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Looking for budget reciever for second system.

Hello,

I am looking for a budget reciever for a second system. My maximum budget is US$300.

I have Monitor Audio B1s on the way which I plan to use as fronts, and Mission M30is fo use as rears. I will figure out a center channel later.

the system will be mainly used for music. I was wondering if you have any recommendations. I am not in a situation where I can audition to anything other than cheap recievers that are six years old because of my location, so that is out of the question for now.

I am looking at the Teac AG-L800, The Onkyo TX-SR503, and Pioneer VS-X515 recievers new and am looking at a a few things that I have seen here on Audiogon; Sony AVD-S50es, Harman kardon AVR-135, Yamaha RX-V496.

Any suggestions on any of these or other choices are appreciated.

I am leaning to the Teac because of its size and the remote looks great, but if it doesnt sound the part, then its not worth it. Also the Sony is a great option because it has the dvd player built in, but once again, the sound needs to be decent.
eccbo
somsel
14 posts
 
I picked up a Sony AVD-C700ES receiver recently for a bedroom system for $60! It's driving a pair of Sony SS-TL3 floorstanders.

It is indeed a very good receiver , nice styling, and the S-Master Pro DSD digital amps seem to work great. Supposedly SACDs remain in DSD until the power amp stage. The speaker's tweeters are the weak link here and will be upgrade. Nice to have a single box solution too - DVD, amp, CD/SACD, tuner.

I don't think much of the FM reception on the receiver though but I've yet to tweak it and the rabbit ears antenna. Also, it is pre-HDMI so the best video output is component but that can be progressive scan.

I had a Marantz 4300 for a few years. Lovely machine with a smooth sound quality. The FM tuner worked well although it had a bit more noise than an equivalent stand-alone tuner.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,205 posts
 
I'm using a 30 year old NAD 7020 receiver to good effect in my second system.

The nice thing about this receiver is it can be had for dirt cheap these days even in good working order because of the age. ALso, it has RCA pre-amp outputs and amp inputs so it can be used as a tuner/pre-amp with separate power amp to very good effect. That is how I am using it currently (with outboard TAD 150 Hibachi monoblocks). I have also used it as a reserve complete receiver when needed and it is quite gutsy and respectable even then with most speakers.

The sound overall is a touch towards the warm side compared to many receivers over the past 30-40 years or so.

The proven versatility and cost effectiveness of this particular vintage NAD unit is the main reason I have held onto it now and used it in various pinch roles for almost 30 years.
courant
119 posts
 
I found a Denon AVR 3310CI at the Goodwill for $100.00 and it's been great within its limitations.

Apparently the pricing on these can be soft because the networking features were not-ready-for-prime-time. The rep on the Denon 3310CI is The NIC cards tend to break, and the USB Input & Internet Radio features can be flakey. Sure enough, when I got my 3310CI home, the NIC was bad and I couldn't connect a flash drive. Everything else worked fine.

If you don't need the networking stuff, it's a very solid 7.1 AVR with HDMI_1.3.
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