Home audio stuff (Does HDMI/3D surround matter?)
lazyweb high-def audio geeks,
I just sold my current YAMAHA receiver RX-V659BL from 2006 today, because its depth is way beyond the new TV rack’s depth I bought at IKEA (how lame reason is that!), and am now thinking of buying a new receiver to replace that.
My only requirement for the receiver is that its depth should be less than 15 inches and should have more than 5.1 channels.
So far I’ve been looking at: Sony’s STR-DN1010, Pioneer’s VSX-1020-K and Onkyo’s HT-RC260. They are mostly the same: priced around $300-400, 7.1 channel surround systems and have multiple HDMI inputs and supports HDMI 1.4 for 3D audio. Out of three, Sony looks the best to me since my new TV will also be Sony’s.
However, my question is simple: Do I need these fancy HDMI/3D things in the new setup?
My TV display will be Sony’s BRAVIA HX800 that is 3D ready apparently, and has multiple HDMI inputs and optical/toslink outputs. The devices I play on TV will be: Mac mini (2009, no HDMI out), Apple TV (HDMI) and Xbox 360 (HDMI). So far, no real plan for the 3D sources like PS3 or standalone BD players. And I have 5.1 Yamaha speakers set.
In this simple setup, I think I can just connect all devices to the TV with HDMI rather than to the receiver, and then connect TV’s toslink output back to the receiver. My understanding is that the setup won’t do high-end surround stuff like HDMI 1.4 3D or Dolby TrueHD, but so far as I don’t have 3D sources nor 7 speakers yet it doesn’t seem to matter.
Am I missing something?