Home audio stuff (Does HDMI/3D surround matter?)

lazyweb high-def audio geeks,

I just sold my current YAMAHA receiver RX-V659BL from 2006 today, because its depth is way beyond the new TV rack's depth I bought at IKEA (how lame reason is that!), and am now thinking of buying a new receiver to replace that.

My only requirement for the receiver is that its depth should be less than 15 inches and should have more than 5.1 channels.

So far I've been looking at: Sony's STR-DN1010, Pioneer's VSX-1020-K and Onkyo's HT-RC260. They are mostly the same: priced around $300-400, 7.1 channel surround systems and have multiple HDMI inputs and supports HDMI 1.4 for 3D audio. Out of three, Sony looks the best to me since my new TV will also be Sony's.

However, my question is simple: Do I need these fancy HDMI/3D things in the new setup?

My TV display will be Sony's BRAVIA HX800 that is 3D ready apparently, and has multiple HDMI inputs and optical/toslink outputs. The devices I play on TV will be: Mac mini (2009, no HDMI out), Apple TV (HDMI) and Xbox 360 (HDMI). So far, no real plan for the 3D sources like PS3 or standalone BD players. And I have 5.1 Yamaha speakers set.

In this simple setup, I think I can just connect all devices to the TV with HDMI rather than to the receiver, and then connect TV's toslink output back to the receiver. My understanding is that the setup won't do high-end surround stuff like HDMI 1.4 3D or Dolby TrueHD, but so far as I don't have 3D sources nor 7 speakers yet it doesn't seem to matter.

Am I missing something?

Comments

[Martin Atkins]

Back when I had a PC hooked up to my TV (DVI to HDMI plus a separate audio connection) I had the setup you describe where the TV repeated the audio to the receiver.

This worked okay but had two drawbacks: the TV could only output stereo (your TV may vary, of course) and I had to have the TV on to listen to music on the main living room speakers. If you listen to music with any of your HDMI devices then you might reconsider.

Another detail to consider is that some (most?) receivers with HDMI just pass it through the video wire-for-wire, which means that they are "invisible" to the HDCP system but also means that they can't output video from HDMI sources to non-HDMI outputs and vice-versa, so if you have both component and HDMI devices connected you'll need to run separate component and HDMI cords from the receiver to the TV and switch sources on the TV as well as on the receiver.

My ultimate "solution" was to remove the only non-HDMI-able device from the mix -- my PC -- and just use HDMI for everything. This has some drawbacks of its own, such as the HDCP negotiation occasionally failing between my blu-ray player and my TV meaning I need to "reboot" the blu-ray player, but that's happened twice ever and it's much nicer to only have to worry about switching sources on the receiver and just leave the TV as is. (Especially since my universal remote struggles with the TV's menu system for selecting sources.)

That Onkyo one you linked to seems like a slightly newer model of the one I already own. What model of IKEA TV unit did you buy? I've been trying to find one that can fit that beast, since right now it just sits on the floor next to my TV unit because it's too wide to fit in the furniture.

[miyagawa]

Mart:

> This worked okay but had two drawbacks: the TV could only output stereo (your TV may vary, of course) and I had to have the TV on to listen to music on the main living room speakers. If you listen to music with any of your HDMI devices then you might reconsider.

Excellent point. I was believing that the TV could do surround output with toslink for any sources, but looking around some forums, it might only do Dolby surround from OTA TV source and only stereo for others. I need to recheck with the Sony manual.

re: music, I play music mostly on Mac mini using iPad remote app, or play on Airport Express from any Macbooks in my home, and that'll be upgraded to Apple TV soon. But I see your point: when I ever want to see cable TV with voice muted and play music, that TV-repeating-everything solution might not work.

> My ultimate "solution" was to remove the only non-HDMI-able device from the mix -- my PC -- and just use HDMI for everything.

My Mac mini is from 2009 and doesn't have HDMI out. I use mini-display-port to HTML converter but it only does video and not audio obviously. There's some third party cable that takes mini-display-port + toslink and output to HDMI A/V though. I wonder if that works with the HDMI pass-through setup.

> (Especially since my universal remote struggles with the TV's menu system for selecting sources.)

One reason that i might consider Sony is that thing. At least the Amazon's description says something about BRAVIA link, which I guess is to automatically synchronize the receiver and TV input with one remote click when I ever need to deal with non-HDMI sources. At least I can hope.

> That Onkyo one you linked to seems like a slightly newer model of the one I already own. What model of IKEA TV unit did you buy? I've been trying to find one that can fit that beast, since right now it just sits on the floor next to my TV unit because it's too wide to fit in the furniture.

Yeah that's exactly why I sold the current Yamaha on CL, otherwise I needed to put the receiver out of the unit.

I bought the modular unit BESTÅ which basically could have one open shelf with W23"xD15 3/4"xH10". (Kind of like http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S89866828 but without glass doors)

Of course I realized I picked a wrong color of doors and will go to IKEA tomorrow night to return and get the right one, which was out of stock the last weekend at Emeryville.

[miyagawa]

Ugh, I keep typing HTML when I want to say HDMI :)

[miyagawa]

Hm, looking at AVS forum http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=19303818 my HX800 TV should repeat DD5.1 surround at least over the toslink output. It probably won't do DTS nor HDMI 1.4 audio since toslink can't, but that might not be an issue at this moment.

I'm now looking at how cheap I get 5.1ch receiver (like $120), or buying these $300 class 7.1ch HDMI beasts for the future upgradability.

[Chip Salzenberg]

In a related matter, do HT receivers typically have any mixing ability? I'd like to e.g. play music from device A while also playing a game with game console B.

[Account Deleted]

The overall sound quality is very good from the Onkyo HT-RC260. Plus, it has a total of 6 HDMI inputs, so there are plenty and I don't know if you will ever be able to consume them all. It helps to have it when you need it though and all of them are assignable through an on screen interface (as are the other inputs).

The RC260 is essentially a slightly stripped down version of the SR608 offering from Onkyo. It lacks three items, the VGA 15-pin input, Sirius input and THX Select2 certification. For those that don't require those three features, you can save some money by opting for the RC260. The bonus features like an iPod port / HD Radio connector are really nice. This receiver gives you competitive 1000 dollar receiver quality for a fraction of the cost. http://avreceiverreviewsinfo.com/onkyo-ht-rc260/

However the with Pioneer's VSX-1020-K, Gizmodo already called it the best receiver $550 can buy, saying the 1020 "hit the sweet spot" that gave the most bang for buyer's buck. This thing switches inputs relatively quickly and can scroll through audio settings without long interruptions in sound. Pioneer does a great job at offering several different presets of how to listen to your content. There is a plethora of logical adjustments that are easy to understand and implement including display changes. Pioneer really did a great job with the software on this model,and for the price I highly recommend this AV Receiver for the money.