In recent years, stereo amplifiers and CD players have disappeared from store shelves, and those that remain are by no means cheap. But how then to be an ordinary consumer, whose wallet does not allow something like that? The discussion of this problem was the reason for organizing today’s match. We decided to compare how the AV receiver and stereo amplifier work with sound.
Stereo or multichannel?
The main function of a stereo receiver is to listen to music and point. Occasionally we can use it for cinema, but it is not its reason for being. On the contrary, it happens with the AV receiver, whose objective is to be the center of the interconnection of the equipment of the lounge (console, media player, TV, Blu-ray, etc.) to improve its sound by offering multichannel decoding, advanced functions and of course also listen to music in stereo.
If we have good speakers that do not need support from an external subwoofer, stereo HiFi receivers are the best option to listen to music. For the same budget, we will generally have more real power, support for more complex speakers to amplify, better DAC with audiophile performance, better construction and in general greater stereo sound quality that is what you have been designed. But you have to look closely at the specifications and if you select devices then it is possible to compare Integrated amplifiers at Chooserator.com.
However, with a stereo receiver we will miss the multichannel audio and additional functions such as acoustic correction, possibility of connecting more channels and speakers, sometimes we cannot install a Subwoofer to improve the bass, we cannot decode the formats present in movies such as Dolby Digital, Atmos, DTS, DTS: X, etc.
So, which is better? Well, if we are going to listen only to music, the best choice is a stereo receiver, since it will give us more sound quality and as we have said before more power. The low-budget multichannel AV receivers (less than 500-600 dollars) have many features and will probably do a good job with the movies but will offer less performance when dealing with music alone.
This does not happen if we go to higher ranges (above 1,000-1,500 dollars), where multichannel receivers can compete without messing with HiFi stereo equipment by incorporating powerful amplification stages, quality DACs, and other audiophile performance. In these cases, it is worth taking an AV receiver instead of a stereo receiver, since in the future we can give it more uses than just listening to music.
