You're most welcome!
I think you've got a pretty great entry-level speaker system there. And certainly can't be beat for the super low price you paid for it! I mean, a free subwoofer? How can you top that value? lol
But yeah, Yamaha actually makes very decent speakers in the low price ranges, and their high end, expensive speakers are very good as well. Paradigm's subs are good - not always the absolute highest value given what some of the internet direct subwoofer companies are offering at lower price points. But for free? Heck yeah! The Paradigm subwoofers themselves are good units.
Obviously, if you happen to have a bunch of cash at some point in the future, and you really want to upgrade your speakers and subwoofer, there ARE better speakers and subs to be had. But for now, I'd say you've done very well for yourself on that front
I'm certainly a big fan of Denon receivers. I favor Audyssey rather strongly when it comes to the various auto-setup/room EQ programs that are out there. So that tends to mean that I prefer Denon, Marantz and Onkyo/Integra as far as receiver brands go. In the lower price range, I'm just a huge, huge fan of getting a "refurbished"
Denon AVR-1712 from accessories4less.com . That is, hands down, just the best deal out there in terms of a lower cost receiver at the moment. It's going to be a real shame once that model is sold out!
The AVR-1712 was a bit strange, to be honest. It had Audyssey MultEQ XT, which is the 2nd highest "level" of Audyssey, and just unheard of at this $240 price point. In fact, the "step up" AVR-1912 model took a "step down" to Audyssey MultEQ - the 3rd highest "level" of Audyssey. So yeah, the 1712 was a bit of an odd duck
What the 1712 completely lacked were any network features or built-in iPod connection. But at such a low price point, I figure it's certainly easy enough to add an iPod dock, and Network/iPod dock or an AppleTV or other set top streaming box!
For a "step up" receiver model, I really like the
Onkyo TX-NR709 at $450 from accessories4less . The 709 also has Audyssey MultEQ XT. And in one of the strangest moves I've ever seen, the replacement 2012 model from Onkyo - the TX-NR717 - tumbled all the way down to Audyssey's 4th and lowest "level" of 2EQ. Just bizarre
What really makes the 709 a standout in my view though is that it is, by far, the least expensive receiver that offers full pre-outs for all 7 speakers plus the subwoofer. Having those 7 speaker pre-outs means that it is possible to add separate, more powerful amplification in the future. Without the pre-outs, you are limited to the internal amps that are built into the receiver.
By the time you're ready to upgrade from the AVR-1513 though, things will have changed and there will be new models of AV Receivers to consider
Right now though, it's a bit funny that these "refurbished"/clearance 2011 models are not only less expensive, but also more feature rich than their 2012 replacements! That makes them stand out deals in my view. It'll be interesting to see how long they remain available.
As for the network setup, back when I was putting my system together, the Boxee Box wasn't even available, and neither was the Dune HD player. The Popcorn Hour was available to order, but there were long wait times, and its price was just as high as building HTPCs! So that had a lot to do with why I went the HTPC and WMC route.
The other thing though is that I wanted 3D playback, I wanted HD Audio playback, I still wanted to be able to access BD-Live if I wanted to, and for all those reasons, an HTPC just made the most sense! Backing up full 1:1 ISO files, using Virtual CloneDrive to mount them, and playing them inside WMC using ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre gives me an experience that is completely identical to just putting a physical disc in a Blu-ray player or Blu-ray drive in my PC, which is exactly what I want. But not everybody wants that. Some folks far prefer to have just the movie, with no extras, no BD-Live, no menus, etc. And for those folks, MKV backups make a lot more sense. And with MakeMKV now, it's possible to make those MKV versions with the HD Audio intact. So there are just a lot more options now.
HD Audio and 3D tend to be the trickiest bits though, as not all set top box solutions support those features. The other factor is the way HD Audio is handled.
The simplest way to understand it is that any TrueHD or DTS-HD soundtrack will eventually be decoded into multi-channel PCM at some point. But it's just a matter of
where that decoding takes place.
The biggest problem is that if the decoding takes place inside the Blu-ray player or the PC, it isn't always easy to tell if the player/PC is actually decoding the full, lossless TrueHD or DTS-HD track, or if it's defaulting to the "core", lossy Dolby Digital or DTS audio track! To me, that's the biggest reason I think most people prefer to send the bitstream to their AV Receiver, and have the receiver handle the decoding. When that Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio logo lights up on the front of the receiver, there's no questions or doubts as to which audio stream you're hearing! When you just get a multi-channel PCM signal from the Blu-ray player or PC, it's still possible to have doubt. So I get that concern
You seem to be well invested into an Apple ecosystem. Truth be told, I'm really not familiar with Blu-ray playback using Apple devices. Apple has never really supported Blu-ray, so it's all up to 3rd party software, and I'm just not educated on that front
It's pretty easy and cheap to build Windows 7 HTPCs though. Sandy Bridge Core i3 CPU, H61 chipset mobo, 2x2GB DDR3 1333 RAM, 60GB SSD to hold OS and software, Blu-ray drive if you want the option to still play physical discs, or for your ripping machine, mATX case with as little as 150Watt power supply, WiFi and/or Bluetooth USB dongles if you need/want them for wireless, keyboard + mouse for setup, WMC Remote with USB IR dongle for control, and
$20 for a Windows 7 Home Premium Genuine Product Key . The whole shebang can be had for under $400. You also have the option to add an Over-the-Air or CableCard TV tuner and make your HTPC into a DVR.
From there, it's just a matter of accessing your backup files. I'm not sure how that might work using your current OSX home server. You certainly always have the option to add some simple NAS servers though, which could be easily accessed by any computer on your network. I'm a big, big fan of Synology for NAS servers. The DS411j is a great, relatively inexpensive 4-bay NAS unit. Not the fastest by any means, but perfectly sufficient to serve up multiple HD streams at once
Throw four 3TB hard drives in there and you're off to the races!
Anywho, there might be an even better Apple solution, but I'm just not familiar with it. I like the HTPC setup for its simplicity in terms of the playback experience. With 1:1 ISO backups, the experience is
exactly the same as playing a physical disc, and I like that
No features missing, no worries about 3D or HD Audio compatibility. And it's a full PC, so you can always upgrade it, add new software, add new codecs, or just go to any website in the browser. It's not necessarily always the most elegant, but strictly for playing back discs, I think it's the most seamless experience
