Best receiver/speakers?

[Sycario]

What do you think the best, reasonably priced receiver would be? I'm not sure what brand to look for anymore. About 10 years ago my dad bought around $5k in the best equipment we could get. Onkyo receiver, 2.1 channel with prologic . It had the composite in/out and an svideo. We also bought some speakers for the front 2 that sounded great (still do, actually) and Infinity reference/center speakers. What would you suggest for these? I've been reading reviews of things around the net but I'm still not sure what I should be looking for. I know all about frequency/ohm and I know that the specs themselves do not make it good. I would like to get a great sounding 5.1 channel setup at minimal cost.

The receiver needs to have a few component connections, composite, svideo and HDMI. Are there any with DVI output? I haven't been able to find a good one with it on there.

Thanks

[shabby]

What is your budget?

[Rakeesh]

Yeah you can't even begin to answer that question without some kind of figure of what you want to spend on it.

[Sycario]

Budget is flexible, just wondering what the best stuff for a reasonable price would be. I want something good but doesn't have to be top of the line.

[evilchris]

Denon and Onkyo are good brands in the sub $2,000 pricerange. Stay far away from Sony, utter crap.

[npras42]

My advice would be don't be cheap with the speakers, especially the sub. I would probably devote something like 20% of your budget to a sub, another 20% to your amp and 60% on the other speakers if you're working in $2000-$4000 range.

If you want good quality on a budget don't buy sets of 5.1 speakers either. Buy each speaker seperately i.e. fronts, surrounds, a center and a sub. The combos might sound like a good deal but they almost always have a weak point (e.g. the sub or the center is crap) which ruins the whole experience.

Also remember there is a lot of good equiment out there and they sound different to each other but not necessarily better than each other so sound testing is a good idea just to work out what YOU like. For example, when I got my receiver I had the choice between the Sony and a Marantz system (for the budget). They both got very good reviews. The Sony was very clinical in producing sound where as the Marantz had a nice rounded tone. Same price, both very popular, in the end I heard both playing through the same set of speakers I owned and I preferred the Sony. If you're going to invest such a large amount of money you might as well do it right and there are so many audiophile shops out there that seem to bend over backwards to help you make the right decision.

EDIT: Nowadays it probably more important than ever to look at features such as HDMI passthrough support and TrueHD 7.1 etc etc. but don't get sucked in by a reciever that flaunts tons of features but actually doesn't produce great sound quality. Analogue connections usually trump digital ones so as long as it sounds good don't worry about TrueHD support.

[Rakeesh]

Originally Posted by CaNiBuS

Budget is flexible, just wondering what the best stuff for a reasonable price would be. I want something good but doesn't have to be top of the line.

Echoing what evilchris said:

Originally Posted by evilchris

Denon and Onkyo are good brands in the sub $2,000 pricerange. Stay far away from Sony, utter crap.

100% true. Also stay away from bose. Both sony and bose are notorious for being overpriced, big time under-performers. As far as picking a specific receiver, mainly look for one that has all of the features that you want, and consider features for future use as well (e.g. hdmi 1.3 support.)

If your budget is high, a good starting point IMO would be an Onkyo TX-SR805.

As for your speakers, that will depend on not only your budget, but also the size of your room. And like has been mentioned, speakers will have a bigger impact on your overall sound quality than anything else. Here is a good starting point:

http://www.audioholics.com/buying-gu...buying-guides/

Note that the above $1k systems they mention also include the cost of buying a TV. If you've already got a TV, then you are going to pay less than what they list. Also note that the receivers they list are a bit outdated already, but the speakers are not.