Home Theater Audio Gurus what Receiver would you rather have?

[Goi]

Ameesh, on the contrary. Both the Outlaw 950 and the Rotel RSP-1066 are the latest budget prepros in the sub-$2K range. They offer all the latest features you could ever want, including the normal 5.1 formats such as DD and DTS, and 6.1/7.1 formats such as DTS-ES, DD-EX and DPL2. They also have 5 channel analog passthrough for SACD/DVD-A. What more could you ask for?
As for amplification, its true that 160W and 200W isn't a lot of difference, all other things being equal. However, separate power amps and receivers are rated differently, the Pioneer would be hard pressed to actually get 160Wpc...I'm not sure if there are any actual measurements taken, but normally power output of receivers are over-rated. The Rotel OTOH provides a generous 200Wpc. In fact, a review by Audio Magazine rated it at 285Wpc@8ohm at clipping, which means that the 200Wpc is actually quite a conservative rating.

Price wise, you could easily get the Rotel + Outlaw combo for less than $2500, maybe even the RSP-1066 if you have good connections. Otherwise, there are always other amps in the same or lower price range to consider that will fit the budget. The Sherbourn 5/1500A, Parasound HCA-1205A, Anthem MCA5/MCA50 and Outlaw's own 5-7 channel amp comes to mind.

 

[DuffmanOhYeah]

A Marantz no younger than 30 years old. I swear those things still put out the best sound I have ever heard

 

[Muadib]

I dont think youve made a good case for sepreate components, explain in more detail please why they would sound better, cause my understanding is that there will be signifigant audio signal degradation when the analog signal pass from one compnent to another. As for sounding better, thats a very subjective thing and most of it has to do with the quality of the speakers not of the decoder/amp, especially at the quality levels we are talking about.

Goi is correct. If you try hard enough, you could get the RSP-1066 and RMB-1095 combo for $2600, which would give you every feature your Pioneer does except there's no tuner, and you would have only have 5.1 sound. You would need the second amp for 7.1, but the 1066 does support it.

To answer your question on why separates would sound better, the simple answer is better electronic components. With receivers, something has to give in order to fit everything into one box. Just looking at power specs alone you could get the RMB-1075 which is rated at 5x120 watts /ch / 8 ohms @ .03% THD. You should have no problem finding it for $700-$800 and it will easily surpass the ratings of the pioneer. Match it with the RB-1070 which has a 2 x 130 watts rating, and you can have 7.1 for $2500. It's pretty much the same for most of the other electronics used by Rotel too. At worst, the electronics in the Rotel would be equal to whats used in the Pioneer, but overall they are better.

I would agree that speaker quality is most important, and that this is all subjective, but that's why you have to listen for yourself.