Hello guys!

I am asking for your help in finding a receiver for my home theater setup. It needs to meet the following criteria:

1. Be ok for a large room (the "home theater") is in a large room. This means it needs a lot of power, right? Like 100w per channel?

2. Be easy to manage with discrete codes (on/off,input1-x,optical1,2, etc).

3. Have the "silver" look on the front.

4. Be under or at around $1000

5. If it already had a faceplace cutout for it at RSH Custom Mounts (the Middle Atlantic thing), that would be great.

I looked at this model Yamaha, what do you think?

[Link: bestbuy.com]

Aychamo,

Yamaha receivers have an excellent reputation.

I think many people are touting the Denon AVR-3805 as the price / performance leader in this price range. According to the Denon website it is available in Silver.

[Link: usa.denon.com]

This receiver is fully supported by discrete codes, and even suports RS232 in case you want to go for such a control system in the future.

Check out the Integra DTR-6.5. I meets all of your requirements except the silver face. There is also a rack kit option for around $80 (much less expensive than a RSH). Also has A-Bus multi-zone interface, RS-232, THX certification, 7.1 power or 5.1 with powered zone 2, upconversion to Component Video, high quality DACs, etc...

dont be fooled by the power ratings - alot of its BS. Is the silver face a deal breaker? The RXV2500 or 1500 are great pieces - no silver though. The $1,000 price point from any decent manufacturer should get you done. RSH faces can be done on anything - it does help if its in their database though

Hey guys!

I really appreciate the input. I think that I really like that Denon AVR-3805 receiver. I read in an article that it can covert composite video to S-video, then if you want, have that S-video converted to component video?

I ask, because the application where we are going to use this, my dad wants to be able to have a tv-tuner. He had been using a VCR, but I was going to get one of those tuner-in-a-box things, the little thing that you just plug coax into and it outputs RCA audio and composite video (anyone reccomend one from experience?) I was hoping to be able to take that video's output and have it converted to component by the receiver and then run that into the 4x2 component video switcher. Does that sound like a problem at all?

Thank you all very kindly,
Aychamo

That should work but the $80 Sony VRC does exactly what you want, is available everywhere, is probably less expensive that a tuner and has all discrete codes.

Hey there;

Do you mean VCR? Or is it VRC? May I ask what product specificially of Sony's you are referring to?

Hey I just went to Sony's website. I saw a $80 VCR, it looked really nice. But I'd still have to do the same thing of running composite video->component conversion through the receiver. (if only there was a little cheap box to do that!) I guess the advantange of a standalone tuner is I could hide it out of the way.

I was looking at something like this for the tuner:

[Link: crutchfield.com]

I'm a little unsure if it will work with our house. The house doesn't have "cable" per say. I mean, all the rooms have coax, and there is some home video distribution system in the house that like sends out video on some channels, and it picks up some locals via antenna, but not "cable". I think this should work? I just need to solve the 12v electricity problem :)

aychamo - dont get confused and think that a reciever that converts composite to component is making the picture better. Its just a cheat/convenience of only running 1 set of cables to the tv. It typically degrades video quality.

Typically you're best to keep the signal as intact and unprocessed as possible until your final conversion - typically done at your display device (unless your display device doesn't have good upconversion, in which case you might get better results via the receiver).

Aye, that sounds good. The signal quality from the locals is so poor, I dont know if anyone will even be able to tell. I'm doing it more for convenience. The locals will probably *never* be watched, this is one of the things where my parents want it to be possible to do it, but probably will never use it.

I'm actually doing all this for my parents, because the people that did their home theater did such a poor job (even me not knowing much is infintely better, at least I'm researching the stuff). It's hard cause they live across town and I'm in college and trying to get my med school applications out of the way.

But the people that did the home theater, they were so terrible. They got some junky equipment, then get them a ProntoNG, and none of the equipment has discretes worth a damn, so the ProntoNG basically is just four separate controls with no automation. When they installed the projector, they spec'ed out a spot just larger enough for the projector, so it overheats after a few minutes, so they put some big computer fans on it to help cool it. The receiver they got them was too weak, and you have to have it on almost full volume to be able to hear it, then it overheats :-) It's a disaster. I'm trying to redo everything.

The important thing for the room is the VoomSTB and the DVD player to be on the projector and plasma.. Anyways. :)

I really appreciate the help everyone is giving, it is more than priceless.