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5.1 audio receiver. AUUURRRGGGHHH!!!

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Sean Elifritz

Sean Elifritz

Administrator
Why is this crap so complicated? Why do all these companies want to sell me things I don't need? It seems like such a simple thing but after browsing a while it seems that my choices are a Mercedes with kzillions of extras that are pointless or nothing at all.

OK, take a breath (In...out...in)

It's like this: I've already got a Samsung 1080p LCD HDTV with 4 HDMI inputs (1 more than I'm using). I've got a Sony Blu-ray player. I also have an old Bose 5.1 surround sound system but the receiver has stopped working. So I figured I'd just buy a new 5.1 audio receiver and hook the Bose subwoofer and speakers I've already got to it. That can't be much, right? Should be simple. WRRROOONNNGG!!!

These companies seem bent on selling me a ton of worthless features OR NOTHING AT ALL. Exactly why do I need a bunch of HDMI inputs on a 5.1 audio receiver anyway? That doesn't even make sense to me. Why are so many of them trying to slip in a Blu-ray or DVD player into the mix whenever I've already got that? A 5.1 receiver that I can hook my satellite speakers and subwoofer to seems like such a simple thing to me...figured I'd be able to cover that with a decent replacement for $100 or less...no problem. After all, I got the Blu-ray player for $100. Surely that must require more processing power. But after about 30 minutes of browsing it seems that all that is for sale are ones with 311 HDMI inputs (Again, what's up with that? Why is such a thing needed when there are plenty of those inputs on the TV?), a bunch of other stuff that I can't even understand, and a promise that the unit might blow me on Mondays and Thursdays? Seriously, the majority of these things that I'm finding are HUGE: look like nuclear engines...they've got buttons and dials everywhere and I just don't get what the point is. Does anybody have any suggestions for what I need at a reasonable price?
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Bose uses proprietary electronics. Maybe you should have just replaced the broken part.
Click to expand...

Crap, that figures. :( That ain't an option. I don't have the money I did back when I got it (It's old...like 10 years). Bose products are dramatically overpriced. If I can't use its speakers and subwoofer it would be cheaper for me to buy an entirely new package.
 
It just blows my mind that you can buy something that can fit into the palm of your hand, like a smartphone or Kindle Fire or whatever, that has a powerful dual-core processor that can do all kinds of things, multitask, etc., for $100-$200 but for something as old-school as 5.1 audio these companies want $500 or so. It's so 80s and shouldn't be a big deal. I don't need 35 of that, 23 of this, and 45 of those other things over in the corner. Nor do I need it to have 300 buttons and half a dozen dials and for it to weigh 20 pounds and be a foot thick. Just let me run an audio cable from my HDTV into it and from there run the signal out to 5 speakers and a subwoofer. Simple. So why so damned much...and why try pouring countless meaningless features down peoples' throats?
 
Perspective. A Kindle Fire is a loss leader to sell you merchandise. A $199 iPhone sells for over $600 without the carrier subsidy.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Perspective. A Kindle Fire is a loss leader to sell you merchandise. A $199 iPhone sells for over $600 without the carrier subsidy.
Click to expand...

OK, that was probably a bad example. But there's no doubt in my mind that a lot more is going on under the hood of my Blu-ray player and that was only $100.
 
Good audio electronics and speakers cost. No way of getting around that. When I had money years ago, my two channel system was worth an upper four figures price.
 
Well, OK. I can accept that good speakers are expensive. But why are the receivers so high? Why do they try forcing all kinds of extras on you that only some kind of professional in audio editing would realistically need? What's up with trying to force me to buy another Blu-Ray player, etc.? At the end of the day the receiver is just what any other electronic device is, some circuits, chips, etc. For whatever reason they seem to be charging 3X-5X more to make those same chips process 5.1 audio than they are other things. Put the same processing in a computer, a cell phone, a DVD player, even a radio, and its reasonable. Put it in a 5.1 receiver and it appears to be ass-rape time. It simply makes no sense to me that based on my browsing so far something that processes video is less expensive than something that processes audio.
 
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