Well the receiver finally died..What to get now??

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So my old (bought in 2000) Denon receiver finally died on me last night. I haven't looked at receivers since 2000 guys so I haven't paid much attention to the latest ones on the market.

I see many here speak on the Onkyo's. The TX NR809 has caught my attention, I like the power rating and the feature set. I like that I can stream Pandora, and connect my iphone. I kinda wish it had airplay though because with the 809 you have to leave that huge door open when the ipod/iphone is connected (sadly the rear hub does not transmit i' signals). For this reason the Marantz Sr5007 caught my attention but I'm still not sure.

My delima, I would love to step into separates (for the first time) I like the Emotiva line, its quality at reasonable prices. I can get the UMC1 A/V pro for $499, and the UPA 500 5 chan amp for $399 however I would really like to know how bridge friendly this amp is because I'm running a 3.1 set up and would love the option of increasing my power with this unit. The only draw back to this set up is the lack of features i.e. network/ streaming abilities.

*sigh* this is no longer as easy as it use to be.

My rack:

50' Panny
PS3 slim
speakers NHT 2.3 L/R,
shielded superZero center,
Paradigm powered sub.

[Jesse]

What died? Receivers can generally be fixed. Might be something as small as a fuse or blown cap on the ps board.

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What died? Receivers can generally be fixed. Might be something as small as a fuse or blown cap on the ps board.

Thats a good question I honestly don't know, its always set on the same settings and never touched since its all controlled via harmony remote macro.

Last night I hit the macro and everything fires up as normal but no sound, I did everything manually as well nothing, toggled and switched on off features, nothing (no sound). I'm sure I could actually have it fixed if I took it in but to be honest man, this is my first real opportunity to finally upgrade, this thing is 12 years old (no HDMI ports) so I would finally like to take advantage of my BR disc sound as well as eliminate some wires.

[borapumpkin]

you're in the exact same boat as me. i have a yamaha from 2000 and i've honestly been wanting it to die so i have an excuse to upgrade. just bought a new high end tv, ps3 and i have my crappy old receiver still. it's not dead yet, but has some crackling issues and feedback. the sub output is having issues so i finally dropped the hammer on monday for a new one. i'd been shopping like crazy for them online because like you, i've been out of it for so long i don't even know what's out there. same with car audio. i had a $5k system and then i stopped looking at them for about 12 years so who knows what's out there. i bought the onkyo nr609 at accessories4less.com. they're a refurb place for onkyo, denon, and marantz. for months and months i shopped and kept getting cold feet. looked at the nr809 but the only thing is has on the 609 is a little more power per channel. the 609 just came down to $280 and i got it for $300 even with shipping, so sweet deal. i've always had good luck with refurbs so we'll see. get's here on tuesday. the denon avr1917 i think is another one, and there is a marantz as well but i read they are kind of finicky, not like the old ones. good luck!

[laychooba]

i just picked up an anthem MRX-500 to replace my old onkyo TX-SR805.
with the ARC system all dialed in, i found it sounds quite a bit better than
my onkyo and the room correction on the anthem is light years ahead of the
onks.

still haven't had much time to really play around with it, but so far
im liking it!

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Hmm Anthem, I'll have to check those out...

[sassbs]

receivers like anthem, arcam are on the next level of performance...would loveeee to get one but just out of my budget $$$

settled for NAD. love it. save some extra $$$ get one of these three mentioned above!

then again, there are receivers out there that i prob havent even heard of that will make NAD seem like a sony, so what do i know..

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Yup those guys (Arcam, Anthem etc) are out of my price range, gotta keep it under a grand otherwise I'd just rather do separates.

I think I'm settled on the Onkyo NR 709...

[overmonk]

I went from an NAD receiver to a Denon and I couldn't be more pleased.