School me on home audio

NYSpeed Automotive NYSpeed Off Topic
21

I’ll go ahead and chime in here. I suppose the budget is a HUGE point. Not sure if you’re looking to do $500, $2k, $20k?

I had a pretty tight budget when we redid our AV setup at home, and spent a lot of time researching.

Honestly, there is no better HTIB setup than the stuff that Onkyo offers right now. I bought the HT-S5100, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d step up a couple of hundred and get the 7100. The reason being: the 5100 does HDMI video pass-through only, so I’m still using optical and coax for audio from my DVR and DVD player. The 7100 supports full HDMI connectivity.

Here are all the specs: Onkyo HT-S7100

http://www.onkyousa.com/images/common/product_images/Systems/large/HT-S7100-B-F.jpg

One of the things I like most about this (both 5100, and 7100 have it) is the Audyssey 2EQ room correction. In a nutshell, you set up your system, place your speakers as best as you can, and plug in a microphone in the port in the front of the receiver. Place the mic at your best listening position in the room, and run the room correction routine. it will then send tones out of each speaker and set delay and other elements correctly. You then do this for the 2nd and 3rd best positions. Takes about 10-15 minutes.

Getting a little off-topic here: I also bought an Oppo DV981 upconverting DVD player at the same time. Outstanding unit, reads DIVX, and can play SACD’s and DVD-A’s. Take this, connect it to the unit above, get a well-produced SACD (Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, etc.), and prepare to be blown away.

http://www.oppodigital.com/dv981hd/dv981hd_collage.jpg

So, I’ve got less than a grand into everything above, including good cabling for all of it, and I’d put it up against stuff I’ve heard that costs 5x as much.

22

Personally I am a fan of b&K components for theater, i wish i had to cash to afford it myself.

www.bkcomp.com

Whole House is pretty good too, they are made in Buffalo, but unfortunatly no one in Buffalo carries them. They are in a few shops in Rochester though.

23

$300 for 2 Titans, 2Atoms and a cc-170. All V3 I think.
I’m not going to complain… It’s better than my KLH’s from the early 90’s :lol:

24

love my onkyo receiver

would not buy anything else

25

NICE PICK-UP!!

26

I am about to update my Onkyo, to something with HDMI capabilities.

My system has all Polk speakers. For the money they are solid, nothing near the quality discussed in this thread, but a solid setup.

I just picked up a psw 505 for Christmas. Is there a break in process for subwoofers?

27

x2 for B&K… just looking at / holding their $5000 receiver you can tell its a good unit

28

Holy shit, you do post here.
Sorce must be out.

29

I just bought a 600 series, HDMI and all the bells and whistles. Best one ive owned so far, and ive had 3 onkyos over the years.

30

just for you Joey -

lunch next week?

31

http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=TX-SR606&class=Receiver&p=i
Yeah I want the same one. Upgrade from the 500 series
I have seen it for like $250 - 300 ish referb or new
The new stuff come out in March and current stuff will drop in price or the new stuff will be worth waiting for.

32

yeah thats the one i have, only paid 350 for it from crutchfield, brand new.

33

Newegg had it new for $290 a bit ago.

Right now 6th ave has it new for $315.

When live cashback was in full swing I could get a referb for $200. I’m waiting for $250 for a new one.

34

id spend 1000 on it, for all it does, so worth the money.

35

high on features, not so great in terms of power / quality. I used to have an integra which is onkyo’s premium brand and my marantz is 1000x better.

36

I recently purchased:

Infinity TSS-500 5.1CH Charcoal Home Theater System

and

harman/kardon AVR 254 7 x 50W 7.1CH A/V Receiver with HDMI 1.3a Repeater

Both came to 750 shipped. Set them up last weekend… Wow… Fucking amazing

37

dunno man for the price it cant be beat, not too many ppl over at avs forums say bad things about onkyo, but ur right marantz is a great receiver, but for what i have its fine for me.

The quality on onkyos is alot better than 75% of the intermediate receivers out there.

38

they just don’t have balls (and I don’t care what the spec sheet says). I’m sure most people will just add a big sub and crank the gain on it and live in an ignorance is bliss world while their tweeters and mids crackle away… but I can’t deal with speakers that don’t get enough clean power.

I do envy the HDMI switching.

39

Any cheap receiver is going to sound like shit. Ive used several $500-700 receivers that all sucked. Onkyo smoked, Yamaha was alright, but sounded like shit and had no power, and the newer yamaha sounded like shit and has LESS power. Even though it said it had significantly more.

All they are is a lot of features in a box. If you spend under $1k on it, is nowhere near hi-fi. But most people wont notice the difference, so theyre great.

This all is on how much you have to spend. But whatever you do, dont get a Sony. Stick with Yamaha and Onko for the $500 and under units.

40

what type of setups work for a “receiver” with a separate “amplifier”

that sounds like a scalable solution that makes most sense.