Okay, we are in the market to spend a few duckets on a nice reciever. It will be used to supplement my 50" HD Plasma as well as piping music throughout the house. I will be starting with mid/low end Fisher Speakers. These will be replaced with probably Klipsch or Cerwin Vega or something down the road. Also, I am currently useing an UP-convert HD DVD player, and of course GAMECUBE (Doesnt matter cause its old-fashioned red/white/yellow hookup ) This is the direction we are headed right now. Any insight would be greatly appreciated...thanks az Onkyo TX-SR605S 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Cust...rder/D/rpem/ccd/ExpandedModule.do#custRatings
I own that exact receiver in black and I love it, best receiver out there if you are looking to spend less then $400 and about the only one in that price range that I have been able to find that has HDMI while also being able to decode both Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio. Only downside is that it doesn't have speaker pre outs so you cant add an amp later if you wanted to really drive some speakers. You can grab is from Amazon for $332 at the moment. http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR60...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1210382267&sr=8-2
Alrighty then, Thnx to everybody. There is another one I am comparing hardkore to the Onkyo... The Denon 788 It will cost me an extra 30 (70 actually, much thanks to 117 on the amazon tip- I hate Amazon BTW, but for the extra couple of shamolieys, I can tempararily bury that hate) Ladies and Gentlemen, behold the Denon 788 http://usa.denon.com/ProductDetails/3641.asp Denon has it posted for 549, Circuit City has it on sale for 399
I would go with the Onkyo because of decoding ability. Since Blue Ray has won the next gen DVD war they are introducing Blue Ray 2.0 and as part of it all Blue Ray disks are going to have Dolby Digital HD audio tracks, and some will have DTS High Def Master Audio which is the source the studio's use when they record the movie. Right not those are the two most advanced Audio formats out there and in the next couple of years they are going to be pretty much standard. If you plan on buying a Blue Ray player in the next couple of years I would definitely make sure and buy a receiver that decodes both. Problem is that the only Blue Ray players that bitstream (pass the audio code from the player to the receiver without touching it, thus letting your receiver do all the audio work) Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA are $400 and $500, which for me is a little steep. Still prices will drop and by this time next year you should be able to get a player that bitstreams for under $200.... At least that's my hope, I would spring for one at that point. Why the dislike for Amazon? I have used them some as of late and had no problems whatsoever. I especially like that they have a price drop matching policy so that if they drop the price on an item within 30 (I think its 30) days of you buying from them you can give them a call and they will refund the difference. Just did it a little while ago on a hard drive enclosure. Also if you don't mind waiting a little while to get a receive you might want to check out slickdeals.net, its a forum where people post deals on stuff from all over the web and it has a cool feature called "deal alerts" You just go in and set up a keyword like "onkyo" or "denon" and any time someone post a link to a deal containing those keywords it will shoot you an e-mail to let you know. I just did a search and within the last month they have found the onkyo 605 new for $285 and again for $315.
Now that you've decided on a receiver, for the love of all that is fun and holy, get yourself a Wii and some component cables. It's backwards compatible.
I know, I just cant bring myself to recommend that someone buy a wii. The idea of a game system that doesn't let you sit comfortable in a chair and chill while you play just strikes me as wrong.
Considering I already have ohhhhhhh probably 30 or 40 games for the Gamecube, we will Definately go Wii if we upgrade at all As far as Blu-ray, also not going to invest for at least several years. I already have sooooo many DVD's, and an upconvert DVD player. I personally see zero value in spending the moolah. I have experienced HD tv, also not that convinced its worth the extra expense. Not at all ..Just me As for Amazon. I have on a couple of occasions, ordered something and waited and waited and then been told that the object I already ordered wasnt even available. Like I said, if I can find the smoking deal, I will use them again. I went to Circuit City and had an excellent sales rep. Looked at both models, very much the same Reciever actually. He said Denon was rated higher, but his personall opinion is that I should get which of the two I could find the cheapest. So surfing the net now..
