One of my long standing goals has been to update my entertainment area to something I could enjoy for some years to come. Liking items that are nice and well made sometimes conflicts with living on a budget with little disposable income. I have to play the long-game to get the things I want. I resisted getting a flat screen TV for many years. I had a JVC 38" (?) second-hand TV that I picked up for $120 about 8 years ago. I finally set my sights on a Samsung 46" 240hz LCD back in 2008(?) and got it on a windfall. So far I am VERY happy with it, but a it was time to finish and upgrade the receiver and surround sound. I don't have the money for super-high end, but wanted something better than the offerings at Wal-Mart...
My old equipment consisted of used hand-downs, free to me from others who upgraded and no longer wanted the old gear. Some decent Panasonic 5.1 speakers and a Sony STR-K740P receiver (Goes for $42 now...wow). The receiver had no HDMI ability and didn't even work with the speakers subwoofer. My Xbox360 was going to the TV over HDMI, the cable was also going to the TV over HDMI, and the TV was outputting stereo to the sound system. It SUCKED but was bearable. I began researching for better systems to remedy the issues.
After much debate, and reading dozens of reviews it seemed the Onkyo TX-NR609 was a great value for the money and so that's where I put my focus for the heart of the center. For the surround sound, I also searched far and wide and decided getting a matching Onkyo set would be in my best interest. I chose the Onkyo SKS-HT870 7.1 surround sound to match the receiver. I decided to order the Speakers first since I could plug them to the old receiver.
When they arrived, I was shocked. The box was HUGE at 5' tall and 3.5' square. It weighed in at 70 something pounds. I went to work removing my old speakers from the stands and installing and running wire to the old receiver. I had to leave two rear speakers unplugged because the old system was 5.1 and not 7.1. The subwoofer is also big, like 3' square by itself. I have it hidden behing the cabinet out of sight. I felt a little disappointed at first because the new speakers didn't seem to make much of an improvement other than the sub which worked with the old receiver. I had forgotten my audio was still getting pumped by stereo cable to the old receiver. I was chomping at the bits to get the new system and saving wherever I could.
While waiting and saving I decided if I'm getting a new receiver I should get a higher end model that will stay competitive in years to come. I switched from the TX-NR609 model to the TX-NR709 model instead. In hindsight, the gain for doing so was slight at a bit more cost. Installing the new system was way easier than I could have imagined. The speaker cables were color coded and all the HDMI ports are assigned for every gadget you might ever have. I was impressed. The unit is slightly larger than the previous but still fits inside the cabinet. It runs nearly silent, I hear my Xbox 360 purring along and nothing from the other components. The unit also up-converts video from my cable box to full 1080p and can change sound profiles on a whim. It sounds AMAZING now. Now my TV only has one HDMI cable running to it and the receiver is handling everything as it should. I also plugged it into the network, and this thing is making me even happier with Pandora and numerous other streaming music services being built in. I can access it from any computer on my network to stream music as well, and it will read music from my computers servers as well. Very cool and unexpected. The on-screen display makes everything really simple to understand and the remote was seriously easy to program to control the tv and cable box as well.
As far as I'm concerned I made good buys and would recommend the setup to anyone else looking to bump up to a newer system. Maybe with a more current TV though. Grace commented to me that it was weird hearing things happening behind us in scenes and she was hearing things she never noticed in movies we had watched before, like rain drops or footsteps. I'm thrilled. The last thing in my plan to do the entertainment center is replacing my old worn-out couches with a nice sectional. That's more a Grace want's it and I sort of agree kind of thing.
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