Mox Born Again

Need some assistance with upgrading

Ok Hey everyone I’m new to the site as you can tell from my post count. I currently have an out of the box Yamaha DVX-S60 home theater system (w/ receiver) and while this was a major improvement for me over my SD TV speakers, I’m stepping into the HD world and want more.

My wife and I bought a 40” Samsung LCD HDTV for the halo 3 launch and have been loving it ever since I have the Yamaha hooked up and running but I’m finding that the low quality of the receiver and the speakers is keeping me from fully enjoying the nice picture on screen.

So what I have in the works is to mount the HDTV on the wall and have all my cables go through the wall to my receiver. Well that got me thinking that if I’m going to do this I might want to update my receiver to a new HDMI receiver as my current one does not have it. I did some research and with the price my wife and I can agree on for the receiver alone is $350-$400 which I know isn’t a lot when you take in consideration what is out there.

Here are my current devices that will be connecting to the receiver, what type of connection & desired resolution.
Cable box….Component….720p
Xbox 360…..HDMI…………..1080p
PS3…………..HDMI………..…1080p
Wii…………....AV…………..….SD

So while looking online at forums and reviews I have come across the Onkyo TX-SR 605.

Here are a couple questions I have not found 100% crystal clear answers on.

1) I know that it has problems up converting to the HDMI but with is interfere with the devices that are going in as HDMI or Component? (ie Xbox 360, PS3 and Cable)

2) Is this the highest quality/reliability that I can get in my price range?

3) I plan on upgrading my speakers in the future as well, does matching brands matter? (I know that some of the specs have to be similar.)

4) Can you recommend a solid place to buy receivers online?

JohnRice

Re: Need some assistance with upgrading

The 605 doesn't exactly have "problems" with analog to hdmi, it just doesn't do a top notch job, but what do you expect for so little money?

It also has the ability to convert all analog video inputs to component, which is a much simpler process. What I would do is set it up for that and run both hdmi and component video cables from it to the TV. When you watch an hdmi source, select that input on the tv and when you want to watch an analog video source, choose the component input on the tv. hdmi sources are never degraded, regardless of how you configure it, so long as it stays hdmi thhe whole way.

Yes, this is probably the most bang you can get in your price range.

As far as speakers, don't worry too much about "matching". Very few speakers are going to actually be incompatible. Just make sure the impedance is 8 ohm, or at least no less than 6 ohm.

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Mox Born Again

Re: Need some assistance with upgrading

thanks for the response it helped out a lot!

cheers,
joe