[chris bruce]

I have been into home theater for quite some time. I am not too knowledgeable, but I really love this hobby. Anyway I am in the market for a new reciever but I don't know what I'm reading. I have now a 7-8 year old Onkyo reciever that I paid $2000 for. It is a 5.1. 120/channel. It does have dolby digital(tx-ds939). The size of my room is farely small so I won't need anything more then a 5.1 receiver but they are all 7.1 that they have out now. That's fine I just won't hook up the other 2 channels. But can somebody yell me what to look for they have dolby digital 1,2 dts and about a million other things on all these receivers. All I ever use the receiver for is to watch movies, no music. I would like to have at least 100w/channel. Mine is 120 and I would'nt like to downgrade. I have an sony lcd and a sony upgrade dvd player and was thinking sony receiver, but not many people like sony. I not sure what price I will be spending if some of you guys could tell me what I should make sure the reveiver should have I'll go from there. Thanks

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

What’s wrong with the Onkyo you’re using now?

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

[SherardP]

Sony 7100es or the new 5200 would do the job perfectly.

[Dave Moritz]

For movies all you need is Dolby Digital and DTS since you say you only watch movies.

I have a few questions:
What is your budget?
What speakers do you have?
Are you considering buying new speakers anytime soon?
What is the size of your room?
And do you plan to purchase ether HD-DVD or Bluray within the next two years?

Depending on what level of quality you are aming for and what speakers you have. The Sony ES may not be a good choice for you, I definantly do not recomend the standard Sony or Standard Pioneer. The Sony ES has all the surround features but IMHO lacks in how it sounds. The biggest weakness in Sony recievers IMHO is the weak power amplifiers and small power suplies which affects the performance of the amplifiers. I will try to give you some suggestions based on the info I recieve.

Almost forgot is your current reciever Dolby Digital only? Am wondering why you are looking for a new reciever?

[chris bruce]

Sorry I haven't been back for awhile. Been at work way to long. Anyway to answer your questions. First let me teel you I have bought Onkyo's txsr803. I think that was a great choice. And the speakers I have are polk tc65i for the front polk tc615 for the rear and polk csi5 for the center. And I have 3 12" velodyne subs in a 15foot by 10 foot room along with a 50" sony grand wega. And I have a sony upconvert dvd palyer. And yes I am planning on buying a hd player in the next 2 years. And yes my current receiver is dolby digital. It is about 8 years old. And in todays world that is way outdated. The proccesing in todays receivers will make a big difference in the sound quality. And I just wanted a new reciever. Thanks

[Dave Moritz]

Taking you speakers and room size into consideration and that you are interested in HD video. Here are my suggestions for a reciever.

Denon AVR-3806 7.1 CH Home Theater A/V Surround Receiver $1299.00
Denon AVR-4306 7.1 CH Home Theater A/V Surround Receiver $1999.00
Pioneer Elite VSX-84TXSi 7.1 A/V Surround Reciever $1500.00
Yamaha RX-V2700 7.1 Channel Network Surround Reciever $1700.00
Adcom GFR-700HD 5.1 Surround Reciever / 1080p HDMI $2,899.00

I would suggest the Sunfire reciever if it had 1080p upconverting and HDMI conections. And even though it has 100MHz component video I do not think it can handle 1080p via component.

I wouldn't normally list Sony ES recievers but even these two should be able to handle your speakers. If you had large speakers that needed a good amount of power to drive them then I wouldn't even suggest them. You may like how there surround modes sound?
Sony STR-DA5200ES 7.1 Surround Reciever $1500
Sony STR-DA7100ES/B 7.1 Surround Reciever $2000

The only way you can have Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD is for the HD player to internally decode them. Like the Toshiba HD-DVD player with 5.1 analog out or Panasonic DMP-BD10 Bluray player with 7.1 analog out.

I am guessing you might have the Sony KDF-E50A10 HDTV. I that is it I have the same TV and its a nice TV so it shouldn't be hard to find something that can feed HD via HDMI to it.

Hope this helps?