# Need a new receiver



## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

I have been dinking around with the idea for a while but I'd really like to upgrade my onkyo 605 in the living room. get a little more power for my SEOS cheap thrills and give me some better sound quality. the choice was kinda coming to a head when I picked up a set of the martin logan MLT-2's for my bedroom so I'll probably just move the 605 in their to power those (and of course replace the chintzy sub that it comes with with a dayton 15 DVC sealed that I'm gonna be putting together this month...no kill like overkill for a 12x13 room  )

now I haven't been receiver shopping since I got the 605 almost 7 years ago or so, and I'm a bit rusty on what are the good "bang for your buck" models out there right now. I know I wanna stay clear of Onkyo with their spotty reliability record since 2007 (ironically the 605 was the last gen before their QC issues shot through the roof... 

any ideas?


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> I know I wanna stay clear of Onkyo with their spotty reliability record since 2007 (ironically the 605 was the last gen before their QC issues shot through the roof...
> 
> any ideas?


I would not discount Onkyo, I agree that have had issues but even the 05 series apparently had problems but have never known anyone who had one go bad. You could get one of the 818 from accessories4less.


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## fmw (Aug 11, 2013)

Mike Edwards said:


> I have been dinking around with the idea for a while but I'd really like to upgrade my onkyo 605 in the living room. get a little more power for my SEOS cheap thrills and give me some better sound quality. the choice was kinda coming to a head when I picked up a set of the martin logan MLT-2's for my bedroom so I'll probably just move the 605 in their to power those (and of course replace the chintzy sub that it comes with with a dayton 15 DVC sealed that I'm gonna be putting together this month...no kill like overkill for a 12x13 room  )
> 
> now I haven't been receiver shopping since I got the 605 almost 7 years ago or so, and I'm a bit rusty on what are the good "bang for your buck" models out there right now. I know I wanna stay clear of Onkyo with their spotty reliability record since 2007 (ironically the 605 was the last gen before their QC issues shot through the roof...
> 
> any ideas?


Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, Harman Kardon, Marantz, Sony.


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## dougc (Dec 19, 2009)

I'm very happy with my 818 so far. Soooo, many features. They are said to be free of the overheating issues of the previous models. I found mine at OneCall new for the same price as refurbished from A4L.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

I actually picked up a Yammy 773 from costco yesterday for $399... they were clearancing them out for $500 but since it was the last one they gave it to me for $399... only thing missing was the YPAO mic (which I can probably get from amazon with some credit or just borrow my buddies Audessey mic) if I need to.


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> I actually picked up a Yammy 773 from costco yesterday for $399... they were clearancing them out for $500 but since it was the last one they gave it to me for $399... only thing missing was the YPAO mic (which I can probably get from amazon with some credit or just borrow my buddies Audessey mic) if I need to.


Mic's are receiver specific you must use a mic from Yamaha calibrated for the 773.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> Mic's are receiver specific you must use a mic from Yamaha calibrated for the 773.


Grrrr they make them specially for each model? Would make sense to use one mic for all models and have the software in the receiver be modified for that one mic instead of making models of mics for each receiver


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> Grrrr they make them specially for each model? Would make sense to use one mic for all models and have the software in the receiver be modified for that one mic instead of making models of mics for each receiver


its possible that a mic from another Yamaha in the same year might work fine but certainly not an Audyssey mic. I would send an email to Yamaha and see what they say.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> its possible that a mic from another Yamaha in the same year might work fine but certainly not an Audyssey mic. I would send an email to Yamaha and see what they say.


Yeah. I'll do that. At worst I can get them for $25 for the official mic on amazon so I still win. $399 for the 773 was too good to pass up


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> $399 for the 773 was too good to pass up


Agreed, plus Costco has one of the best warrantys Ive seen. You cant go wrong.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> Agreed, plus Costco has one of the best warrantys Ive seen. You cant go wrong.


exactly, great receiver for a great price WITH costco's return policy. kind of a no brainer


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Looks like a great find for $399.
Congratulations.
Enjoy the new toy.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

thanks for the tip on contacting yamaha Tony. I emailed them yesterday and they're sending me the mic free of charge!!


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

Oh wow, thats great customer service from them :clap:


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> Oh wow, thats great customer service from them :clap:


yeah, I was very pleased, for the price I paid I can't complain


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

That is good customer service.
Makes the $399 look even better.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

well, mic came in and I ran YPAO ... sounds good. I'm pleased. ONLY ONE PROBLEM. since some of the Disney TrueHD titles have that nasty audio dropout issue I switched my panny DMP-75 to PCM output instead of bitstream for DD TRUEHD and the yammy receiver is only recognizing 2.0 pcm from TrueHD titles NOT multi channel PCM like my onkyo 605 does. any idea on what setting to tweak to get full multi channel PCM rather than the downmixed 2.0 pcm?


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

Does the Yammy have a direct setting? If it does you can try that but also remember to choose the correct audio setting from the disc itself.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tcarcio said:


> Does the Yammy have a direct setting? If it does you can try that but also remember to choose the correct audio setting from the disc itself.


that's' the weird thing. that was the first thing I thought of. I went and set it to direct (yammy calls it "straight") but it's only recognizing it as 2.0 as what the receiver is RECEIVING... and I made VERY sure to set it on the 7.1 track from the disc. I even pulled up the info on the track it was receiving and it lists it as 2.0 pcm. that made me go "huh?" since that usually only happens when you output LPCM using OPTICAL rather than hdmi out...


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

And the audio settings in the player are set to not down mix the audio to 2.1?


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> And the audio settings in the player are set to not down mix the audio to 2.1?


the player for audio has THREE settings. and three settings only

1. for DTS style tracks it gives PCM or Bitstream
2. for DD type tracks it gives PCM or Bitstream

at the bottom, completely seperate from either option it gives the option to "downmix PCM or Surround encode" ... no other option like "off" for that one, just one or the other. I swapped between the two options and it didn't give me any difference.. the thing is that my onkyo with the SAME settings would recognize multichan pcm the moment I switched from Bitstream to PCM ... but this one won't recognize the track as anything but 2.0 PCM


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

That's very strange, have you tried a different HDMI cable? I know it should not matter but who knows :huh:


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> That's very strange, have you tried a different HDMI cable? I know it should not matter but who knows :huh:


not yet, same hdmi cable I used for both receivers, but I got a few others I can test


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

One other thing to check is in the yamahas menu I wonder if there is a setting for what it defaults to for a said audio format? In the Onkyo I have you can select it for each type of format.
If that's not an issue try using an optical connection and see if the Yamaha does the same thing.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tonyvdb said:


> One other thing to check is in the yamahas menu I wonder if there is a setting for what it defaults to for a said audio format? In the Onkyo I have you can select it for each type of format.
> If that's not an issue try using an optical connection and see if the Yamaha does the same thing.



hmmm, now THAT I didn't check, I'll sniff around it when I get home and see if there's something crazy like that.


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Mike Edwards said:


> well, mic came in and I ran YPAO ... sounds good. I'm pleased. ONLY ONE PROBLEM. since some of the Disney TrueHD titles have that nasty audio dropout issue


I was not aware that there is an issue with TrueHD Audio dropping out on Disney titles, as I have not experienced this.
Are you saying TrueHD works without drop outs on other titles?
Does DTS HD Master Audio work without drop outs?


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

chashint said:


> I was not aware that there is an issue with TrueHD Audio dropping out on Disney titles, as I have not experienced this.
> Are you saying TrueHD works without drop outs on other titles?
> Does DTS HD Master Audio work without drop outs?


no problems with DTS-HD MA titles.. what happened was that there was some changes in the DTHD compression algorithyms this year and it's been causing havoc on a lot of people's players. some players only get intermittent dropouts (Brave only had 2 dropouts on my onkyo) but some receivers, players etc have been having them all the time (I played it last night on my new Yamaha and MU was dropping out every 30 seconds or so).

Brave, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc THD version, Monster's U and several others are affected. basically it's all their 7.1 TrueHD tracks in the last year... however, if you run the audio out from your player as PCM it fixes the problems. it sEEMS to be on the receiver's side so running bitstream is where the problem comes up


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

What does it do if you set it to bitstream?


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tcarcio said:


> What does it do if you set it to bitstream?


It plays it just fine as whatever track is selected


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> It plays it just fine as whatever track is selected


Wow that is strange. I think that there must be something that is set wrong in the reciever. Did you try a different disc? Maybe there is something going on with the disc you are useing.:dontknow:


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

tcarcio said:


> Wow that is strange. I think that there must be something that is set wrong in the reciever. Did you try a different disc? Maybe there is something going on with the disc you are useing.:dontknow:


Same thing wit diff discs. Which is why I'm pretty sure its some obscure setting in the receiver somewhere


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## tcarcio (Jun 27, 2007)

Mike Edwards said:


> Same thing wit diff discs. Which is why I'm pretty sure its some obscure setting in the receiver somewhere


I would think it has to be. I think maybe if you call Yamaha CS they could help. Good luck....onder:


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Since this was a store demo unit if you have not done a factory reset I would recommend doing that.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

chashint said:


> Since this was a store demo unit if you have not done a factory reset I would recommend doing that.


First thing I did. But wouldn't matter. Costco doesn't even plug in their display units


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## chashint (Jan 12, 2011)

Sorry I have no other ideas on this.


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