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I bought an Onkyo 5.1 receiver at a garage sale yesterday for $5. This house I moved into has prewired surround speakers and I felt like I should take advantag

I bought an Onkyo 5.1 receiver at a garage sale yesterday for $5. This house I moved into has prewired surround speakers and I felt like I should take advantage. What a hassle though, I can’t get audio flowing from the tv, can’t get it to drive all the speakers, it runs super hot. It really seems like a hardware hobby more than a way to enjoy movies so far.

christoph 4y ago
Honestly.. just drop 400 to 500 bucks on a recent Marantz or Denon amp, your experience will be infinitely better. Five bucks might have been extortion and/or theft. Also, a decent sub (or two ;)) and spending time tuning it to your room, makes maybe more difference than anything else.
- voltagex_ 4y ago
  Unless you then try to hook that Denon up via HDMI to an LG TV - eARC won't work.
  - Night_Thastus 4y ago
    Why not? Regular ARC works fine on my Denon/LG setup. Is eARC lacking support because of a driver issue they could fix, or some kind of licensing issue?
batiudrami 4y ago
Unfortunately a modern receiver is worth the money. A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room. On the TV side, a modern receiver probably has built in chromecast. It will support eArc so your TV can control the receiver directly - when watching TV you don't need to use the receiver remote at all, it will switch sources and be able to change volume with the TV. The good thing about this kind of setup, if you're interested in it, is that you can buy some speakers that you really like, and they will never be obsolete; but you will need to replace the receiver occasionally (maybe every 10 years). The UX on all AVRs is always the same and always dreadful though. People who buy them buy them for featureset not UX, which I guess is why it hasn't really improved.
- muro 4y ago
  This matches my experience, too. Setting up eARC and especially getting PS5 to use all speakers while being connected only to the TV took quite a bit of time, though.
  - thirdsun 4y ago
    Why wouldn't you connect the PS5 to the receiver?
    - muro 4y ago
      Because then I lose 120Hz, which my TV supports, but the receiver doesn't.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  > A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room. Watching any video or listening to hi-fi audio from another room is, to put it mildly, undesirably suboptimal: this is what I'd call an attack surface, not a feature.

christoph 4y ago

Honestly.. just drop 400 to 500 bucks on a recent Marantz or Denon amp, your experience will be infinitely better. Five bucks might have been extortion and/or theft. Also, a decent sub (or two ;)) and spending time tuning it to your room, makes maybe more difference than anything else.

voltagex_ 4y ago
Unless you then try to hook that Denon up via HDMI to an LG TV - eARC won't work.
- Night_Thastus 4y ago
  Why not? Regular ARC works fine on my Denon/LG setup. Is eARC lacking support because of a driver issue they could fix, or some kind of licensing issue?

batiudrami 4y ago

Unfortunately a modern receiver is worth the money. A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room. On the TV side, a modern receiver probably has built in chromecast. It will support eArc so your TV can control the receiver directly - when watching TV you don't need to use the receiver remote at all, it will switch sources and be able to change volume with the TV. The good thing about this kind of setup, if you're interested in it, is that you can buy some speakers that you really like, and they will never be obsolete; but you will need to replace the receiver occasionally (maybe every 10 years). The UX on all AVRs is always the same and always dreadful though. People who buy them buy them for featureset not UX, which I guess is why it hasn't really improved.

muro 4y ago
This matches my experience, too. Setting up eARC and especially getting PS5 to use all speakers while being connected only to the TV took quite a bit of time, though.
- thirdsun 4y ago
  Why wouldn't you connect the PS5 to the receiver?
  - muro 4y ago
    Because then I lose 120Hz, which my TV supports, but the receiver doesn't.
HelloNurse 4y ago
> A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room. Watching any video or listening to hi-fi audio from another room is, to put it mildly, undesirably suboptimal: this is what I'd call an attack surface, not a feature.