Realremo is right. Why complicate things by buying a used receiver? Unlike Realremo, I've not spent thousands on used equipment. Instead, I'm an audio industry veteran who has repped for and consulted for dozens of manufacturers. From Kenwood to Sherwood, Denon to Yamaha, apogee to Bose, VPI to Counterpoint, Arcam to Totem and so on. While this is not about me, I wanted to establish some credibility to ease Brian's anxiety. Why are you guys harping about arcane digital technology like 44/192 when he's obviously a casual user on a tight budget who would value utility and reliability. While Realremo's system would work just fine, given the nature of the average Audiogon user, I think you'll appreciate some facts.
When I started Onkyo USA Corp in 1976, power supply was a big issue at Onkyo. We had our own transformer factory and spent plenty on design. The receivers would drive any load you'd be likely to run across in the real world, held up superbly and had a sweet detailed, robust sound. As the years went by, my colleagues damaged the company's image by selling giant discount chains. As sales dropped every time a chain failed, and they all did, Onkyo began building poorer product. It would become load-sensitive and we had a lot of shutting down (Brian, that means it would stop playing), hence the establishment of the Integra brand (Integra was part of the US line from 1978 on but now Onkyo redefined the main brand as a big-box item and it's heavily discounted while Integra is tageted towrd specialists. in any event, an Onkyo is feature rich and pretty reliable too. Still, it won't do well under 6 ohms and its sound is average. Burr Brown, Shmerr Brown: most of the Burr Brown chips we used varied sonically from sharp and detailed (and a bit fatiguing) to smooth with less intimacy). I assure you, the collateral circuitry and build budget precludes a sophisticated digital section. Now, onward:BUY NEW. Caps age (internal parts) especially on receivers, due to their price range and they slowly degrade the sound. You must have HDMI which many of us detest for reasons not germane, but if you want easy hook up of things you'll buy in the future, you'll need HDMI. With a Yamaha, you'll get HDMI pass through and even HDMI switching even when the unit is off! He might simply want to watch the news without the system being on. It will drive any load, has no HDMI handshake issues like the Onkyo, is more reliable than the Denon and all these are the same price. The Yamaha comes with four pre-programmed macros so you can, say, watch a movie with the press of a single button. NAD stands for "Not ALWAYS defective"...and they're not but they do have the poorest reliability of the group--sound good though but simply uncompetitive. Forget about preamp outputs. The preamp sections in these cheap receivers ain't that great. Later, buy an over-$1000 receiver and hear an immediate difference. All these brands make fine upper end units. Follow Realremo's sage advice and start enjoying your system--no convoluted configuration or sacrifice.
