My trusty Cambridge Audio Azur 540R has finally given up the ghost after 11 years of solid performance, so I’m in the market for something new.

Any recommendations?

Budget around £300, WiFi features would be a bonus. Connected to 120w 8ohms speakers, if that matters.

I recently bought a Yamaha RX-V679 to replace my very old unit. It’s a very nice system, great sound and plenty of features.
Easy to set up too 🙂
The new version looks good too (if you can up the budget a little): https://www.richersounds.com/product/av-receivers/yamaha/rxv681/yama-rxv681-blk

+1 Yamaha all the way. Get whichever is the cheapest that has all the features you want. Richer’s comparison tables are useful.

It’s all about features – I listened to a bunch of them at that price point a couple ornate years back and found them all to sound the same. I ended up with a Sony because it had 3 HDMI outputs which was useful to me.

Doing okay on an Onkyo at the moment. Been the best one I’ve had so far and nicest sounding. I forget the model.

Though I go through AV receivers a fair bit. Sony and Yamaha in particular have been frustrating. They’ve all failed in exactly the same way. Centre channel relay cut out due to dry joint or something. Always centre channel that has the issue, and the models I’ve had it’s apparently common.

Won’t go far wrong with a Yamaha.. Spent £800 on one 6 years ago and been very happy with it

Sony 1080 here, very happy with it so far, 5 HDMI inputs, pass through and upscaling to 4k. Sounds great, bluetooth,wifi inputs, pairs with my phone easy as, my son sometimes upsets me by sharing his spotify with me when he is in cardiff (I live in the midlands), quite funny when watching a film and the sound suddenly changes to Gay bar by Electric 6 lol

Marantz NR1506. Job done.

Just having a look at some of those suggestions. It seems that optical inputs are a thing of the past, so how does it all work now? Does audio go through the HDMI? The Azur only took picture through the HDMI and needed separate audio sources…

Does audio go through the HDMI?

Yes

Leads to problems of its own. HDMI handshake issues leading to occasional blank picture or no audio, having to reset the input to get it to work. Not often though. I do get an annoying one where on turning on the amp switches to the Sky input but then switches to the return audio feed from the TV. Might be the Samsung TV causing that though.

Major advantage with HDMI amps however in way less cables, and switching TV input via the amp.

Happy with my low-end Onkyo. It feeds some high-end Sonus Faber 5:1 speakers and a Rel subwoofer. I needed something small to fit in a cupboard. It also takes multiple video inputs and upscales them as needed to feed to a large TV or projector.

Source and speakers matter much more than amplifier.

There is a Denon that Richer Sounds are fuming out for 300 GBP or so that seems to score very highly ….

I’ve a Yamaha V367 (IIRC) I’m looking to move on if that’s of any use?

Yamaha here, must’ve had it for 6 years at least. Pretty good sound once its warmed up. Friend bought a mid range Onkyo at the same time, it lasted 2 years and broke, he is now on a Denon and that is going the same way. I have come to the conclusion his family don’t treat the amps with any respect.

HDMI / ARC was easy to setup and has never had any issues (Samsung/Yamaha). Well it did when it decided to play the sound through the TV & Amp once, but turned it off n on again and it was fixed.

It seems Yamaha are the STW favourite, so thanks to the inevitable budget-creep one of those RX-V681 things will be gracing my lugholes very soon.

Cheers.

Nice. That’s a hell of a lot of amp, looks like it’s last year’s colours so there’s some bargains to be had. The imminent 683 that replaces it is nearly twice the price.

I’ve got a Yamaha DSP-AX2, which I think is over twenty years old now, around 1992-97, according to Dolby info on the user manual, and still going strong, in fact it’s playing Talk Talk via my Cambridge DVD99 right now, through a Sony SA-VE815ED 5.1 speaker system, bought at the same time.
Only had to have the sub’s power-supply fixed, a year or so ago.
It was ex-demo kit in a shop I worked in on Saturdays, they were doing a total refurb and let me have the lot for half-price, £750.
Yamaha, Onkyo and Denon are constantly swapping places as the best AV amps/receivers in the magazine reviews, so it’s a question as to which has the right features for the right price around your budget, and the best value models are usually around £300 these days.

How funny, one of my Azurs died very recently. Cooked itself to death, caps blown.

Shame!

A re-capping shouldn’t be too difficult I’d have thought?

How did that manifest itself?
I’ve got loud static from all sources. It can *sometimes* be solved by cycling the power.

If it’s a cheap enough fix I could offset some of the cost of the new receiver.

Funnily enough I also have a 540R that I’m loking to move on from, tbh I was considering a second hand 551R as it does the switching which is my only real requirement but the prices have me wondering whether to just get something new.

I was getting some static, it took my tweeters out :/

Recapping isn’t too hard, however the rectifying caps are big and a bit expensive.

Also, just the one 6-channel amp should be enough in the future, I’m planning to make a tri-amp setup with the other 540, three-way speakers and a software x-over driver outputting via Optical.

Do any of these have good dynamic range control?

I have a Pioneer amp and even when DRC is set to max and midnight mode is on I still have to constantly ride the volume control.

An added complication is that some of my sources output PCM rather than bitstreaming which it appears the Pioneer amp does not process at all.