Hi guys,
Currently I’m running a 15 year old Sony TV with two Behringer Truth 2031’s over RCA. I’ve added a Denon DCD-810 to that mix with a simple RCA switch to either listen to CD’s over the speakers or my TV. The setup is somewhat clunky, I have to power on each speaker manually and walk over to the RCA switch to choose between TV or CD’s. Since I’ve already had the speakers and the TV this was a very cheap way to go and I don’t mind the extra steps. I am bound by CD players with variable outputs because of this, hence the 35 year old CD player which has it’s disadvantages.
Now being realistic my TV is getting old, it’s only 40 inches and I want it replaced in the coming years. Looking at modern TV’s they don’t seem to have RCA out for audio, just optical and HDMI as options. My plan was to get a nice second hand receiver and a nice pair of second-hand stereo speakers.
Doing a bit of reading HDMI for audio seems to be the superior option. My big question is, in what way is an older receiver future proof for all the different technologies? I would probably need a receiver that is 4k capable and whatever protocols I might need. Will optical out really give me a big disadvantage over HDMI? And if I would use HDMI on the receiver what technologies would it have to support?
Sorry for the long story!
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Nothing is ever going to be future proof, but there are a prolifera of products that can convert one signal type to another.
Our receiver is a Sanyo 2300k from the late 1970s with a gainclone output stage. I have an online optical to RCA converter between it and the TV. I also have a HDMI passthrough that pulls audio out between our Chromecast and the TV so we can stream audio to the receiver with the TV off.
Something like a Denon DRA900H might work for you. It has HDMI ARC, 4 HDMI inputs, RCA inputs, and others. If you can get a second hand DRA800H I’m sure that’ll be fine for you too.
Sounds like you are sticking to stereo speakers, so your output is less important, as all the extra fanciness is in support of surround sound stuff. Honestly, you need to make sure the receiver you choose will convert well to stereo from whatever video sources you are using; not all of them do.
I would suggest that you scope out Schiit Audio. Not necessarily to buy, although their equipment is awesome, but it is quite educational, as they have a more stripped down, step-wize approach to features. It might give you some ideas you hadn’t considered before.
It is unfortunately not as easy to make a good 2 chennel stereo that plays well with modern video as it should be. Partially due to physical separation, but partially due to compatibility, I just got a decent sound bar/ sub-woofer combo to hook up to my TV and kept my stereo for music and such.
Good luck and happy listening!
Hi! Thanks for your reply.
Due to my livingroom set-up I will be sticking to stereo yes. Would there be any safer options with that conversion when choosing optical or HDMI or is it really up to the receiver?
I will check them out, haven’t come across them on the second-hand market here in Europe but I will check out their site.
CD/Music playback will be through RCA on the receiver so that should not give problems I hope. At least I’m not bound to variable output CD-players anymore so I can finally move into the 90’s CD-player wise ;) Movies are usually Blurays through the 'ole PS4 so we’ll so how that goes.
