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Advice for audio upgrade.

I recently moved into a new house with a dedicated game room. The room is 20ft x 40ft with 8 foot ceilings. I set up my system, level matching everything, and it sounds good, but now I’m looking for that next level. 
 

My current setup is a 12 year old Denon AVR-x2000 running Kef IQ-90’s and two Emotiva 12s powered subwoofers. I use a Roku connected to a projector for occasional movie watching and a Nintendo switch. It’s mostly used for listening to music through Tidal and is where I’m looking to achieve better sound. I run it through a Wimm Amp Pro Plus. 
 

I don’t want to add any more speakers. The options I’m looking at are:

1. Keep the existing Denon AVR and add a separate amp such as the Marantz mm7025.

2. Swap my existing receiver for the Marantz stereo 70s.

My budget is around $1500, but may be willing go a little more. My receiver just seems like it lacks a bit of depth and what I would describe as in your face loud. I want to explore what people say when they describe warm and immersive. My music preference is along the lines of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Clapton, Toto, the rat pack. 

Are either of those options a worthwhile upgrade? Any other suggestions? 

rv1890
soix
11,250 posts
 

It’s starting to make sense the way parkergetdean put it. Nothing is going to beat separating the HT and 2-stereo.  Maybe I should rephrase the question. My co worker offered me a Parasound HCA-1000A for a great price. Obviously, a completely separate 2 channel setup would be best, but would adding it to my existing Denon using the preouts improve the sound quality at all? 

No, you do not need two separate systems, and just adding an amp only addresses half the problem because you’ll still have the AVR’s awful preamp in the signal path for 2 channel that will remain as a huge bottleneck to performance because preamps matter a lot and preamps in budget, mass market AVRs suck, period full stop.  Your best option is to add a good stereo integrated amp (preferably with a HT bypass although not absolutely necessary) using the AVR’s pre outs as then the Denon will be completely out of the signal path for critical 2-channel listening, which is definitely what you want.  Given the size of your room and quality of your speakers I’d shoot to more the $2500 range (used) because both quality and power go up significantly for the added $$$.  Here are a few good examples just as ideas and any of which would be a huge upgrade from your Denon…

https://www.ebay.com/itm/227103034626

https://www.ebay.com/itm/336323413500

https://www.ebay.com/itm/116732580914

Hope this helps, and best of luck. 

parkergetdean
1,098 posts
 

Musical Fidelity is a great option. Hegel H190 should be under 2K. There are more sellers than buyers. 

mark200mph
859 posts
 

The new dark side of the moon is in atmos and I like it. The newer avr are very good  as in the high end dennon ,marantz they have like 10 separate dac chips so as to reduce crosstalk. but they are 8k. I do have 2 separate systems. Enjoy the homework. 15 channels and 4 subs are better than the theater. The new dsp in these are like having a sound engineere.

rv1890 OP
5 posts
 

So as @soix  mentioned, let me see if I understand this correctly. I can use a stereo integrated amp and connect it to my AVR using the pre outs. So essentially my AVR will be doing the video for my projector/nintendo, and everything else will be done by the stereo integrated amp, thus the preamp on my AVR won’t be used. Which is were I’ll notice the sound quality upgrade 

soix
11,250 posts
 

Basically yes, but there are details like do you use the subs for 2 channel or just for HT?  There are also questions as to how you’d like to handle your streaming/DAC situation. 

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