Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

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VLSmooth
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Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by VLSmooth »

Just in case anyone's in the market for an AV receiver, Amazon's selling the Onkyo TX-SR707 for $426.89 with free shipping.

where to buy:
http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR707-7- ... orums&ses=

deal thread:
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/36828/o ... 2#comments

reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR707-7- ... ewpoints=1

Camelizer price graph:
http://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B002DSMNPC

Too bad I probably shouldn't get it for various reasons, including the fact I lack "real" speakers yet.

Random: I've been reading about AV receivers on and off for a while now, just in case I pick up home theater as a more serious hobby. Also, it has a headphone jack! </inside_joke>

Jonathan
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by Jonathan »

The following post is a legitimate request for info and not a troll.

In an era of digital media & connections, what does as receiver do?

VLSmooth
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by VLSmooth »

Off the top of my head.
  • Power unpowered speakers (large variances in audio quality here)
  • As as a content switch hub (this one has 6 hdmi inputs)
  • Video upscaling
  • Some provide speaker calibration with test tones and a microphone
Incidentally, this is currently the bestselling AV receiver on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/el ... d_ts_e_nav

VLSmooth
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by VLSmooth »

Looks like I missed decoding various standards (Dolby Digital, DTS, etc).

More can be found at the AV receiver wiki entry.

VLSmooth
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by VLSmooth »

More info regarding calibration (which this receiver supports): Audyssey MultEQ
MultEQ highlights
  • Optimize your system. Every room has acoustical problems that affect the sound quality of your home theater system. MultEQ calibrates your speakers and equalizes your system to optimize the sound for your space.
  • Clear, accurate, natural sound. With MultEQ, voice and dialog become focused and intelligible, musical balance is restored, musical instruments and sound effects become precisely localized, and surround soundstage is made seamless and enveloping.
  • Equalize in minutes. An Audyssey MultEQ calibration is much easier, faster and more accurate than any manual equalization that simply sets speaker levels.
  • A key component in your AVR. MultEQ ships as a standard feature in products from many of today’s leading home-theater system manufacturers – be sure yours has it.
...

How does MultEQ work?

MultEQ calibrates your room in three easy steps:
  1. Hook up the microphone, place it in the middle of the listening area, push a button, wait quietly while MultEQ pings each speaker with a special signal.
  2. Move the microphone to up to 8 (32 in the Pro version) positions and wait for the speakers to be pinged again.
  3. MultEQ calculates a room correction solution for each channel.
Done. Total time elapsed about 8 minutes.

Then the fun starts. Turn it on and be amazed how your system sounds.

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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by VLSmooth »

For those that don't want to deal with the clutter of multiple speakers, sound bars have come a long way. They're still not as good as traditional setups, but they're MUCH more convenient.

The ones I've looked at include the Sony's HTCT100 (amazon | camelizer) and HTCT150 (amazon). Currently, the HTCT150 is a much better deal (until the HTCT100 goes on sale again at least).

I was seriously considering buying one of the above and figuring out how to mount it to my TV/TV swivel to handle multiple viewing configurations, which a stationary speaker setup would have problems with (a workaround: re-calibrate each time).

As a bonus, both sound bar systems do NOT require a receiver.

quantus
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by quantus »

HDMI Video Upscaling to 1080p with Faroudja DCDi Cinema
That likely means that it has a Marvell Qdeo chip in it. Everyone should buy one of these now! :P

Edit: Nope, nevermind, not in the list on our website. http://www.marvell.com/technologies/qdeo.html
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quantus
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Re: Deal: Pretty Awesome AV Receiver

Post by quantus »

One thing to note is that receiver uses HDMI 1.3 which doesn't support 3D standards and doesn't support HDMI Ethernet channel

Here's a list of additions to HDMI 1.4: http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/hdmi_1_4/
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