Thread: Shopping for receiver

Hey all,
I'm beginning to shop for a receiver for my home entertainment system. I currently use a home theatre box from Sony. I have a 1080i CRT, a Dish Network 622, and sony upconvert dvd player. I will probably be upgrading to a PS3 or Blu-Ray soon. My room has speakers wired for surround sound. I will also probably upgrade my center channel speaker. What are some good receivers to look at. I'm looking to spend 300 - 400. Thanks for any help.

Originally Posted by GRExpert

Hey all,
I'm beginning to shop for a receiver for my home entertainment system. I currently use a home theatre box from Sony. I have a 1080i CRT, a Dish Network 622, and sony upconvert dvd player. I will probably be upgrading to a PS3 or Blu-Ray soon. My room has speakers wired for surround sound. I will also probably upgrade my center channel speaker. What are some good receivers to look at. I'm looking to spend 300 - 400. Thanks for any help.

Take a look at the Onkyo 606. It is in the price range, has 4 HDMI inputs, upconverts analog inputs to HDMI Out and has decent sound and build quality. I believe it is the current value leader, and a lot of board members agree.

Originally Posted by jayn_j

Take a look at the Onkyo 606. It is in the price range, has 4 HDMI inputs, upconverts analog inputs to HDMI Out and has decent sound and build quality. I believe it is the current value leader, and a lot of board members agree.

I just bought this receiver a few weeks ago. I moved up from an earlier Onkyo model and couldn't be happier. You will be very pleased with the auto setup by Audessy. Once you set the levels with the supplied mic, you can tweak things from there. Although I must say that it did a pretty good job all by itself. Mostly, I played with the subwoofer settings (By lowering the sub power just below 50% and then running the auto setup again). But different subs will behave uniquely. One note is that the receiver does get quite warm. Be sure you have good ventilation.

+3 on the Onkyo. Extremely happy with mine. (Onkyo 805) One of the better price/value pieces of audio equipment I have purchased in my life. Driving Maggies (4ohm load), to louder levels than one needs, with no problems.

I'll throw my hat in for the Yamaha 663. Yes it has fewer HDMI inputs, but the sound quality is amazing (Burr Brown DAC's for under $400!) and there's no heat issues. I feel like I'm listening to my entire CD collection for the first time again (and that's with entry level JBL speakers).

A recent post at AVS tells you how to get it for $349 with free shipping from 6th Ave.:

The Yamaha RX-V663 thread. HDMI 1.3 upconversion, TrueHD, DTS MA decoding. - Page 231 - AVS Forum

Go to the first post of that thread to get a good overview of its pros and cons to see if it's right for you. Some people have issues with its BTB/WTW clipping via HDMI, but most will never notice even if they had equipment and media that was capable of those levels. Not to mention, you can just run the video directly to the monitor.

At any rate, enjoy your new receiver, whichever one you decide on.

I'll chime in with the Onkyo group.. I have a 705 and LOVE it. I have only one complaint. I am on my second one. I have my Sat receiver connect to the Sat/Cab S-Video input. Well about 3 or 4 months after I had it, I turned everthing on to watch some TV and the picture looked like some one turned the brightness all the way up on the TV. Hooked the S cable directly to the TV and the picture was normal. Called Amazon, and they overnighted a new to me. Got up this morning, turned everything on, WTF, not again. Same problem. Again, about 3-5 months old. Not too concerned about it. Going to get a Dish HD soon, I'll use HDMI then, but just kind of strange this happened again. Other than that, it's a rock solid receiver. Good luck.

I'm happy with my Onkyo 805, and I know lot's of people happy with 605s. So the 606 should also be a winner.

You will get many different opinions here. You might want to increase your budget a tad to ensure you get the most and best quality for your money and something that will last for a while to meet your growing needs. Sound is something you want to be happy with. On a budget 606 is pretty good. You can get it for around 379 on Amazon or at CC. For $599 I would recommend the Denon 789 for the best quality. It has 3 HDMI inputs. Yamaha 663 was bitten by the DTSMaster bitstream bomb. They did release a patch for it though, if you don't mind doing the upgrade.

S~

Either the Onkyo 606 or Yamaha 663 are great options for your price range. Don't over-spend on a receiver, spend as much as you can on speakers.

As far as your center speaker goes, what do you currently have for front speakers? It can actually make a big difference if you don't match the center to the front speakers.