What could I use my surplus receivers for?

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jase250

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#70327 21-Oct-2010 22:06

Hi all,

I have upgraded through a couple of generations of mid-range home theatre receivers and (being the hoarder I am) still have my old ones boxed up in the spare garage.

Can anyone make a suggestion for any use of these units that will enhance my current setup?

I am running a Yamaha RX-V767 now, and have boxed away a couple of Onkyos: TX-SV646 and TX-SR603.

My system has CD player, PS3 for BR/gaming and Sky. The Yamaha drives Wharfedale Xarus 5000 fronts, Valdus 100 surrounds/centre and a 12" Powercube.

I was considering using one of the receivers to drive the sub, but am too unschooled to know if there is any benefit in this.

The answer is: There are still monkeys and apes for the same reason that there are still British, even though my great grandfather was British and I am a Kiwi.

richms

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#394590 21-Oct-2010 23:23

You dont have more than one home theater system?

I have my old reciever on the garage theater and the kitchen theater will be getting deployed soon.

Richard rich.ms

jase250

90 posts

Master Geek

#394597 21-Oct-2010 23:57

Your first statement is correct. My question would have been rather pointless if I had 3 systems and three receivers - the obvious answer would be 'use them for your other system'!

Kitchen home theatre? Heh - my wife would have my guts for garters if I even mentioned something like that.

You seem to be well versed in the topic, richms. Is there any benefit using the preout from my current receiver into the fractionally more powerful Onkyo (95 vs 100 W) and using this to drive the powercube?

Bearing in mind that the sub has its own amplifier, I suspect that I would be introducing a pile of unnecessary variables into play.

The answer is: There are still monkeys and apes for the same reason that there are still British, even though my great grandfather was British and I am a Kiwi.

richms

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#394599 22-Oct-2010 00:27

If the sub has its own amp in it, and you are running it from the RCA out then no, no good will come at all, since there is no need for it

Just sell them before they lose any more value IMO, receivers are probably the only thing that comes close to depreciating at the rate of computers.

Also the difference between 90 and 100 watts is meaningless since the other parameters are unknown, and usually you get at best the THD when they do give you specs so its impossible to compare, and the magazines that do proper tests seem to not do low end gear like recievers.

You could get a couple of larger subs in boxes from your friendly local boyracer who needs money and use the amp to get some more bass, but dedicated sub amps are so much better at doing that, you are making a massive compromise by using the reciever.

Richard rich.ms

Dingbatt

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#394780 22-Oct-2010 15:19

If it's any consolation to you, you're not the only one with spare (obsolete) receivers reboxed and stored. I do have a cunning plan for at least one of them that involves multiple speakers in our barbecue area.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

jase250

90 posts

Master Geek

#395006 23-Oct-2010 12:56

Exactly my thoughts... I view them as more value to me than the cash I could get for them.

The answer is: There are still monkeys and apes for the same reason that there are still British, even though my great grandfather was British and I am a Kiwi.

lchiu7

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#395444 25-Oct-2010 11:04

Well I plan to use a spare AVR to drive the front speakers in a new setup I have. It's not that the current AVR can't do it. I have speakers that need active equalisation else they sound strange. No current AVR that has digital processing at a reasonable cost has any way of inserting an equaliser into the signal path. High-end AVR's often have pre-out and mains-in connectors but they are usually in the $4K range.

So I plan to route pre-out from the front channels into the equaliser and then into the 6 channel inputs of the second amp (use the direct inputs to avoid another too much additional processing) and then out to the speakers. As an aside the lower end HD audio AVR's don't tend to have preamp-out jacks (let alone mains-in) so I had to go up one tier to get an AVR that had that capabiilty. Some have Zone 2 but for reasons I can't understand Zone 2 only works with analogue inputs (who has these today?) and isn't particularly useful when all your input is via HDMI.

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