I am looking at getting a new AV Receiver to drive my newly built speakers. I built a pair of tower speakers inspired by GR-Research OB-5 for a senior design project, and am building another pair of surrounds inspired by the AV-O. I currently use a Sony DHR-810, that I purchased before really understanding and doing research into high end audio.
The reason why I am wanting to upgrade is because I am setting up my old receiver for my parents in their bedroom and with the receiver, I sometimes get audio clips. An impedence sweep on the speakers showed a nominal 6ohm load, but dips down to 4ohms. The spec sheet for the current receiver lists it as only operating with 8ohm speakers. This receiver is really low end, but worked well for what I was doing, but it's time to step it up.
I will be using this receiver to organize my HDMI sources from PS3, Xbox, and PC. At this time I can't afford separates, but will potentially plan at some point use this receiver as a processor and get a seperate amp, utilizing the preouts on the receiver. For music I will keep it in 2 channel stereo with sub. For all other uses, it will probably be used in 5.1.
The newest Onkyo receiver looks pretty good and I have seen good reviews online. It has discrete circuits between processor and amplifier. I have also heard good reviews about the Pioneer Elite AV receiver series and a few people I have talked to advised me to look into them.
My room measures approximately 15'x15'x9.5' (l x w x h).
My question is what would be a comparable Pioneer AV Receiver to the latest Onkyo top of the line receiver, and from people's experience, what would you recommend to someone getting into Hi-Fi?
