Onkyo 700-Watt 7.2 Channel Home Theater Receiver with 6 HDMI™ Inputs $417 shipped.

[Garet Jax]

http://www.hhgregg.com/ProductDetail...roductID=37438

 

[Jenova314]

The reseller ratings make me hesitate a lot:

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/HHGregg

 

[Garet Jax]

The reseller ratings make me hesitate a lot:

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/HHGregg

They are a new B&M store in my area that took over Circuit City's old location. Not sure what that means for their online store.

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's the Onkyo TX-SR608, currently $454 shipped from Amazon.

 

[MrMatt]

1.5/10 for seller rating!??!?!? WHOAH

 

[kalrith]

You can get it from ABT.com for $389 shipped if you open up a chat and say, "My friend got the Onkyo 608 for $389 shipped. Can I get it for the same price?"

Also, the HT-RC260 is almost identical for $349 shipped from Amazon. I think it's only missing the following features: THX certification, Sirius support, and VGA.

 

[funboy6942]

Thanks to this thread I actually bought a SR606 off ebay for $239 last night because that model has 5.1 DVD inputs so I can hook my PC up to it. This model and a lot of the others have taken that option off them for some reason. Sure its got 90 watts instead of 100, but it has a lot of the same features this one does.

Just something for others to consider if they have plans of hooking this receiver (or other ones) to their pc as well.

 

[kalrith]

Many people can pass audio through HDMI or a digital coax or digital optical from their PC, in which case they wouldn't need the 5.1 DVD inputs.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Many people can pass audio through HDMI or a digital coax or digital optical from their PC, in which case they wouldn't need the 5.1 DVD inputs.

If they use optical/coax will probably only be in stereo for most games though, since very few motherboards come with Dolby Digital Live real-time encoding for 5.1 game audio. That may be true for HDMI as well unless it sends the game audio as 5.1 PCM.

So: 5.1 analog is worthwhile for many PC-to-stereo connections, and it's too bad the 608 doesn't have it.

 

[kalrith]

Dolby Digital Live real-time encoding for 5.1 game audio.

Is that different than the Dolby Digital signal from OTA? It's my understanding that any onboard sound with a digital optical out can just use SPDIF passthrough for any non-HD signal (i.e. it would pass lossless audio from BD). I'm just curious if there's something different for PC games.

My HTPC did this just fine with my OTA signals with digital optical out from the onboard sound card, and now does it just fine with HDMI out from the 4550. Through HDMI it sends everything as PCM and can actually send lossless audio as LPCM.

 

[funboy6942]

Many people can pass audio through HDMI or a digital coax or digital optical from their PC, in which case they wouldn't need the 5.1 DVD inputs.

This is true, BUT without a dedicated 5.1 input when you go to play your games they will only be in stereo because the games dont output in 5.1 DD or DTS. Be great if youre only going to use it for listening to music or movies, but when you want to game youre going to be happy you got the dedicated 5.1 input. I plan on gaming and watching movies which is why I sprung for the older model that had the dedicated 5.1 that will output from my pc card. Why they removed this feature is kinda crazy to me because you need the 5.1 input so you can play your games in 5.1 glory, not 2ch stereo through the hdmi or toslink input only. So kinda a step backwards without having it. Removing that feature is kinda stupid because they lost sales for those like me that plan on making this work double duty instead of movies only, and games in 2.0.

 

[Anubis]

yea not sure why their RR is so low. a lot of people on AVS order TVs and AV stuff from them both B&M and online

 

[kalrith]

So, how do you do the analog connections? My sound card has one 3.5mm connector for the front speakers, one for the surrounds, and one for the center and sub. Do I just use three of these cables and connect the 3 jacks on my sound card to the 6 jacks on my receiver?

I recently connected my computer speakers to my old receiver and was planning to use the digital coax out of my sound card. However, if that's not going to get me surround sound in games, then I'll go the analog route.

 

[Compddd]

This is true, BUT without a dedicated 5.1 input when you go to play your games they will only be in stereo because the games dont output in 5.1 DD or DTS. Be great if youre only going to use it for listening to music or movies, but when you want to game youre going to be happy you got the dedicated 5.1 input. I plan on gaming and watching movies which is why I sprung for the older model that had the dedicated 5.1 that will output from my pc card. Why they removed this feature is kinda crazy to me because you need the 5.1 input so you can play your games in 5.1 glory, not 2ch stereo through the hdmi or toslink input only. So kinda a step backwards without having it. Removing that feature is kinda stupid because they lost sales for those like me that plan on making this work double duty instead of movies only, and games in 2.0.

I have my Onkyo receiver hooked up to my PC via HDMI to my Auzentech XTHD sound card and all my games play in 5.1?

Am I missing something here, should I switch from HDMI to analog cables on my sound card and receiver?

 

[funboy6942]

So, how do you do the analog connections? My sound card has one 3.5mm connector for the front speakers, one for the surrounds, and one for the center and sub. Do I just use three of these cables and connect the 3 jacks on my sound card to the 6 jacks on my receiver?

I recently connected my computer speakers to my old receiver and was planning to use the digital coax out of my sound card. However, if that's not going to get me surround sound in games, then I'll go the analog route.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=2

I bought these for 76 cents each and will run them in analog into the dvd input that has the dedicated 5.1 input.

And yes, I have almost the same sound card, without going analog all your games, a select few will output 5.1 dd, but for the most part you must use the dedicated 5.1, and 3 of those cables to get 5.1 out of your games.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I have my Onkyo receiver hooked up to my PC via HDMI to my Auzentech XTHD sound card and all my games play in 5.1?

Am I missing something here, should I switch from HDMI to analog cables on my sound card and receiver?

It sounds like the HDMI can do 5.1 PCM of game audio.

Optical / coax won't do that. They can pass pre-encoded Dolby 5.1 from a DVD but most motherboards and sound cards can't do real time compression (Dolby Digital Live) to make a compressed 5.1 signal out of game audio. Instead you get 2-channel PCM.

 

[kalrith]

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...d=10218&cs_id=1021804&p_id=665&seq=1&format=2

I bought these for 76 cents each and will run them in analog into the dvd input that has the dedicated 5.1 input.

And yes, I have almost the same sound card, without going analog all your games, a select few will output 5.1 dd, but for the most part you must use the dedicated 5.1, and 3 of those cables to get 5.1 out of your games.

Thanks! I was actually having problems with the digital out anyways, so going all analog should save me some headaches. I only have 2 speakers connected right now (I need to wall mount the surrounds and run some cables for them), but once I get all 5 speakers connected I'll do what you're doing.

 

[Compddd]

It sounds like the HDMI can do 5.1 PCM of game audio.

Optical / coax won't do that. They can pass pre-encoded Dolby 5.1 from a DVD but most motherboards and sound cards can't do real time compression (Dolby Digital Live) to make a compressed 5.1 signal out of game audio. Instead you get 2-channel PCM.

Is there any benefit to using HDMI over analog in my situation?

 

[DaveSimmons]

It's one cable instead of 6, and no chance of hiss or ground loop hum.

Otherwise they should sound the same.

 

[Basilisk]

Perhaps I'm missing something in the dialog over HDMI vs PC games.

I'm feeding a TX-SR606 with HDMI from my Radeon 5750, with output into a 7.1 speaker system. With those two parameters -- HDMI & 7.1 -- set in the Windows Audio configuration, the system happily drives all speakers. [Well, it did until I blew out the m/b or processor a few days ago!]

Using the audio test portion, all speakers are driven discretely as one would expect... from which I'm extrapolating from that a program will drive as many speakers via HDMI as it will via discrete outputs. I expect that any game driving only 2 speakers via HDMI is doing just that via analog cable.

This has worked without problems for 18 months, including with my R4850.

funboy got a good deal on his Onkyo. Perhaps I've miss-understood his reasoning, or perhaps he lacks HDMI output. Personally, I'd choose the newer model as they continue to add improvements and functioning, even if they removed those discrete analog inputs.