The old is becoming new again!

[Deacon]

And what I mean by that is receivers and preamps are becoming 'nerd-gasmic' again. I used to love the old early HT receivers that had tons of inputs, triggers, jacks, and various other connection ports. Then HDMI came out and many of the legacy analog inputs vanished. The backs of AV receivers became neat and featureless.

This is the Denon flagship A1H and I can see with the advent of overhead channels etc. and HDMI being used for audio etc. the AV receiver is starting to look like organized chaos again!

I like it!

 

[Botch]

There's also a growing market for old 1970s receivers that you used to be able to pick up for $50.
(and Randy the CheapAudioGuy just did a video at the obscene prices ($1,400) that some prerecorded cassettes are getting)

 

[Haywood]

I'm moving away from AVRs for anything but my home theater in favor of some of the really nice two-channel gear from upstarts like Fosi Audio. I am actually a bit peeved with my AVR at the moment, because my pre-outs died off one at a time until I had to plug all my speakers directly into the receiver and could no longer use my amp. It is fine for now. I don't have the cash to drop on a new AVR and I probably won't unless something else breaks. I'm finding that even as a guy who owns a couple thousand movies, I'm spending way more time listening to two-channel audio or listening to books than I do watching movies.

 

[Bote]

I used to have a denon 5803. I can relate to Deacon about those inputs and outputs. Byt as he said became obsolete with hdmi.

 

[bmwuk]

I'm very close to pulling the trigger on a buckeye 8 channel amp

 

[Haywood]

It's funny. I spend way more time with the little 3.2 system in my family room than I do with my big system in the living room when it comes to just watching TV or casually listening to music and it has a really goofy setup.

The speakers and subs are WiSA, so they have to run off a WiSA transmitter. Until very recently, there was only one transmitter on the market. It is called the SoundSend and it only has 1 HDMI input. This creates some complications.

I connect my components to my TV via an HDMI switch because I don't have enough inputs on the TV and it is less of a PITA to swap components (the TV is on a lift). The switch connects to the TV and the eARC on the TV connects to the SoundSend. The only practical way to control volume is on the TV via CEC, as there is no way to control the SoundSend without using their phone app.

This setup works fine for the most part, but there are two things that annoy me. The first is laggy volume control and I am not sure which end is causing it, the TV or the SoundSend. Either way, it can be frustrating. The second is 100% the TV. If you walk away from the RokuTV for long enough that it goes into screen saver mode, it switches off the HDMI input and reverts to the home screen. That means I have to switch my remote to the RokuTV activity and then back to whatever device I was using. This only takes a few seconds, but it is still irritating.

I am using the flagship remote from Sofa Baton and really like it. It isn't quite as good as the top-end Harmony, but it is pretty close.

I guess my point is that it is shocking what you can do with a little ingenuity if a monster receiver is not an option. Granted, I would not have done this if there WAS another option...