What's a good basic home theater receiver? New and used?

Question

I'm a beginner building my own home theater set up. I want to connect my center channel, 2 sides, sub woofer, & add surrounds later, maybe. My room is fairly small, I have a Samsung HD flat screen TV on DirecTV satellite(I'll be upgrading to an HD receiver in the next year.) I'm thinking of getting a used home theater receiver on Ebay. What's your opinion?

Answer 1

Go to Wal-Mart they have a RCA home theater set 1000watt for 150 bucks and I bought one and love it. It is easy to set up and it has phenomenal sound. It will thunder through your whole house.

Answer 2

I'd go to your local CraigsList first so you can drive over and pick up the unit.  Receivers are HEAVY and shipping costs are high.

Well cared for receivers can last for years. Just make sure to stick to one of the following brands and models:

Yamaha - RX-V series

Dennon

Sony ES series (buy nothing but the ES series)

Pioneer Elite.

You wont get all the latest Internet hookup, Sat hookup, iPod hookups with an older receiver, but you will get solid electronics for a great price.

Answer 3

A/V receivers are arguably the least demanding component in a basic HT setup.

Almsot any name brand manufacturer makes basic 5.1 receivers you can buy for $150-$200.

A used 5.1 A/V receiver is a fairly good bet as long as it's a brand name. Pioneer, Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Harmon Kardon are all good brands.

It's easy to find inexpensive used non-HDMI receivers since many people are trading up to get HDMI connectivity. However, while nice HDMI is not essential. You will likely get a much better quality receiver used for the same price as a basic new one.

You can connect audio from the DirectTV receiver via optical/coax and and use component for SD video through the receiver. When you switch to HD -- if HDCP prevents component from passing the HD signal through the A/V receiver -- you may lose the video switching in the receiver without HDMI but can send the video direct via HDMI to the HDTV.

You can probably get by with less, but look for a 75-100 watt/channel rating. Make sure you have optical and/or digital coax audio and component video inputs. Also make sure there is dolby digital and DTS decoding.

In a couple of years you may wish to upgrade to an HDMI receiver since by then HDCP will probably make HD over component non functional, but for now you should be OK.