New to Home Theater (1 Viewer)

[Charles_R]

I am looking at Yamaha or Denon AV Receiver which will serve double duty as an AM/FM receiver and home theater receiver for movies. I would spend around $500 and would like to get DTS and perhaps more sophisticated decoding if I can get it at that price. I am currently running a pair of Polk Bookshelf speakers with my stereo system. I would connect a VTR, DVD player, CD player, cassette deck and turntable. The home theater would be a subwoofer and 2 satellites (my polks would serve as the front 2 speakers). Thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Welcome to the forum Charles.

Almost any bargain basement receiver these days will decode DTS. Since you mention that a plus would be the ability to decode more sophisticated audio formats, you might want to wait until some HD receivers that can decode all of the new HD audio formats hit the market (at a reasonable price).

That is unless you need a new receiver right now.

The newer audio formats are not on standard DVDs. And since they are not in the DVD specification they will never be on standard DVDs.

If you don’t plan to be upgrading to one or both of the new HD formats, there is really no reason to purchase a receiver that decodes the new audio formats.

Personally I’d wait, just for the flexibility, but if you want something now, go for it.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Since you’re specific about the price and brand, I imagine your best bet is to review Yamaha’s and Denon’s websites and compare their $500 receivers, to see which one comes closest to what you want. It’s not hard to find electronics discounted, so you can probably look at their offerings in the $575-650 range.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt