your thoughts about my next equipment purchases please (1 Viewer)

[soureel]

I have been using the same home theatre setup for over 10 years and I'm looking to upgrade some of my components. My front speakers are a pair of Infinity Beta 50s. I'm perfectly happy with these. My center and surround speakers are JBL mid-grade Nothridge series- nothing great but I suppose they'll do. I do not currently have a subwoofer. My home theatre receiver is a Yamaha HTR 6030, about the same age as the Infinity speakers. It has sufficient power to run my setup. One thing I do not like is the remote which is not very intuitive or user friendly. In terms of what I'm going to upgrade first, getting a subwoofer seems to be a no brainer. I also wonder about upgrading the receiver considering it's technology is almost 15 years old.

I use my system mainly for music listening (classic rock, jazz, classical), watching streaming TV and movies. I'm not a gamer.

So that's my profile. Am I going in the right direction with purchasing the subwoofer and replacing the receiver first? Regarding the receiver, I wonder if there's something released within the past 5 years I can pick up used or refurbished.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Lee

 

[JohnRice]

You'll get the most bang for the buck (pun intended) with a subwoofer. Budget is a big factor there. You can get a decent sub starting at around $200, or a pretty good one starting at around $500. So budget is a major factor.

The main thing you'll gain with a new receiver is hdmi switching and the ability to make it the control center of the system, as it's supposed to be. Also, newer receivers will be more user friendly, but also probably more complicated.

So, do you have a budget in mind?

 

[soureel]

Thanks for your response John. I'd like to keep it under $1000. A 10" subwoofer should suffice for my room. I read a Wirecutter article. One of the recommendations was a Sony STR-DH790. There are some used ones on Ebay which would fit my budget. I'm more hesitant to buy a pre-owned subwoofer but maybe I'm being overly cautious. I will probably stick with a 5.1 setup.

Other thoughts?

 

[kalm_traveler]

Thanks for your response John. I'd like to keep it under $1000. A 10" subwoofer should suffice for my room. I read a Wirecutter article. One of the recommendations was a Sony STR-DH790. There are some used ones on Ebay which would fit my budget. I'm more hesitant to buy a pre-owned subwoofer but maybe I'm being overly cautious. I will probably stick with a 5.1 setup.

Other thoughts?

Definitely need a subwoofer. On a ~ $1000 budget for just that I might see what you have locally used - my own experience with home theater stuff over the last 25ish years has been that magazine recommendations are not a good metric. They often mislead folks to think that a 'large' subwoofer is excessive which is almost never the case.

Instead, I recommend getting the largest/best subwoofer you can afford and can fit in your space. You can always turn the output of a large subwoofer down, but if you get a 'magazine-recommended adequate' 10" there is no way to make it put out lower frequencies than physics permits.

I started with a giant HSU VTF-15h Mk2 which was about $1000 shipped and for the money I don't know that there's anything qualifiably better but it is very large. I now have two of them and regret nothing aside from not picking up the second one back in 2014 when I bought the first one.

As for other thoughts - you definitely would do well with a modern receiver with at least HDMI and 5.1 speaker support as you said. I've not had good experiences with Sony receivers, and would instead direct you to a mid-range or higher Yamaha, Denon or Marantz. Personally I have had good results even with refurbished unites from Accessories4Less in that regard - my current main AVR is a refurb Yamaha RX-A3080 that does everything I want from an AVR for the time being.

The only other immediate suggestion I would have is to see if you can find a good condition but cheap used Infinity Beta C360 center channel to match your front L and R towers. As I grew in this hobby, I realized folks really are not joking when they say it's very strongly recommended to match the timbre of the front 3 speakers so that if sound pans across them the 'quality' doesn't change as happens when you have different brands / families / materials / etc.

Without seeing your space and how you have everything configured, I would probably want to make sure you have the speakers optimally placed and aimed as well. When you get the new AVR, at least use its auto-calibration to get the volumes and EQs somewhat balanced with each other. Yamaha calls theirs YPAO, Denon and Marantz use Audyssey I believe.

 

[soureel]

Thank you Kalm Traveler. I'm looking at a Denon AVR S650H which is on sale through Denon for $339 usd. I'm also considering the Monoprice Monolith 10" subwoofer. Good point about the center channel. I will look into that. A quick web search indicates several used C250's for sale but no C360.

 

[JohnRice]

I agree that I would stay away from Sony. Also agree Denon or Yamaha are probably your best bets. Marantz is great, but you will pay a premium for it.

I wouldn't shy away from a larger sub. You almost can't have too much subwoofer, so don't disregard a larger driver. Even up to 15". In addition to the Monolith, look at the ones from Dayton.

 

[soureel]

wow! Dayton is much cheaper than Monoprice. Going to go with the Dayton sub 1200

 

[JohnRice]

Well, the monolith is a better sub.

 

[soureel]

Ended up buying the Denon s650H, Dayton sub1200, and repositioning my rear speakers from wall mounted to stands which are better situated acoustically. Very pleased with the results.

 

[JohnRice]

I'm glad it worked out well and you're happy with your decisions.

 

[Jim517]

I also have the 12" Dayton sub. I really like it.

 

[JohnRice]

It’s a great value.