Old top-of-the-line A/V Receiver vs. new mid-level


Howdy all. First time posting here, thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Basically I have been looking at a lot of the older, top-rated Denon A/V receivers as a replacement for my current Rotel RSX-1065. Understand that it performs great, but I am stepping up from the 600 series B&Ws to the 800 series (804S to start in the front, will upgrade to one of the HTMs for center and probably 805S's in the rear). Since I do not have internal decoding on the Rotel for the newer HD audio codecs anyway, I am going from Blu-ray and HD-DVD into a Zektor switcher then into the sole set of analog inputs on the Rotel.

My question is, since I am going analog anyway right now, would getting into an older A/V receiver, like a Denon AVR-5xxx series be a step up for me to feed some better sound into the 800's? In particular, the Denon AVR-5800/5803s have not one but two sets of 7.1 external analog inputs, so I could immediately also get rid of my switcher, as well as what I would think would be a step up in my amplification.

Would love to get something like a Rotel RMB-1096 with RSP-1098/68/69, but I just can't afford that right now. Also, a great condition AVR-5800 can be had for as little as $500-600 on eBay.

Thanks for any opinions!
hasaanchop
I think the newer receivers offer more in the areas of HDMI switching and surround decoding support. If you're looking for straight analog performance, and either don't need or are satisfied with older decoding, then I'd go straight for the older A/V receiver. I recommend it that path to people all the time, though they often reject it because they want iPod docking or some other newer-generation feature.
I think a much bigger improvement to the sound will be to stop using the weak link in the AV receivers, that being the amplifier sections. You would be better off running the pre-outs (at least for the mains) into a decent 2-channel amplifier (for better stereo performance) or a good 3-channel amplifier for the 2 main speakers and the center channel speaker.

Outside of the digital processing (for the various surround modes), which you are not using if you are bringing in an analog signal; most of the AV Receivers have pretty week amplification performance. Since you already have the switchers, this would not only be the most cost effective solution to improving the sound, but may also be the easiest approach.

This being the case, I don't believe you will hear much of a difference between the Rotel and the Denon AVRs.
Start with a nice 5 channel power amp. Keep the Rotel for now as a pre only. This will save you from upgrading again when you decide the denon was a bad move.