I love the old Yamaha’s. I love the look and they sound great. I especially love the variable loudness on the Yamaha’s. I wish every receiver had something similar. I have a CR-1020 right now but I’m about to give it back to my ex-girlfriend (long story). I’d like to have another one so I’m keeping my eye out for a 2020. I would see them pop up on Facebook Marketplace for a good price every now and then but of course now that I’m looking for one that’s not the case.

Dude. How high are you right now?

Think about what you like about the hobby. Do you like music or do you like researching/tinkering with the gear? Those are two different things.

I used to be really into car audio and I would obsess about every detail of sound quality. I would listen to artists I didn’t even like just because they had good recording quality. I would spend hours messing with EQ settings, chasing down rattles, and getting everything to sound absolutely perfect… for that album and that time. Put in a different CD, now there’s too much mid-bass. I had to make adjustments. Now the weather changed and it’s hot & humid so it sounds different. I had to make adjustments. I discovered one day I wasn’t really enjoying the music any more because I was so focused on being hyper-critical of every little nuance. I decided I would rather just enjoy the music and that the 90% solution was good enough for me. Now I still like my music to sound good but I don’t obsess over every detail. I just accept the imperfections and move on. Don’t get me wrong, I still tinker a little bit but the difference is I only play around with things if I think it’s fun. If it’s causing me any stress or feels like a chore, I don’t do it.

So my advice basically just boils down to “do whatever is more fun.”

I always try both and just go with whatever sounds better.

Most likely you’re fine but if you’re really worried about it you can do a dim bulb test.