A/V receiver feature question

[mueschke]

I'm interested in upgrading my current basic setup (plain 27" TV, regular cable, DVD player) to something a little more advanced (~32"-40" HDTV, HD cable/satellite, surround sound system). for the DVD/receiver/amplifier/surround sound system, I'm leaning towards buying individual components, as opposed to a "theater-in-a-box" arrangement, as it should provide me with the greatest flexibility in the future. I'm obviously not shopping on the high end for receivers, but I'd like a quality receiver that won't become outdated too quickly. One criteria that I've found is that the receiver needs to have multiple HDMI inputs and be capable of HDMI switching. That seems to put me in around $400-$500 mark for a receiver. Does this seem reasonable or is that overkill for my purposes?

That brings me to my question. I've got a friend who has a Sony receiver that they purchased about 6-8 years ago that has a feature that enables "sound compression". What I mean by that is it will normalize the sound output as to bring low volume sounds (speech, etc.) up and extreme volumes (explosions, etc.) down. I haven't seen any receivers advertise this as a feature. Is that because they all do it or is that because no one offers it any more?

[SlumpBuster]

Yes, you'll need to spend around $4-500 for a receiver with HDMI swithing. That is not overkill for a box that you're asking to do about a half dozen different things: preamping, processing, system setup, amping, source switching and video switching.

Don't buy a Sony reciever. In your case stick with Pioneer, Denon, Yamaha. The "sound compression" that you speak of can a be found on most (all?) Dolby Digital/DTS recievers. You'll see it in the menus listed ususally as "dynamic compression/range/processing." Some manufactures may use a proprietary name for such things, like Yamaha's "Night Listening" for headphone use.

HTiB may not be a bad route based on the fact that you are looking to jump so far ahead. Also, HTiB doesn't necessarily have to be crap from Best Buy:http://www.orbaudio.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=33 This would be a very potent system.

[mueschke]

thanks for the info... i appreciate it.

[2chAlex]

It seems like everyone is unloading HT receivers without HDMI. When there's quite a few stand alone HDMI switchers available. Unless I'm overlooking something this seems to be an option. Or maybe a LCD with 2 or more HDMI inputs then use the panels digital out to run one audio cable back to the receiver. Haven't tried this so maybe someone else would know if these thoughts would work.

[O'Shag]

I would have to disagree with Slumpbuster on the Sony Recievers. the new generation, while a right pain to set up - i.e the menu system sucks - sound pretty darn good and do offer a lot of functionality for the money. I bought my father-in-law a Sony receiver for about $800 new about five months back, and its working well. It doesn't touch my Yami RX-Z9, but then there's a huge price difference. On HDMI switching; its convenient but not absolutely necessary. I'm eying up a scaler at the moment which has component to HDMI switching capability.