Help with AV Receiver

[Titanf6]

I am thinking about upgrading my receiver. I currently have a Yamaha RX-N600. It doesn't have any HDMI ports. I have Athena WS-100 left and right speakers, Athena WS-60 for the center channel, and a MartinLogan Dynamo 300 8" sub. I also have a Panasonic TC-P50G20 plasma TV. I am having trouble running wires for my surround speakers and what the wife will allow so I don't have them. I have been looking at the Marantz SR5010 and want to know what your thoughts are. This is not a dedicated theater room. This is for our living room, but it is were we generally watch TV. I am wondering if I'm spending too much money on the receiver for what I will be using it for. This is our main watching room for TV, movies and music.

Thanks for any help and advise.

 

[little wing]

If your looking at receivers in the price range of the 5010. I would definitely give this one a look.

http://www.crutchfield.com/p_022RXA850/Yamaha-AVENTAGE-RX-A850.html?tp=179

It should have everything you need including the latest HDMI connections.

 

[Titanf6]

Thanks for your advise. I appreciate it.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I am thinking about upgrading my receiver. I currently have a Yamaha RX-N600. It doesn't have any HDMI ports. I have Athena WS-100 left and right speakers, Athena WS-60 for the center channel, and a MartinLogan Dynamo 300 8" sub. I also have a Panasonic TC-P50G20 plasma TV. I am having trouble running wires for my surround speakers and what the wife will allow so I don't have them. I have been looking at the Marantz SR5010 and want to know what your thoughts are. This is not a dedicated theater room. This is for our living room, but it is were we generally watch TV. I am wondering if I'm spending too much money on the receiver for what I will be using it for. This is our main watching room for TV, movies and music.

Thanks for any help and advise.

Welcome to AH.

Not really clear what you are trying to accomplish especially with a new receiver.
What is lacking?
Do I understand you don't have surround speakers and the way it looks will not have them in the future?
Can I assume you have a BluRay player and watch movies on that 50" TV with just the front 3 speakers and the 8" sub?

 

[Titanf6]

I do have a BluRay player and watch movies on this setup. I was thinking of getting a new receiver for all of the feature they come with now that mine doesn't have. I use a Roku that I plug into my TV, but I have to use my TV speaker with the Roku because the receiver doesn't have any HDMI inputs. I also watch a fair amount of music DVD's or play music through youtube and if I update my receiver I believe it will give me more options to play music through my speaker setup. I have surround speakers, but I don't have them setup yet because of the configuration of the room. I will probably set them up in the future.

 

[lovinthehd]

While its nice to have the hdmi and wifi and such in an avr, with an optical/digital connection you're going to get pretty much the same audio, lossy vs lossless isn't that different. Personally I'd think about better speakers and/or sub (if WAF would allow of course). Have you looked into "wireless" options for the surrounds? Something like the Chromecast Audio device for the current receiver?

 

[Latent]

with your old receiver you can connect the audio output (normally spdif opticial out) from the TV to an input on the Receiver. This allows you to listen to full speakers when external inputs (or internal TV tuner) is used on the TV. If you just want music streaming of some kind then there is also many options to get this without a new Receiver. For example a chromecast or chromecast audio will do the trick for very little $.

A new AVR will do higher resolution BluRay audio formats but to be honest it is very hard on most setups to hear the better quality. If you have Invested enough money into good quality speakers or have multiple HDMI source devices that need switching then investing in a new AVR makes more sense.

As to surround speakers the best solution is to wire them through the wall/floor/ceiling to hide the bulk of the cables. You can get solutions with wireless rear speaker options but these are often done on some lower quality home theater in a box solutions. I'm sure there are exceptions though.

One solution that many don't think about is the fact that if you have painted walls and you still have some of the paint or can match it then speaker wire can very easily be painted to make it almost invisible.

Another do it yourself wireless solution is to find a pair of powered speakers and you can get wireless stereo audio sender devices that you plug one end into power and AVR's surround pre out ports and the other end into power and audio input on the rear powered speakers. Your AVR does not have pre out ports so this would be another reason to consider an upgraded AVR. Also their is an audio delay in the wireless sender that means you have to set a higher speaker distance for these speakers in the AVR to correct for this.

 

[Titanf6]

Thanks for the information. I'm going to try to run the wires for surround speakers first before I do anything else.