#276361 - 23/02/2006 13:51
New home stereo receiver recommendations
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old hand
Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
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I've been stubbornly avoiding replacing my 10 yr old Sony receiver but it looks like its time has come. I realize that I have very little idea what is important feature-wise these days. I'd like something that supports video and audio input/output, preferably digital, and allows me flexibility around the new alphabet soup of HD tv. Any recommendations or features that I should consider? Price range is $500-700 US. I'll consider anything except Sony.
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#276362 - 23/02/2006 14:16
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3584
Loc: Columbus, OH
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Check out the JVC RX-D702B. Offers video up-conversion to HDMI for all of your video sources, and is considerably cheaper than any other receiver that does so. That said, I've never used it, but if I had to buy one today, I'd probably get that one for that feature alone. Also includes wireless connection with your PC to play music, which sounds pretty interesting. I don't know if it would be as good as a squeezebox or something like that, but it'd be a fun feature to have. Don't pay attention to the list price on the site. Can be found within or near your price range.
On the downside, the remote looks like complete crap, but you could fix that with a Harmony or other aftermarket remote.
_________________________
~ John
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#276363 - 23/02/2006 14:20
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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My parents have this Denon and it's pretty nice. It will convert all video inputs to component so you can just leave your TVs input always on component. I was thinking about getting one to replace my aging Sony, but I don't think it has enough optical inputs. Otherwise, it would be my top choice.
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-Rob Riccardelli 80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#276364 - 23/02/2006 15:22
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote: Check out the JVC RX-D702B.
Wow! Hadn't seen that one! You're right about the up-conversion, that's pretty unbeatable in that price range. It's amazing, just a year ago I think there was only one receiver on Crutchfield with any HDMI ports at all, and that was about $5000.
Thanks for the link! I think I'll strongly consider that one when I do my next major home theater upgrade. My only worry is that it won't have enough inputs, and I'd need a phono amp, but I like the idea of being able to leave my TV on one input.
I searched for it on Pricegrabber, and it looks like you can either buy one from a reputable store for $800 to $860, or from a store I've never heard of for $560 to $600. Tough call.
*edit*
And that's not nearly the worst remote I've seen for a receiver. It's funny, I don't remember the last time I saw a good one.
Edited by Dignan (23/02/2006 15:24)
_________________________
Matt
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#276365 - 23/02/2006 17:06
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 19/01/2002
Posts: 3584
Loc: Columbus, OH
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Quote: My only worry is that it won't have enough inputs.
That was my thought as well, but after counting, it seems to have just enough for what I need (althought I'd have to use the front panel connector for my PS2). It is mildly disturbing that they would even consider having a single input for DVR or DVD, but I suppose I can put my TiVo on the DBS input since I don't have a catv or dbs box. If I end up getting it, I'll post a review on it. Either way, it'll be early summer til I'm in a position to consider it.
_________________________
~ John
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#276366 - 23/02/2006 17:34
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: JBjorgen]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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You didn't say much about your home theater needs. Do you have HDMI devices? Do you have front speakers that can support bi-amping? Do you want automatic room "correction" (i.e., equalization, delay settings, etc.)? Do you want iPod integration? Do you want digital transport of SACD or DVD-Audio? Do you want HD (terrestrial digital) radio? XM radio?
The sheer diversity of features available is staggering, particularly as you look at more expensive gear. It all boils down to your priorities. Even for digital input of computer-sourced audio, I've seen receivers that pretend to be USB audio devices, receivers with Ethernet jacks, and receivers that specifically speak to iPods. Which you might want depends in large part on the larger context of what you're doing. The USB audio device, for example, would be fantastically valuable if you were trying to do a home theater PC.
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#276367 - 23/02/2006 18:39
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: JBjorgen]
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old hand
Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
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The JVC RX-D702B looks good but some of the review on the CNET link suggest that its got some quality problems and JVC is having a tough time sorting them, especially with the HDMI. I like the feature set and low profile but it sounds like my Sony receiver's problems all over again.
The Denon looks good as a direct replacement for my Sony plus digital inputs. Perhaps a stupid question but why are receivers still the same size as 10 - 15 years ago? Has the technology not advanced any to allow a reduced size?
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#276368 - 23/02/2006 18:42
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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From my understanding, largely due to power supplies; it apparently takes large electronic doodads and heat sinks to make enough clean power.
On the other hand, they do have to have enough space on the back of the units to accomodate all of those input and output ports.
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Bitt Faulk
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#276369 - 23/02/2006 18:49
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Quote: Has the technology not advanced any to allow a reduced size?
I think anyone who drops $500 on a new receiver wants their back to hurt just a little bit when they pick it up. I bet they've done studies on how much people want their new receiver to weight.
Or, one could be less cynical and come to the conclusion that amplifiers have to use a lot of power, and they have to have big enough heat sinks to not require a fan.
On topic: My current reciver is an onkyo TS-SR503 and it's great. It's half your budget, but does everything I need, mainly component video switching. It's paired with the Dell 2407fpw in my bedroom and makes for a great bedroom system.
Matthew
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#276370 - 23/02/2006 18:50
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: DWallach]
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old hand
Registered: 15/07/2002
Posts: 828
Loc: Texas, USA
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My home theater is pretty basic at this point so I'd answer no to most of your questions. My system currently is a Hush Media Center hooked into my old receiver through a series of noisy connections and then into my TV. I'd like to upgrade the receiver and then the TV to a HD TV but don't want the receiver to be a bottleneck in a year or two. Room correction? yes, USB? probably...ipod? not necessary...XM radio? at some point...SACD/DVD not needed. My biggest concern is trying to buy something that isn't obsolete by the time it's delivered because I've picked the wrong standard. Thanks for the questions though. It's clear I need to do some more reading.
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#276371 - 23/02/2006 19:04
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Now is certainly the wrong time to buy then. HDCP copy protection is a lot firmer than it was a few years ago, but I wouldn't count on anything lasting. The HDCP really pisses me off, and is a great example of why DRM is a horrible thing that we should revolt against. I own a lovely LCD, which wasn't meant to be an HDTV, but has component inputs. If I want to buy an upconverting DVD player, it has to be hacked to even allow HD resolutions on the component outputs because they don't have DRM on them. This is from a non-HD source, upconverted and output over analog outputs. Samsung (a company I'm becoming more and more fond of by the day) is currently beind sued for making my DVD player. Thankfully, the old HDTVs don't have DRM on them, so I'm safe for a bit. Another example of why HDCP is so great. Matthew
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#276372 - 23/02/2006 19:10
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Actually, unencrypted component, which is an analog signal, is allowed, but unencrypted digital connections (DVI, basically) are not. I don't know why none of the upconvert DVD players have component output, and they may be wary of the encryption restriction, but I bet it has more to do with DACs being expensive. Another possibility is that the benefits of upconvert may be lost when the signal is travelling analogically instead of digitally.
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Bitt Faulk
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#276373 - 23/02/2006 19:13
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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You think that's bad? What about the thousands of TVs without HDCP that cost thousands of dollars that are not going to be able to play HD-DVD and BluRay at full resolution?
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#276374 - 23/02/2006 19:19
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I have a LiteOn LVD-2001 upconverting DVD player outputting to my 42" Panny CRT rear projection at 1080i and it looks really awesome. It only has component output.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli 80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#276375 - 23/02/2006 19:32
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Cool! Where did you get it and how much was it?
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Bitt Faulk
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#276376 - 23/02/2006 19:38
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Component out is allowed at 480p, nothing higher. A few of the early models got through before they realized that this was a "problem". A few current models allow non copy protected movies to be output at HD resolutions. The new HD standard is going to be really generous and output 960x540 over unencrypted (analog) connections. That'll be worth $50 a disc all right. Matthew
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#276377 - 23/02/2006 19:47
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Well, there are different restrictions with the HD DVDs, but when I researched it about six months ago, I understood that, for example, TV receivers could produce component output (which has no encryption capabilites) for channels that would require encryption for digital output. I suppose it's possible that I misunderstood and that it would only be at a lower resolution, but I'm pretty sure I read that full-res component was allowable.
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Bitt Faulk
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#276378 - 23/02/2006 19:51
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Of course, all of this is really stupid considering that HDCP was broken even before any devices that used it were released. All it's doing is restricting people who, at worst, wouldn't have a significant impact on their bottom dollar (at best, would have no impact on it at all and simply want to use their technically, if not politically, capable technology), while allowing organized criminals to copy those DVDs at their leisure. Kinda like the CD anti-rip schemes.
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Bitt Faulk
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#276379 - 23/02/2006 19:52
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I bought it from Buy.com as a Norcent DP-501M which is just a re-badge of the LiteOn model. I flashed it with LiteOn firmware since it's kept more up to date. At the time of purchase, the LiteOn branded one had already been discontinued. It seems that the Norcent version is also not made anymore. A quick look on ebay shows that neither are available at the moment, but one recently sold for only $46 + outrageous shipping. I'm pretty sure I paid somewhere around $170 for mine.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli 80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#276380 - 23/02/2006 20:05
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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TV is different, and I don't know of any devices that requires copy protection to watch. The upconverting DVD player restrictions are courtesy of whatever trade group manages the DVD standard.
Matthew
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#276381 - 23/02/2006 20:11
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Now that you say that, what I'm talking about may have been in reference to the shot-down "Broadcast Flag" thing.
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Bitt Faulk
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#276382 - 23/02/2006 22:16
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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addict
Registered: 23/01/2002
Posts: 506
Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest
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I'm suprised no one has mentioned Yamaha receivers in this thread. I purchased a RX-V2500 about six months ago and love it. While it does not support HDMI the latest model does. I'm not sure how important that is anyway as I expect that I will have only one source that requires it. When HD-DVD and BLURAY finally GTST I will purchase a projector that is HDCP compliant and use the HDMI input for DVD's.
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No matter where you might be, there you are.
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#276383 - 23/02/2006 23:43
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Mach]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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Quote: Has the technology not advanced any to allow a reduced size?
Actually, it has. Newer "class D" amplifiers (which are not "digital" per se but are closely related to the sort of switching power supply used in computers) have much lower heat output and thus can be significantly smaller and lighter than "equivalent" old school transitor amplifiers (much less tube amps). Sony has gone class-D on most of their receivers, and Harman-Kardon has as well. Many of the "home theater in a box" systems use class D amps as do many subwoofer internal amps and a number of car audio amps. The scuttlebutt, according to an audiophile friend of mine, is that class D doesn't sound quite as good as traditional amps until you start looking at more esoteric models. See, for example, some articles on the topic.
Suffice to say that, after a few years, you should expect class D amps to take over the world. Of course, that doesn't mean that they won't find some other way to make your amplifier weigh more than it needs to.
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#276384 - 24/02/2006 00:11
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: DWallach]
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addict
Registered: 13/06/2000
Posts: 429
Loc: Berlin, DE
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Yea, I've been watching Class-D amps for a couple years now.. TI's chips have come a long way. A friend of mine picked up one of the Panasonic Class-D based units recently, it sounds just fine, no problems that I could tell.
Those CiAudio units are neat, although still a bit spendy.
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80gig red mk2 -- 080000125 (No, I don't actually hate Alan Cox)
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#276385 - 24/02/2006 12:35
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Quote: I don't know why none of the upconvert DVD players have component output
I just bought this LG upconverting DVD player which has the full set of outputs. So far it's been great, and I love that I can play all my XviD files off of burned DVDs. I got it on the open box rack at Best Buy for $99.
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Matt
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#276386 - 24/02/2006 13:49
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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But it won't upconvert over component: Quote: A special video processing circuit upconverts all signals to high-definition 1080i (more than a thousand lines of horizontal resolution) via HDMI output for use with compatible televisions.
Matthew
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#276388 - 24/02/2006 15:03
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/04/2000
Posts: 3810
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While we're discussing upconverting DVD players and HDMI, allow me to briefly rant about the Toshiba SD-5980, which we recently got to go with my dad's new Sharp Aquos LCD panel.
Setup is painless. You run one cable and you're done. Use is painful. When you power the thing up, its HDMI output is 1080i. If you DVD happened to be 4:3, then it will be stretched out to 16:9. There's no "aspect" setting anywhere in the thing, but there is a button on the remote helpfully labelled "HDMI", which cycles between 1080i/720p/480p. The only way to watch a 4:3 aspsect video in 4:3 is to cycle to 480p and then the TV will let you adjust its own aspect settings. And, to make matters more annoying, there's no way for the DVD player to remember it's output settings. When it powers up, it goes back to 1080i. I don't know if it's at least smart enough to ask the TV for its preferences, or if it's just always 1080i no matter what.
My feeling, for what it's worth, is that it's better to have a DVD player that specializes in the deinterlacing part (480i -> 480p) and then let your TV do the rest of the work.
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#276389 - 24/02/2006 15:23
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: DWallach]
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enthusiast
Registered: 18/02/2002
Posts: 335
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I bought that player and returned it because I was not satisfied with picture quality over hdmi, general slowness of the player/interface, remote sucked, felt like it wasnt worth the money.
I bought a panasonic s77 over christmas and am really happy with it.
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#276390 - 24/02/2006 15:49
Re: New home stereo receiver recommendations
[Re: Dignan]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Quote: For 720p and 1080i resolution on the component video out, only non-copy protected discs can be played back. If the disc is copy protected, it will be displayed at the 480p resolution.
Exactly. There aren't a whole lot of non-copy protected disks around. Yes, you could DeCSS the disk and reburn it, but that's probably not worth it.
For an upconverting DVD player, I reccomend the Samsung HD-850. There's a key sequence which makes it output any resolution over component with any source material. The aspect controls all work perfectly. As far as I know it remembers the resolution, but I almost always leave it on 1080i with the orginal aspect ratio. I don't think I've ever unplugged mine, I assume it forgets everything in a power loss, but other than that it seems to do fine.
I need the upconverting because the Dell 24 inch monitor doesn't have a remote, so there's no way to adjust the aspect ratio without getting up off the couch. With the DVD player, it outputs a nice wide screen resolution with the aspect ratio preserved.
Matthew
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