Recommended receiver for HT

Tim,

In a pervious setup I was able to compare the sound from the Ayre DX-5 DSD to that from the Oppo 205; they both went balanced to a Parasound JC 2 BP/JC 1 monoblocks driving KEF Ref 107/2s.  I preferred the sound from the Ayre -- that Ayre magic of music just seeming to flow. I thought it was very similar to that from my beloved C-5xeMP, but Charles Hansen claimed the DX-5 DSD a bit superior to the C-5, a bit inferior to the QX-5 Twenty.  It was the C-5 that introduced me to the Ayre sound, and I was hooked.

I've decided to take the two HGS-15s and the HGS-10 to LA for repair.  In the meantime, I'm buying something called a Velodyne 12 Optima, the line just below the DD that also uses the high gain servo system.  It's only a couple hundred bucks and located in Santa Barbara.  I'll use that with the functional HGS-10 until the repaired units return -- I know I have another HGS-10 somewhere but I haven't located it.

db

Hello DB,

     Okay, so are you going to use a combined single system for music and HT or two separate systems?


Tm

I use a separate system for video - different amp hooked to an AV preamp (Marantz) and I just switch over the speaker cables from one power amp to the other when I want to switch from audio listening to video or vice versa - I suppose one might be able to find some sort of switch that would do it, but not sure that it would be sonically neutral.

I use a separate multichannel power amp for the surround channels.

Tim,

Essentially one system for both music and HT, except stereo doesn't go through the Oppo or Bryston; it's strait Ayre.  TV uses the Oppo and Bryston, but substitutes the NAD M22 for the Ayre gear, and NHT Zero+s for the KEF Ref 1s.  One could rightly argue the Bryston is superfluous until the Ayre DK-5 DSD replaces the Oppo 205.  

I mostly play stereo and TV, so little hardship to give up HT for simplification.  Then it would be two systems:  Ayre for stereo, Oppo and NAD for TV.

db 

wspohn, I suppose switching speaker cables is not too much of a PITA if you use banana cables, but it seems a bother if you switch often.

Tim, would using 3 subs instead of 4 violate a distribution principle?  A single SMS-1 supports 3 equalized outputs, but you need to daisy chain to another SMS-1 for additional outputs.  I have 2 SMS-1s, and they are thin enough to stack nicely if daisy-chaining is required.  In the past, I've used on SMS-1 for the pair of HGS-15s, the other for the HGS-10s, but the that been in separate rooms.  Since I have only two functioning subs right now daisy-chaining hasn't been an issue  -- the HGS-15 only functions when I switch it to on rather than its audio-detect mode.

db