should i upgrade my receiver?

Hi,

I have a ONKYO HT-R30 receiver and was wondering if its worth while to upgrade to a newer receiver that had HDMI in and out. Currently this model of Onkyo does not have any HDMI.

I currently have 5 of the 7 speakers set up ( someone told it its not important to set up the other two).
I have 50" Samsung DLP 1080i tv connected to it ( cabling: component )
Playstation 3 ( cabling: HDMI and optical )
Toshiba HD-A3 ( cabling component )
and my local cable box ( cabling component )

the question is i'm fine with this setup but for the playstation 3 to play uncompressed audio they say to make user of true loseless audio i would need a receiver that has the hdmi imput/out.


I guess my question is uncompress audio that much better then say multi-channel dts or dolby 2. Just curious its pain to setup my center i stated above and i need clear good reason to do so.

any advice would be great.

It depends on your ear, room acoustics, speaker quality, and speaker layout that will determine whether you can hear a difference. Here's one way to test: Rip a few songs having difference dynamics from a CD, and encode them to 320Kbps mp3 format. Now play them back through your receiver, comparing each to the original CD version by switching back and forth. You may have to adjust your volume between them, since you'll want to hear them play at the same dB.

Do you hear a difference? Is that difference radical enough for you to justify the purchase of a new receiver? If the answer to both these questions is "yes", then the answer to your original question is yes. Regardless of how much difference you hear, you'll certainly cut down on your cable clutter if you go with HDMI!

Keep in mind that the comparison I gave doesn't take into account that newer DACs (digital to audio converters) in newer HDMI receivers are generally better than older chips found in older receiver models. So you might hear a difference with a new receiver just from that alone.

Thanks again SkyHawk I'll try that...

funny you mentioned the cable messyness. Just got through a arguement with the wife about just that topic. Of course i responded back with why she needs to decorate up and around my media center then it went downhill from there... with her saying i should call firedog or geek squad to come by and do my cabling..

I'll try what you suggested ... do you have the answer to the wife thingy? I'm currently searching like mad on the internet if there is any LAW that will allow me to put a restraining order from my wife coming within 5 feet of my center.

thanks man.

Tell her the only way to solve your cable mess problem is to upgrade to a receiver that has at least 3 HDMI inputs for your 3 components. That will cut your cabling to only 3 wires. Do it like this:

"Sweetest darling... I've thought a lot about what you said concerning my cable mess. Since I care about you and what you want so much, I've decided that we should upgrade to a new HDMI receiver that will cut the number of cables going in to only three for everything! Only... because I love you so much."

Unfortunately my wife has known me for too long, and sees right through it when I try it. You may have better luck than me if you haven't used this approach too often

Wife convincing ideas..[TAB]

coming soon to DVDTOWN.

I might just try that... when she calms down.

I just don't get it

Like "warlock" said ( kevin smith - Live free die hard movie )
- THIS IS MY COMMAND CENTER! -

hmmm maybe i should make this my signature.

Thanks SkyHawk,

I bit the bullet and got the Onkyo 805 to complete my setup. Might move my old receiver to my bedroom ( when i get a HD-TV ) or sell it.

Cool! You like it? BTW, don't forget to thank your wife!

I do hear a difference but i haven't had much time to play with it this week due to work. I''ll give an impression sometime this week.

But yes right off the bat i did hear a difference when i was watching batman begins on HD-DVD and Transformers on Blue.

Matter of fact my wife was so impressed she given me the go ahead and replace our Bedroom TV ( its a Zenith..anybody remember those ..think my dad got it with a free betamax back in the day ).