One of the products of Saturday’s spending spree arrived last night: a midrange Denon 7.1 home theater receiver. I think the power supply in my old Aiwa is about to give up the ghost, as the display has dimmed significantly, and the system turned itself off on me once or twice. Also it never really delivered enough power to my speakers in the first place. The new one, though… it’s like I have a whole new HT setup. One really nice feature of this unit is that it comes with a microphone that you place at your listening location, and the amp automatically calibrates the speaker levels and delays. Much more accurate than my previous adjustments by ear, and much less work than the tripod and meter approach favored by Welsh. Unlike all of the other consumer electronics gear I’ve purchased in the past, this one will finally grant me happiness and personal fulfillment.
I’m going to try to freecycle the old amp (unless anyone else I know wants it). No sense in contaminating some third world water supply with electronic waste.