Choosing home cinema receiver to go with Audigy 2

I have had the Audigy 2 soundcard for 8 months now and I am looking into getting a 6.1/7.1 home cinema receiver to go with it. At the same time I thought it about time to get a whole new hi fi make over for the living room as the PC is in the same room as the Audio system and TV. Also with Sky+ supporting Dolby Digital I thought now would be the best time to get involved.

However I have a plethora of brands to choose from and I cant find one with THX support. My request is that someone could put this list of hi-fi separates brands into ranking: best at the top worst at the bottom because I just want an idea of where each manuafacturer stands in the market.

Sony
Technics
Panasonic
Yamaha
Denon
Wharfedale
Bose

If you have any other brands please include and rank as appropriate. I am not fussed about how much I spend but I dont want to go nuts.

Secondly which brand would you go for if you were selecting hi fi separates and home cinema receiver and why.

Last but not least could someone suggest a home cinema receiver which is 6.1/7.1, has THX support and enough inputs for TV, Video, two Tape Decks, CD Changer, Turntables, a DAB radio connecting via Coaxial, a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 connecting via Coaxial, Sky+ connecting by Coaxial or optical not to sure though :-s, 2 opticals for PS2 and Xbox. Also the reciever must be able to decode Dolby Pro Logic I & II, Dolby Digital & EX, DTS & ES, NEO.6, 24/96.

Thanks for your time

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!

I've always been a fan of NAD Electronics. Powerful, powerful amps for the money. I also liked the minimalist approach.

Well things have changed. Not so minimalist now.

<A HREF="http://www.nadelectronics.com/av_receivers/T762_frameset.htm" target="_new">http://www.nadelectronics.com/av_receivers/T762_frameset.htm</A>

I don't know how good it is but I think it's worth a look/listen.

You have quite a shopping list but I think the NAD has everything you listed.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

Thank you for your suggestions. I was going to look at Yamaha or Denon. How do Denon's sound different from Yamaha? I was also going to get some proper speakers to go with the receiver. Perhaps order four bookshelf speakers and two centre speakers and a nice kick ass subwoofer.

Also I was looking into Sony's ES series - are Yamaha's and Denon's separates & speakers better than Sony's ES series? Also if I was to mix and match different brands, would their be any effect on performance?

Also whilst I apprechiate the help your giving me, please remember I am from the UK so we dont get some brands that you guys from the US get

Thanks for your help so far!

I a/b'd a Yamaha 2300 to a dennon 3803, and I preferred the sound of the Yamaha to the dennon. I would describe it as saying that the Yamaha had a little more treble energy. Others would say that the Yamaha could be a little brighter in sound, I general do not prefer bright, but with the speakers that I was listening to I preferred the Yamaha. Basically you have things that sound bright, neutral or a little dull. You do not want a bright sounding receiver with a bright sounding pair of speakers, or dull with dull. I just read the new What Hi Fi magazine, Out of the UK, and for under 350uk they loved the new pioneer. So, you see there are many factors. You need to figure out: 1.How much are you going to spend for the whole set up? 2. Do you like the bright sound, or more dull/accurate? If you don’t know you need to figure that out on your own, just go to any hi quality hifi store and they can help you.
It is ok to mix and match brands
I have also heard many good things about the NAD systems,
I don’t think you would be going wrong with them.
When you ask if the Sony es series is better, you need to realize that we are talking about sound and what I think sounds better you may not think sounds better. You also have to ask what’s most important, all the bells and whistles or the best sound period. The new pioneers and the new Yamahas (will be out in a few months) are great. They have a feature that automatically configures the sound based on the acoustics of your room. You put a mic in your seating position and the receiver adjusts the output to each speaker automatically. So, is that a feature you want? Others like myself like the sound of the rotel so much more, that we sacrifice a cool feature like that because we can calibrate it ourselves with a decibel meter. My rotel has all the decoding features you mentioned in your first paragraph, but they all do, even a 300 pioneer. Are you going to use it just for movies or movies and music? Because one receiver may be great for movies, but horrible for music, while the other is ok at each.
Good Luck, go to the other web sites I mentioned, tell them your budget, and you will be ok.

Audigy2 can output Dolby Digital EX 6.1 streams digitally but for DTS/DTS ES you should wait for the upcoming Audigy2 ZS series.

If you want to play games in surround with your audio rig make sure you get a receiver with discrete 5.1 anolog inputs.

Only the Force 2 motherboards with Soundstorm have 5.1 encoding for games and other PC generated sounds.

Most motherboards and sound cards can do 5.1 passthru (DVD, DIVX, etc) but only Soundstorm can encode computer generated sounds into digital 5.1.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

Thank you very much for that information. Very informative. Creative never stop rolling them out do they! Now that I am still trying to put together my hi fi rig, I realised the reason why the market has switched to 7.1 so quickly. People who want to build their own hi fi rigs need to buy that one rear centre and many dealers are not willing or simplying can't afford to break open packs to get that single speaker. With 7.1 you can just buy a pair and no packs need to be broken.

In regards to your question what is the difference, the SNR is one, but also the fact that it has moved to 7.1. Astonishing! Creative have stuck with 5.1 sound cards since 2000 yet they havent even lasted a year with 6.1. Also the new soundcard supports more standards than just THX and Dolby Digital EX. It supports DTS, DTS ES, neo 6.1 as well as Dolby Pro Logic 2. The Audigy 2ZS also has support for EAX 4.0 - sounds like yet another format. One last difference is the high price.

The other day my friend had only £20 to spend on a soundcard and since his PC is in his bedroom, he only wanted 4.1. Besides his PC is Windows 95B so there is no support for DVD and he cant afford to upgrade. He got the SB Live! Value series and it came with some really cool software like Prody Parrot 1 and Creative's Keytar and Rhythmania.

So I though I'd try and install them on my PC which has an Audigy 2 - wrongfully I assumed that it will automatically work on my PC. First the Keytar and Rhythmania programs failed to find a MIDI out device - the card is fully installed and the MIDI comes from the Audigy 2 Synth A which is the only hardware MIDI synth that actually works - the others are Directsound Software synths which only work in games and dont always work with MIDI files.

Then when Prody Parrot installed it aborted because it could not detect any SoundBlaster hardware despite the fact that its sitting right there clearly labelled a Sound Blaster Audigy 2.

How can I fool these programs into thinking they are running on a SB Live! card and will there be any reduction in performance or final output. Or on the other hand are these programs avalible in versions which dont require an SB Live! card and still give the top performance expected from an Audgy 2. Bear in mind that I would like to be able to donwload a FULL version for FREE. Please NO SHAREWARE or TRIALWARE AND ESP. NO DEMOS. Those types have been the cause to my cripped system.

Thank you for your time once again and thank you all for pitching in! ;-)

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!

Matt,

I have just received a Denon brochure through the post today. I refferred back to this post to check what you said. You said Denon's were rather Dull but accurate sounding yet Yamaha's are very bright sounding with lots of treble energy. I looked atr Denon's speakers and not only are they only stereo but they don't even have enough power to handle their low end amplifier which outputs at 80w!

So I thought since Yamaha do surround sound speakers at least at 80w, I thought I'd get Yamaha speakers. You said Yamaha speakers sound bright so if I couple them with Denon, will the sound be equal - not too bright and not too dull or will it be really poor quality sound?

Please let me know what the results would be like using my rig. Also may I direct you to my above question. If possible please answer that as well

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!

Matt,

My budget for the whole rig is about £1000 but I am willing to give a £500 leeway. What are the websites for decent speakers that will compliment the sound of my 6.1 Denon receiver and separates.

If anyone else can help then suggestions are welcome. Also if possible please answer my previously posted questions.

Thank you all once again!

Just cos I am a semi skinhead it does not mean that I am a semi PC Guru. I am 25% PC Guru, 15% Thug and 10% Alcoholic!!!