and have fun auditioning
equipment!




On 5 Nov 2004 11:45:59 -0800, (CaptMarvel) wrote:

It is time for me to replace my TV room receiver, and I have no idea
how to decide.

Basically, I have a small budget for this: about $300. For that I want
good sound -- 6-channel, I suppose-- in a small living room, and
decent FM reception. I'll be replacing my speakers later.

When I was young, I read and compared reviews, but there were far
fewer products and reviewers (2 or 3 magazines). On the Web I recently
sought out reviews of an Onkyo receiver offered at a good price, and
read someone's assertion that the sound was rough or grainy compared
with some other receiver. Now, I had always understood that there
wasn't a whole lot of difference at moderate listening levels and
sufficient power availability.

Can anyone help me in a simple way? I know if someone asked me What's
the best camera? I would have about 10,000 ifs, ands, and buts. Yet
knowing what kind of pix would be taken, irritation level, aesthetic
sensibility and so forth, I could be helpful.

In article ,
says...
It is time for me to replace my TV room receiver, and I have no idea
how to decide.
Basically, I have a small budget for this: about $300. For that I want
good sound -- 6-channel, I suppose-- in a small living room, and
decent FM reception. I'll be replacing my speakers later.
When I was young, I read and compared reviews, but there were far
fewer products and reviewers (2 or 3 magazines). On the Web I recently
sought out reviews of an Onkyo receiver offered at a good price, and
read someone's assertion that the sound was rough or grainy compared
with some other receiver. Now, I had always understood that there
wasn't a whole lot of difference at moderate listening levels and
sufficient power availability.
Can anyone help me in a simple way? I know if someone asked me What's
the best camera? I would have about 10,000 ifs, ands, and buts. Yet
knowing what kind of pix would be taken, irritation level, aesthetic
sensibility and so forth, I could be helpful.

Shop around and find a trusted brand name reciever that has all the features
you want. You may even want to try to save some money and put that into
your speakers.
-----------------
Alex