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Best processor that is excellent for 2 Ch music

Or I should say, best surround preamp that has excellent 2 ch music capability. Basically I am 90% music / 10% HT, and I want to have a surround processor that is excellent for music listening (so as long as the processor has a 5.1 output I am fine, don't need too much features there).

What should I looked at if I want to spend <$1500? Would prefer a silver finish and gently used on A'gon is fine. What do you think? I heard about the Proceed AVP that should be great for 2 channel, another other recommendations?

Thanks.
kylechan
asahitoro
244 posts
 
Another vote for an Arcam AVR300. I'm loving mine. It sounds great for two channel listening and I'm actually becoming sort of a HT buff now as well because it sounds great for my 5.1 also. Here's a good review on it:
http://www.iar-80.com/page130.html

HTH.
sgower
27 posts
 
if your DVD player does 5.1 processing, which many do.
flrnlamb
508 posts
 
In regards to what Sgower mentioned, you can forget that!
Processing from the digital out into an outboard processor is always much better for dd/dts! It's never processing in the DVD player.
distortion
571 posts
 
Yeah but for 2 channel, Sgower's option has potential. IMO better potential than a lot of Pre/Pro's offer.

At the same time, I do agree with Flrnlamb that most decoding done inside the player will be compromised to some degree. Of course to what degree depends on the player.
flrnlamb
508 posts
 
Actually, I'm really refering MAINLY to DD/DTS decoded 5.1 material. As for pcm material output from the analog out's of a good dvd player, that's another story entirely!...to a point.
Yes, often using a good dvd player into a 2 channel preamp and such is going to yeild better results for that application. Infact, my old Panasonic DVDA310 has superb 2 channel pcm and 24/96 resolution output from it's analog out's! However, going from my 5.1 channel out's into just about any pre/pro or preamp setup I know of, for processing DVD movies (DD/DTS material), has NEVER YIELDED anything but flat dynamics and lackluster overall 2 dimmensional sound! I have found this to be the case with every dvd player setup! Probably has to do with a number of factors. Basically, my setup's are digital-in from the DVD player for DD/DTS and PCM some times, and analog in for 2 channel pcm, depending.
I say depending because many of my setup's require bass managment and or "EQ'ing" for best sound, which means running full range from analog inputs (without something like an Outlaw ICBM) often leaves me with compromises in bass management and/or (sometimes, depending) equalization!
There's always compromises one way or another.
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