Revel Performa Series Can be driven by a Receiver?

Celtic66, most who know would agree that the Pioneer VSX-49TX is a better receiver than just about any on the market these days. Just take a look at it's review in Stereophile's Guide to Home Theater for confirmation of this. Comparing it unfavorably to any Yamaha, even the RX-Z1 is ludacrous. That aside, the Pioneer is capable of using it's rear surround channels to bi-amp speakers. You wouldn't get the 7.1 channel surround with this setup, but I believe it would be sufficient to power the Revel F30's, even with their 89 DB sens. I haven't confirmed this, but do bi-amp my Klipsch Legend KLF-30's with fantastic results (yes I know they have a much higher sensitivity).

Ceme, yes, of course a seperate amp will sound better, but I would imagine you'd get good results if your system allows you to bi-amp channels.

Your Pioneer will not do justice to your M20s. I own them. They blossom with a lot of high quality power/current. I don't know about receivers, but you can go with a quality integrated. There are oodles of high current/quality out there. You plan on putting them on killer stands, I hope? The ones that come with the M20s just don't cut it. Remember, even though they call them bookshelf speakers, they are not meant to be put on a bookshelf. That is of course, if you don't care about the sound.

Mostly agree with chilidog about separates. This Pioneer is NOT a high current piece. Throw the watts thing out the door. If you want to stay with a receiver you have few choices. Dynalab, Luxman R 1120A, Yamaha 2020 (I believe that's the designation), a real battleship. These are all high current and sound very good, even against many separates. Trick with the Luxman is to hardwire upgrade the PC and either patch with IC the pre-out/power-in OR internally solder the connections. Then this unit is quite impressive.

Theoretically, yes,it can be done. As long as it's a strong enough higher current (for a receiver) receiver, it would work. Will it sound really good? My experiences with things suggests that you would do much much better, in all aspects really, using separates to drive most ANY speaker! I've come to the conclussion that, from years of experiences of tinkering with 1000's of systems and gear, receivers just don't have what it takes for great sonics. Yes, there are some nicer, more refined and pretty sounding recievers out there, that have some really good higher end sonic attributes. However, There are cleaner preamp sections to be had with separates based systems, and it's usually always the amplifier sections, at the very least, that arn't so good in recievers I think. I think for not so much more money(or sometimes even less when you consider the mega buck receivers over $4k these days), you can get at least double the sound upgrade via the sparates rout!
if you don't think this is an accurate statement, just try some of the little $2k bookshelves Revel makes driven by a receiver. Then, take that receivers pre-out's and use an outboard amp to drive the same speakers, and see what you think! I garantee, you'll chose the separates as supperior immediately!