Decent 5.1 AV Receiver For The Living Room

[Jay]

I have a blu-ray player (PS3) and Sky + HD and a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers what I now need is a half decent Receiver with more than 2 optical in and does the ususal DTS / DD etc. I was looking at the SONY STRDG820 or maybe the Sony STR-DH500 but I don't really know.

Any help would be appreciated

thanks

[GheeTsar]

I don't know much about the two Sonys you list, but I can give you some generic advice when shopping. Things to look out for are:

- 7.1 channel support - you might not need them all now, but it doesn't add much to the price and you might want them in the future

- HDMI ports with switching - it's easier to have all your AV inputs sent out over a single HDMI output to avoid having to change channels on your TV everytime you change the device you are using

- Lip sync adjustment - there can be a slight delay created by the time it takes your TV to decode the picture and the AV amp to decode the sound. Having this feature corrects it.

- If you can, get one with a mic to help set it up, then fine tune it with your ears.

I'm not sure what your budget is, but I can highly recommend Denon's line up. I personally own a Denon 2307: http://www.denon.co.uk/site/frames_m...detail&Pid=296

[menthel]

Do you have a maximum budget? There is a hell of a lot to choose from out there and most of them will do what you want! Denon is a personal fave of mine (I have a 1909 that I got for just shy of £300 about 3 months before they upgraded the models) and I have had Onkyo in the past- they tend to be real bruisers, ugly, brash and none too subtle on the sound!

[Jay]

I should be able to scrape together about £250 on the receiver

[Terbinator]

I too are interessted and theres seems to be good deals on Richer Sounds - my only worry though is that i dont want to get one which can only use proprietry(?) speakers.

[GheeTsar]

Yes - make sure you get one with proper binding posts and a non-amplified sub-woofer channel output.

[vicar]

SONY STRDG820 is a good choice.

[menthel]

Probably best to have look around at your local richer sounds as suggested as a first stop. Generally the staff are quite helpful and they often have some end of line bargains knocking around. Looks like the Sony ones are the best at around that price. Save up another £150 and some really nice recievers come into your price range!

One quick thing- did they fix the problem with sony recievers and sky hd?

[th0r0n]

I just bought a Denon 1909 on the AVForums Classifieds for £300...

[Jay]

I will be off to have a look at a few this wekend, that should be fun!

[GheeTsar]

Always a joyous occassion. Make sure you book a demonstration with your chosen hifi wallah to ensure they have it all set up for you when you get there.

Edit: and don't forget to bring a few DVDs of your own to test it. The hifi shop will have cherry picked the best bits of a good sounding film to sell you the product. Make sure you try a non-blockbuster too.

[menthel]

Mmm, AV equipment buying. Me and my brother spent over 3 hours listening to stereo equipment when I bought my Arcam hifi. Took a whole carrier bag of CDs with us!

Be careful though, as you may end up blowing your budget! I ended up coming in just under my max budget but went in to listen to stuff at half the price!

[GheeTsar]

Originally Posted by menthel

Me and my brother spent over 3 hours listening to stereo equipment when I bought my Arcam hifi.

I have fond memories of doing the same when I bought my CD73. I think the hifi store were starting to get fed up with me by the time I left!

[pop80_uk]

What about 2.1 rather than 5.1, some of the Bose 2.1 systems have really caught up with 5.1 and are less in your face

[just-me]

I've got a Yamaha system a few years old but great. You might like to check out their current models.

:¬}

[TLO]

Originally Posted by pop80_uk

What about 2.1 rather than 5.1, some of the Bose 2.1 systems have really caught up with 5.1 and are less in your face

Surround from two sources can work well from headphones, but attempts with two speakers are very poor in comparison to using multiple speakers. The many variables of speaker position, room interaction, reflections and listener position conspire to make it very complex to make work, and even then it won't sound good for anyone but the person sitting in the "sweet spot". A 5.1 system has a much larger sweet spot and is much easier to make work well.

One tip I would suggest for any AV system large or small is to make sure to calibrate the system properly, it can make a huge difference. On less expensive systems this means the speaker distances, for more expensive systems this will include speaker size or frequency handling capability or even room equalisation.