As I own the NAD T773 and not happy at all with this receiver performance - hiss noise, I am looking to buy new one. I audited the ARCAM AVR300 and was very impress with the receiver performance and sound quality - at list no hiss noise! I was thinking to wait and to buy the ARCAM preamp and amp, but it seems that the price will not drop down in the short term. So, my question is if someone know if new ARCAM receiver is due to come out?
The AVR300 isn't very old and the AVR250 is brand new so I very much doubt there will be a new Arcam receiver any time soom. The next step from AVR300 is the separates.
Of course it would be nice to see a better Arcam receiver with HDMI switching and everything.
I also had problem with my Nad t773 and I did exchange it for the avr 250 just over a week ago and I am truly pleased and now I can enjoy my movies/music hiss free. I feel so good....finaly piece of mind.
The 2004-2005 line up is the 300, 250 and still the 200
The 200 has ceased production. You'll find some in the shops at reduced prices, but they are end of line. The only Arcam receivers left are the 250 and 300.
What kind of prices are we looking at here? I am looking into the 250 myself as I have a T752 right now. I enjoy the NAD but am always looking to upgrade if and when a new product warrants it. Thanks for the help.
People I cannot understand how Arcam have opted to leave out the 7.1 pre-out on the AVR250. The price isn't that cheap and at that price ARcam should have given us the choice to use the Receiver as a processor! Other brands do offer this kind of flexibility at cheaper prices. Even Nads entry Level T743 is installed with a set of 5.1 pre out on its receiver
I think it's kinda ok to dump pre-out's instead of something more important. Most of the people dont use a separate amp with a receiver so the preouts are mostly useless. If you want them you can get the AVR300.
At that price they should have been included, we are speaking of a receiver at the price range of Denon 3805, NAD T773, Pioneer VSX-AX5Ai-S which are specked to the brim and all deliver quality sonics. Pr-outs are quite important as the receiver is rated at 75W per channel. Should the need to upgrade arise and want to beef up the fronts or rear, you will need to change the whole lot! while the 300 pounds extra on the AVR300 does not justify the price for extra preouts and a 25 Watt per channel extra!
You could look at it another way - that losing the pre-outs and just 25 watts/channel is very little to gain £300.
In fact, it's not as simple as either of these statements make out. The AVR250 does sound a bit different to the AVR300 which sounds cleaner and less stressed irrespective of volume setting. Apparently the output transistors are different, and this accounts for the change in sound.
Both the AVR250 and 300 knock the 3805 into a cocked hat.
Yes the Arcam will surely sound better for stereo reproduction, but for processing power, decoding of formats and flexibility, some future proofing etc. I would surely opt for the Denon 3805. If my priority was stereo then I would go for the Arcam. But generally people going for a multichannel receiver will give first preference to HT performance.
The surround performance of the Arcam AVR250 absolutely annihilates that of the 3805. We did this demo just two weeks ago and there simply was no comparison. The only place where the Denon wins is the future-proofing, and the rather nifty auto-setup procedure. But in terms of sheer performance, both musical and surround sound, the Arcam is in a different league to the Denon. In fact, we were quite surprised by this since the 3805 is so well reviewed that we were expecting it to be ahead in the game, at least in terms of surround sound.
What I have not tried yet is to compare the Rotel 1056 or the NAD T773 to the AVR250. Those comparisons would be more interesting. If I get a chance (unlikely, since this is the busy period) I'd love to put it up against one of those.
I changed my Nad t773 for the Arcam Avr 250, I'm now bi-amping my front speakers and have never been so happy, Arcam has a much fuller natural sound, Music is well centered and funny enough Movies have a much bigger presentation with detail never heard before. Not concerned at all with the lack of pre-amp outputs, 75W per channel is more than enough for this cat.