Home Theater catch-all

Balthezor wrote:

Haha thanks anyways. Those AV forums are very confusing

Yeah. The simple way though, is look at every best 4k projectors list you can find.

The newer Sony 4k native equivalent to the model Chairman mentioned a few posts up tops basically every list.

The only exception is if you focus on $3000 or less, in which case you only see the Optoma really for 4k native and a bunch of faux-k models like my Epson.

Received my Sony 385 projector two days ago and I've already played 10 hours worth of movies on there. It's incredible how clear the picture is. And this is on a regular light gray wall. I can't imagine how this will look on an actual projector screen.

I've never thought projectors could look this good. I've been proven wrong. The only time I've seen projectors was in Best Buy. Not even close to the quality I'm seeing at home with my projector.

Arise...

Considering finally upgrading my 8 year old 1080p TV for a shiny new 4K. I'll do the research on the display, but I was wondering if I need to upgrade my nearly 8-year old AV receiver while I'm at it. Is there any reason why a receiver that was made before 4K became commonplace wouldn't be able to pass a 4K and/or HDR signal from whatever sources I plug into it?

Newer HDMI standard and HDCP standard. You will need compliant cables as well. Your current receiver will run 1080 just fine but it can't do the 4k.

I am in the same boat. I am going to bite the bullet and upgrade my receiver for more power while I am at it. I am currently looking at the Yamaha Rx-a2060(2017 model). I want a Marantz but to get close to the same power as the Yamaha is more than I can spend. I am also very familiar with Yamaha since this would be my 3rd.

Yeah as stated above you will certainly need a new receiver and HDMI cables to do 4K and HDR pass through.

I purchased a bunch of AV equipment from Accessories4Less.com

https://www.accessories4less.com/mak...

Great stuff. They only sell refurbished equipment but all the stuff I bought have looked brand new. I bought an AV receiver and several speakers. No issues.

Fast shipping too.

I should update the op someday. When I have a life again.

Balthezor wrote:

I purchased a bunch of AV equipment from Accessories4Less.com

https://www.accessories4less.com/mak...

Great stuff. They only sell refurbished equipment but all the stuff I bought have looked brand new. I bought an AV receiver and several speakers. No issues.

Fast shipping too.

Nice. Thanks for this, I always forget about them and go straight to Amazon.

I am going to bite the bullet and upgrade my receiver for more power

Power doesn't net you much. The human ear is logarithmic, meaning you need to pump in ten times as much power for twice the apparent volume. Ten watts per channel, in other words, is about half as loud as 100, and doubling from 100 would take a thousand watts per channel.

Further, if you've got a powered subwoofer, nearly every watt above the first ten per channel will be wasted, because the sub is doing the heavy lifting. The only time a hundred watts per channel nets you anything is if you're driving full-range speakers. You can theoretically go to about 200wpc on a 7.1 receiver on an American power plug, but this is barely louder than 100.

In all honesty, a 10wpc receiver with a powered sub would likely sound absolutely glorious, but people buy big numbers, so that's what they make and sell. 30wpc is enough for most full range listening (sans sub.) Past that, buy up for features, not power, it won't really do you much good.

Boo.. guess I'll research a new receiver as well then.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Boo.. guess I'll research a new receiver as well then.

I upgraded my TV before receiver. For the period of time in between I had to run everything to the ports in my 4K HDR TV then use the audio out to get 5.1 back to my receiver. (either through HDMI return channel or Optical)

It worked but wasn't ideal.

EvilDead wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

Boo.. guess I'll research a new receiver as well then.

I upgraded my TV before receiver. For the period of time in between I had to run everything to the ports in my 4K HDR TV then use the audio out to get 5.1 back to my receiver. (either through HDMI return channel or Optical)

It worked but wasn't ideal.

Hm, so if you don't have a 4K capable receiver you can't even pass a 5.1 signal + 1080p to a new 4K TV through it? Aren't the new HDMI ports backwards compatible?

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm assuming you mean pushing a 4K video signal to the TV, and then using HDMI return to get audio.

Malor wrote:
I am going to bite the bullet and upgrade my receiver for more power

Malor spoketh.......

My mains are 99db sensitive and my surrounds are 98. I am currently running 100 watts peak to them. Going to the 140 watts of the 2060 I am looking at would be a noticeable upgrade when I am watching movies. My subs are a pair of 15's each getting a channel from a Behringer iNuke 3000 dsp. I have the gains on the amp set low enough the speakers are not drowned out by the 15's in the room but will still get insane when I crank it up.

Truthfully, I need to upgrade for 4k and plan to get a bit more punch while I am at it. The 2060 also lets me start being serious about adding Atmos speakers to the system in the future.

fishdude wrote:
Malor wrote:
I am going to bite the bullet and upgrade my receiver for more power

Malor spoketh.......

My mains are 99db sensitive and my surrounds are 98. I am currently running 100 watts peak to them. Going to the 140 watts of the 2060 I am looking at would be a noticeable upgrade when I am watching movies. My subs are a pair of 15's each getting a channel from a Behringer iNuke 3000 dsp. I have the gains on the amp set low enough the speakers are not drowned out by the 15's in the room but will still get insane when I crank it up.

Truthfully, I need to upgrade for 4k and plan to get a bit more punch while I am at it. The 2060 also lets me start being serious about adding Atmos speakers to the system in the future.

as someone who ruined his hearing with loud music/movies, I truly hope you watch with ear plugs in.

Going to the 140 watts of the 2060 I am looking at would be a noticeable upgrade when I am watching movies. My subs are a pair of 15's each getting a channel from a Behringer iNuke 3000 dsp.

With powered subs, going from 100 to 140 watts will do precisely zero for you, beyond draining money out of your wallet.

Has anyone heard/read anything about the Xbox One S throwing repeated HDCP 2.2 "errors" on startup? (Just a blank screen with an error message.)

I swapped out a standard XBO for the S a couple months ago and it's been fine, but suddenly I'm starting to get these errors every so often when turning on my home theater setup (projector, receiver, console), and the only way I've found to get rid of it (temporarily) is to physically unplug the console power for a cold reboot. (Just shutting it off, or shutting off the other devices doesn't do the trick.) I'm concerned it might be a cabling issue, and I tried swapping the console's HDMI cable to no effect, but swapping the connection to the projector would be much trickier (it's run through the ceiling).

I tried the usual Google-fu when I first saw the error a month or so ago and didn't find anything that replicates what I'm seeing.

Carlbear95 wrote:
EvilDead wrote:
Carlbear95 wrote:

Boo.. guess I'll research a new receiver as well then.

I upgraded my TV before receiver. For the period of time in between I had to run everything to the ports in my 4K HDR TV then use the audio out to get 5.1 back to my receiver. (either through HDMI return channel or Optical)

It worked but wasn't ideal.

Hm, so if you don't have a 4K capable receiver you can't even pass a 5.1 signal + 1080p to a new 4K TV through it? Aren't the new HDMI ports backwards compatible?

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm assuming you mean pushing a 4K video signal to the TV, and then using HDMI return to get audio.

Yeah, exactly.

ubrakto wrote:

Has anyone heard/read anything about the Xbox One S throwing repeated HDCP 2.2 "errors" on startup? (Just a blank screen with an error message.)

I swapped out a standard XBO for the S a couple months ago and it's been fine, but suddenly I'm starting to get these errors every so often when turning on my home theater setup (projector, receiver, console), and the only way I've found to get rid of it (temporarily) is to physically unplug the console power for a cold reboot. (Just shutting it off, or shutting off the other devices doesn't do the trick.) I'm concerned it might be a cabling issue, and I tried swapping the console's HDMI cable to no effect, but swapping the connection to the projector would be much trickier (it's run through the ceiling).

I tried the usual Google-fu when I first saw the error a month or so ago and didn't find anything that replicates what I'm seeing.

I had that several times and it was always the HDMI cable.. switching it out resolved the issue. But I don't have as many variables as you do (my setup is Xbox --> TV)

TheGameguru wrote:

I had that several times and it was always the HDMI cable.. switching it out resolved the issue. But I don't have as many variables as you do (my setup is Xbox --> TV)

Makes sense. There are three HDMI cables in the chain (console to receiver, receiver to in-wall line, wall-line to projector. I'll have to start messing with the ones I can reach and see how it goes.

Thanks!

ubrakto wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

I had that several times and it was always the HDMI cable.. switching it out resolved the issue. But I don't have as many variables as you do (my setup is Xbox --> TV)

Makes sense. There are three HDMI cables in the chain (console to receiver, receiver to in-wall line, wall-line to projector. I'll have to start messing with the ones I can reach and see how it goes.

Thanks!

Newer 4K/HDR signals can get iffy around greater lengths of HDMI runs.. your cable quality starts to matter more. When I switched to the Xbox One X I had to basically pull all my HDMI cables and replace them with shorter higher quality runs (25' to 15' and what I gathered was a higher quality cable).

I originally had these 25' flat ribbon style HDMI cables and for whatever reason they X hated them where my OG One and S worked ok with them.

Mao:
I listen at around -30db most of the time. Movies and concerts will see the occasional -10db but usually around -15. Even at -15 windows in other rooms vibrate loudly when the subs hit. What is funny is that because of room nulls I am a bit lacking in the mid-range punch and am looking to add 2 more 10-12" subs behind my main listening position to pick up the slack. I am also looking to add 2, maybe 4, channels of Atmos surround as well. All off this crammed into a 16x25 room.

Malor:
I will readily admit when I am lost in a conversation. I am not understanding what you are saying. Adding more power to the speakers, not subs, should be louder. The subs are on the LFE channel of the amp so they scale accordingly with the amp. More signal from receiver to sub am is more power to subs. Am I missing something?

others:
You will almost assuredly need to upgrade cables when going to 4k. Cables are cheap these days, why chance a problem with the security handshake?

fishdude wrote:

Malor:
I will readily admit when I am lost in a conversation. I am not understanding what you are saying. Adding more power to the speakers, not subs, should be louder. The subs are on the LFE channel of the amp so they scale accordingly with the amp. More signal from receiver to sub am is more power to subs. Am I missing something?

With sound systems, the bass carries most of the power. Mid and treble are pretty easy to drive, relatively speaking. If you have a powered sub, in other words, the great bulk of the power in your receiver is going spare, not particularly needed. The sub(s) is/are doing the work, and the mains are putting out a much lower fraction of the total sound energy.

Now, if you've got a really massive setup, where you've got just oodles and buckets of power in the sub(s), then upgrading the receiver could let you increase total sound volume while staying balanced. But if you're in any kind of a normal residential setting, you'd be getting well into hearing-damage levels of sound output.

Further, ears are logarithmic, not linear. To double the perceived volume, it takes ten times as much power. The improvement after 100 watts per channel is extremely minor, unless you're doing custom electrical work and running 8000+ watts to your living room. Assuming you want to run from standard wall plugs, 100wpc is about as good as you'll get. Going to 200 would give you only about 3db of extra volume, and that's about the practical upper limit for a 7-channel receiver on an American power outlet.

The same is true in reverse; 10 watts per channel is half as loud as 100. With a powered sub, you could likely run 10 watts to each speaker and be just fine.

Fishdude that -30db is a pretty arbitrary figure on your receiver that doesn't account for spikes in volume. -15db is extremely loud, actually.

All I'm saying is noise damage is cumulative. Get a nice pair of musician's ear plugs if you want to enjoy the bass bumps without losing sound clarity. Your ears will thank you when you're older.
/PSA

OK, this makes sense. The subs get approx 800 watts each when it is wide open. I am looking for a bit more power to let the rest of the speakers catch up. I have the gain on the sub amp lowered to a point where the bass is not the only thing you hear. Power is not an issue. I have a pair of 20 amp circuits just for the a/v gear.

Mao, I would love to say I hardly ever see the -15 but it happens more often than not. I once had it at +10 and it scared the crap out of me. I am guessing I had sat or leaned on the remote and missed the change. Was watching Winter Soldier when Bucky threw the grenade at Cap on the frreeway. It sounded like it went off in front of me. It was awesome but I do not want to go that loud again. Like I said, -30 is my normal. Thanks for the warning though.

I actually haven't been back to the closest THX certified theater near here because THX standard is apparently

THX Reference Standards wrote:

85dB SPL with 20dB of headroom

And it f*cking hurts to be in that room when movies get loud.

It's super frustrating because the screen and seating position and everything else is SO GOOD in that theater, but then they just decide you need to destroy your hearing to see a movie there.

I'm in the same boat now for needing a receiver upgrade. I'm specifically looking for something that can push the HD audio from HDMI over multiple zones, as my current Onkyo can only send audio from analog sources to the second zone. Any current recommendations out there on brands or models? Anything under $1k is fair game.

ThatGuy42 wrote:

I'm in the same boat now for needing a receiver upgrade. I'm specifically looking for something that can push the HD audio from HDMI over multiple zones, as my current Onkyo can only send audio from analog sources to the second zone. Any current recommendations out there on brands or models? Anything under $1k is fair game.

unfortunately it seems that HDMI support to a second zone is reserved for pretty high end receivers well north of $1k, from what I can see.

If you want an excellent subwoofer for your home theater SVS is running a big sale on all their outlet sale speakers.

Some of the bigger better house-shaking-ridiculous subs are as much as $600 off. I'd have loved to grab a PC-12 Plus for not all that much more than I paid last year for a PC-2000. A sub that goes down that low (it has a mode that will hit 16hz...) is so good for action movies and games.

That said the only thing I'd *really* still like to pick up from SVS is a pair of Prime Towers but the only ones in the outlet sale are all the piano gloss finish and glossy finishes on *anything* are the worst, but extra special the worst on things you have to clean occasionally.

Plus I just don't have that kind of money at the moment, despite steady 55 hour work weeks that are eating my entire life

I absolutely love having a good subwoofer. I bought a high-end 22" Sony powered sub many years ago and it's still going strong.

I haven't pulled the trigger yet on my new receiver, precisely because I'm really looking for the unit that will meet my multi-zone audio needs. I absolutely must be able to decode HDMI audio to the second/third zone, and that seems to be a deal breaker for many mainstream audio receivers. I'm at the point now where it may really mean running an HDMI splitter to separate receivers, but I already have a zone 2 amplifier, so that would mean some serious equipment replacements.

Out of curiosity, why do you need hdmi to a second zone?