Ascends to pair w/ Yamaha or Pioneer

[wineguy]

Which "house sound" is generally preferred by Ascend owners? These would not be the Pioneer Elites, just the standard models (1015) For the Yamaha probably the lower RX-V (657,757). They are close in price to each other and have similar features and such. How does the house sound of these recievers pair with Ascends? I know the best way is to get each in my place and listen, but in general does one brand offer more detail, bass, warmth, etc?Have you guys found the room correction better on either brand?

[Lou-the-dog]

Hello Wineguy! Welcome! I own Denon and am more than pleased with the sound. My observation from this site and others is that Yamaha (generally) would tend to be labeled toward the end of bright and Harmon Kardon on the warm-ish side. Denon would probably fall towards the neutral to warm-ish end. I have not heard any other recievers with the Ascends other than my Denon 3803 and my Melody integrated tube amp, so take my comment with a grain of salt. Since Ascend sells Harmon Kardon I would say that the H/K sound would accent the Ascends very nicely.

Randy

[wineguy]

I know that you have to take everything with a grain of salt that is said on these forums, but HK has an absolutely horrid record for reliability. People seem to talk s@#$ about them all over. I have heard them in stores before and they do sound great. But if they are problematic, who wants to deal with that?

[Lee Bailey]

Since I don't own any Yamaha or Pioneer equipment, I can't give you an honest answer. I do also own a Denon 3803, and I am more than pleased with its performance. It is very neutral, which goes well with the neutral sounding Ascends.

[Jonnyozero3]

I know that you have to take everything with a grain of salt that is said on these forums, but HK has an absolutely horrid record for reliability. People seem to talk s@#$ about them all over. I have heard them in stores before and they do sound great. But if they are problematic, who wants to deal with that?

Yes, but how many people often say they got rid of their HK because of a problem - AFAIK most keep them because they still like them. That said, I remember that many of the issues were from the AVR-630 and an early run of AVR-635s. The more recent 435 and 635s haven't caused much commontion on the forums that I've seen.

Note: I own a AVR-435 and do like it a lot (hence my defense I guess :)) - it sounds amazing with my CBM-170s. In ten months it's locked up 4 times and required a hard power off. Most of those were during a horridly hot month (not sure if it's related, but I just thought of it). I'd say my HK has been pretty reliable so far. I wouldn't write them off just yet.

I hear the Pioneers are supposed to be "neutral" by the way, whatever that is worth.

[wineguy]

Well, that's kinda what I'm talking about. Locking up 4 times in ten months? A lot of receivers out there won't lock up that many times in ten years. It is such a drag when you're watching a movie and something goes wrong (usually the DVD player or just a bad disc), but to have to also worry about the receiver losing the DD signal or lock up requiring a full power down? It just wrecks the flow. Again, I do like they way H/K's sound when they are working, but I would like to be the one who decides when it works, not the receiver. Are the new round of X40's reported to be any better? The 240 seems like a nice unit at a reasonable price. My gut tells Pioneer or Yamaha is still the way to go.

[MrTomasulo]

FWIW, I've tried both the HK 435 and the Yamaha HTR 5860 with my Ascends (340 l/r/c 170 surrounds), and, I know we have some 5860 owners (sorry), but I would have to say in terms of sound quality, the HK 435 was *far* superior to my ears. My Ascends sound amazing through the 435. Through the 5860 I was not as impressed. I thought it had an overly "dry" sound.

Through the HK they sounded much more "full" and "rich".

[Jonnyozero3]

Well, that's kinda what I'm talking about. Locking up 4 times in ten months? A lot of receivers out there won't lock up that many times in ten years. It is such a drag when you're watching a movie and something goes wrong (usually the DVD player or just a bad disc), but to have to also worry about the receiver losing the DD signal or lock up requiring a full power down? It just wrecks the flow. Again, I do like they way H/K's sound when they are working, but I would like to be the one who decides when it works, not the receiver. Are the new round of X40's reported to be any better? The 240 seems like a nice unit at a reasonable price. My gut tells Pioneer or Yamaha is still the way to go.

I know it's not a perfect track record, but it has only locked up while I was messing with settings and quickly changing from PLIIx to Logic7 or something like that - not ever while I was sitting down watching or listening. I either had the OSD up messing with the EQ or was doing something else. It has never interupted my enjoyment of any material. It has been an angel compared to the Denon DVD player I have (1920) :p

As far as losing the signal is concerned, it isn't that they "lose" the signal, it was that they dropped from PLIIx back to PL or from Logic 7 back to whatever if the source stopped the signal momentarily (like previews on DVDs). That has been changed (fixed) with the new firmware and the unit will now hold a post processing mode like PLIIx and L7 if selected, no matter what the source does.

That said, I've heard more good about Pioneer than Yamaha. And most of the good I've heard is about the Elite models (although the 1015 kinda qualifies). But, in this price range, I don't know if you can beat HK's features and sound. Just my $.02

[wineguy]

Is there much or any difference in the sound quality of these two Yamaha lines? I know the HTR line is what you see in Best Buy and other mass market stores. They seem cheaper and don't look as nice as the RX-V stuff, but are the "guts" the same? Will the 757 and the like sound similar to the HTR stuff? Does the RX-V offer better YPAO?

[BGHD]

Through the HK they sounded much more "full" and "rich".
"full" and "rich" is a good description of the HKs with the Ascends. Really hard to describe the SQ between the HKs I had and the Pio 74 I have now, except that they both sound great just a little "different." Overall though, I'd give the HK a very slight edge for music ("smoother" comes to mind) and Pio an edge on HT (just overall sound for movies). HK vs cheapie Pio (vsx-d912k I think), was no competition. HK was big step above. The Pio 1015 apparently has the innards of an Elite, so should be a much better non-Elite option.

There's plenty of happy Ascend owner w/ all the brands mentioned (Pio, HK, Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo), so really comes down to the features, inputs you need and your SQ preference.

[S_rangeBrew]

For some great reviews of gear, check out http://www.homecinemachoice.com/reviews/

It's european, I think, but they have a lot of the same models we do. The nice thing about these reviews is they test the ACTUAL power output of the amps.

For instance.
-The Pioneer 1015tx is rated for 7x120w. It puts out 130w into two channels, but drops down to 95w for 5 channel. Hard to beat for bang for the buck.
- The Pioneer vsx-d814. Rated for 100w per channel. Actually only puts out 60w. This is pretty common for most low-priced amps. Which is why the 1015tx is such a good deal.
-The HK 330 put out 5x50 and 2x115. Typical of low end stuff.
-The Yamaha 650 (basically the same as the 657) rated for 7x95w. Puts out 2x115w and 5x50w. Quite a step down in power when you go to multichannel.
- Let's throw the Denon 3803 in there even though it's a bit more pricey. It does 2x130w, which is very impressive, but only 5x50w in multichannel! Not what most want to see from an expensive unit like that!
-The Harmon Kardon AVR630 is rated at 7x75w. Another pricey one. It puts out 5x85w, which is better than it's rating.

As you can see, most amp sections put out plenty of power on 2 channels. However, when you get to multi-channel, many drop off a lot. This may not matter to some people, but I'm sure it's info many would like to know.

Have fun looking through the reviews on that site! :)