AV RECEIVER WITH ALL CHANNEL ANALOG INPUTS

[arunlouie]

I was looking for a multi channel amplifier for my home theatre setup as my primary driver is htpc with sound card and HDMI directly routed to projector. I see all multi channel amplifiers are way out of my budget. Then I was looking for AV receivers ( those less than 40k), but I don't see any entry level or infact a high price av receiver ( < 100k) doesn't have multi channel analog audio inputs. I see only Marantz SR series has those and few high range Yamaha aventage series. Is there any other cheaper AV receiver has Analog inputs.

Or is it better to go DIY route to make amp with suitable chip for each channel?

 

[spirovious]

Coonect HDMI out of pc to any budget avr (hdmi in)and avr video out to projector where avr will decode sound. lts easy way.lf you need soundcard audio out,then marantz is good option.

 

[elangoas]

I was looking for a multi channel amplifier for my home theatre setup as my primary driver is htpc with sound card and HDMI directly routed to projector.

As FM spirovious suggested, route the output from PC to AVR.. Am using it this way..

 

[saikatbiswas82]

I was looking for a multi channel amplifier for my home theatre setup as my primary driver is htpc with sound card and HDMI directly routed to projector. I see all multi channel amplifiers are way out of my budget. Then I was looking for AV receivers ( those less than 40k), but I don't see any entry level or infact a high price av receiver ( < 100k) doesn't have multi channel analog audio inputs. I see only Marantz SR series has those and few high range Yamaha aventage series. Is there any other cheaper AV receiver has Analog inputs.

Or is it better to go DIY route to make amp with suitable chip for each channel?

If you want to leverage the potential of the sound card, you may build 5 amps only. That will take care of the speakers. AVR will not be required.

 

[tuff]

What speakers do you intend to use? Building amps could be an easy task if speakers are decided first.

 

[arunkvivek]

I use analog outs from Oppo UDP into my AVR from 90s. How many channels are you looking at? If you look for topline AVRs of 2000s (Marantz SR9600 and likes) from OLX, you would hit a winner. The slam of topline AVRs are unbelievable.

 

[buxx]

Which soundcard is this that has all channel analog out? Does it decode HD Audio? (DTS HD_MA, TrueHD)

I had thought of exploring the HTPC route with a great Soundcard but did not find much experience about it.

Multi channel Power amps are a bit costly, the cheapest I know of is the Emotiva which costs about 50K odd..
However , what is cheaper is Integrated Stereo Amps.. you could buy a good one like CA AM10 or Marantz 5005 to power up the Fronts and a cheaper Norge or Taga to drive the rest.

what you need to ensure is that the speakers you get should be atleast >90dB sensitivity.

 

[spirovious]

I have compared 5.1 analog out of xonar d2x connected to avr 5.1 multichannel in to avr decoding via hdmi in same setup(htpc,speaker).I liked AVR decoded sound over souncard as soundstage was better and ease of use too.With soundcard out,we need to use good analog interconnects. Also 2 preamps come in the chain(soundcar and avr) and sound quality suffers.

 

[sandeepmohan]

The landed cost for an Emotiva A-500 5 channel power amplifier is just under Rs. 75,000. Shipping and customs included.

AV receivers with analog inputs are rather pointless in this day and age. How often do you come across a blu ray player that spits out 7.2 channels of audio. If you do find one, they are prohibitively expensive.

Besides; driving multi channel analog audio off a pc sound card is not the best way to go about it. You are in introducing a lot of noise in the chain by means of the PC's circuits and power supply.

 

[MaSh]

I was looking for a multi channel amplifier for my home theatre setup as my primary driver is htpc with sound card and HDMI directly routed to projector. I see all multi channel amplifiers are way out of my budget. Then I was looking for AV receivers ( those less than 40k), but I don't see any entry level or infact a high price av receiver ( < 100k) doesn't have multi channel analog audio inputs. I see only Marantz SR series has those and few high range Yamaha aventage series. Is there any other cheaper AV receiver has Analog inputs.

Or is it better to go DIY route to make amp with suitable chip for each channel?

What are the output options available on your soundcard? Does it have optical out? If yes, consider Logitech z906

MaSh

 

[dillihifi]

Though unrelated but I have a Harman AVR 260. Unfortunately the HDMI is not working and now it some issues in the power supply so it does not switch on. I am hoping to get the power supply rectified so that I can use the same as a multi channel amp as it has got multi channel i/p's and plan to power my atmos speakers through this. Any leads for repairing the same at a reasonable cost.

 

[arunlouie]

I have compared 5.1 analog out of xonar d2x connected to avr 5.1 multichannel in to avr decoding via hdmi in same setup(htpc,speaker).I liked AVR decoded sound over souncard as soundstage was better and ease of use too.With soundcard out,we need to use good analog interconnects. Also 2 preamps come in the chain(soundcar and avr) and sound quality suffers.

I have asus essence st with h6 card. And plan is to play amplifier for Klipsch reference series ( bookshelves).

Another reason for analog amplifier is, I am person of maintain gear for long time, and I don't want to change AV receiver after there is new audio codec released or when 4k goes to 8k. I am pretty sure calibrated video quality from Htpc is no less compared an good AV processor. I am ok in just upgrading a GPU card.

 

[arunlouie]

I use analog outs from Oppo UDP into my AVR from 90s. How many channels are you looking at? If you look for topline AVRs of 2000s (Marantz SR9600 and likes) from OLX, you would hit a winner. The slam of topline AVRs are unbelievable.

How are these old av receivers compared to new one in terms of analog amplification? Sound quality? If there is no big difference used in analog mode, I will look this option.

 

[arunkvivek]

I have a couple of top end AVRs of Marantz Yamaha, they have amazing output but are electricity guzzlers. If you are not looking at power amps, picking up these over new age AVRs would make sense. Obviously you are likely to have a bit of poorer room correction due to old technology. @rbalagopalan has seen a lot of gears. Let's seek his advice on this.

 

[spirovious]

I have asus essence st with h6 card. And plan is to play amplifier for Klipsch reference series ( bookshelves).

Another reason for analog amplifier is, I am person of maintain gear for long time, and I don't want to change AV receiver after there is new audio codec released or when 4k goes to 8k. I am pretty sure calibrated video quality from Htpc is no less compared an good AV processor. I am ok in just upgrading a GPU card.

There is no need to change avr with new codecs.Htpc decodes and sends as LPCM multich sound which avr handles easily.
5 ch power amp need to pair with soundcard with care as accidently PC may output full volume and speakers will be at risk.

 

[arunlouie]

There is no need to change avr with new codecs.Htpc decodes and sends as LPCM multich sound which avr handles easily.
5 ch power amp need to pair with soundcard with care as accidently PC may output full volume and speakers will be at risk.

Thanks for the gyaan, I didn't know that. So AV receiver its then. Thanks all!

 

[arunlouie]

One more question. Will the decoding done by a sound card will be routed via HDMI. If possible, what is the advantage of that?

 

[spirovious]

One more question. Will the decoding done by a sound card will be routed via HDMI. If possible, what is the advantage of that?

Decoding can be done by player and can be sent as lpcm via hdmi out,.Not possible analog over HDMI.

 

[arunlouie]

Decoding can be done by player and can be sent as lpcm via hdmi out,.Not possible analog over HDMI.

Yes I understand analog is not possible via hdmi, so sound card is of no use when we use hdmi.

 

[spirovious]

Yes I understand analog is not possible via hdmi, so sound card is of no use when we use hdmi.

Mostly no.Some cards like asus hdav has hdmi out.