If you need a 5.1 receiver are you wasting your money on 6.1 & 7.1 Receivers

[hershon]

In case I eventually get a new receiver, and I only want to listen to 5.1 sound, am I then spending and wasting my money on 6.1 & 7.1 receivers and wasting endless dollars for a feature I don't need. Again, music & 5.1 sound quality is my only concern

[markw]

There are fewer and fewer 5.1 channels receivers being made every day. You limit your options greatly by discounting 6.1 and above receivers. If you cannot get the features/power/inputs and optputs or whatever else you need you need in 5.1 receivers, then you should not discount the 6.1 and 7.1 receivers. They can be run in 5.1 mode.

[kexodusc]

It's always nice to have the flexiblity...as markw said, you'll have a hard time finding a decent "5.1" only receiver these days. The addition of an extra speaker channel or two won't adversely affect the sound quality of the receiver as long as it's driven within design parameters (ie: not to bleeding loud).

Herson, have you decided what you're going to do yet?

[hershon]

I'm now thinking maybe I've approached this slightly wrong and may just add instead an Onkyo DX-C390 CD player & see if that produces better sound quality for CD's then my built in integrated progressive scan DVD player that is part of my JVC RX-DV31 SL receiver. Don't get me wrong, I am happy with the sound I get from CD's but if this improves sound quality even more, great. The Onkyo which is less than $200 seems to be the highest rated CD player in terms of sound quality and has an oversampling rate of 128.
I figure if this doesn't noticeably improve the sound quality I can return it right away to Circuit City and get my money back.

What do you think? Good bad or indifferent. If I get this should I use a digital cable to connect it to my receiver or an analogue one? Thanks



DVD

It's always nice to have the flexiblity...as markw said, you'll have a hard time finding a decent "5.1" only receiver these days. The addition of an extra speaker channel or two won't adversely affect the sound quality of the receiver as long as it's driven within design parameters (ie: not to bleeding loud).

Herson, have you decided what you're going to do yet?

[kexodusc]

Hershon, to be honest, I don't know what to expect.
I think the integrated unit you have is probably very good at what it does, and I'm not sure that you'll hear a drastic improvement by adding a CD player.
If I had to rank the importance of items in the audio chain for achieving good sound quality,it would be:
1) Speakers
2) Room acoustics
3) Pre-Amp/Processing
4) Amplification
5) Source player
6) Choice of beer
7) Cables

I do believe that there are difference in performance across CD players etc, but I find that they are almost always small compared to the differences you'd have switching other components, and you often have to spend a pile of money.
That being said, I can't help but wonder if JVC has made any shortcuts in your unit to keep it inexpensive? I would certainly question its pre-amp/amp section.
In your situation, the CD player might not be the best way to improve your system.
But if you can return it, it might be a worthwhile experiment...try a receiver out too if you can, you may find that your expectations are just too high for your budget (a sad reality that most of us face).
Then you start to appreciate the gear you do have more.

[hershon]

You're probably right about expectations exceeding your budget. Another factor to add which is driving me nuts but is something I can't control, is the actual recording and mastering of the CD and as most of my CD's are albums that were originally recorded in the 60's & 70's, there is quite a variance in sound quality with recordings made in the 1990's and onwards. For example, if I put on a Beales Cd like "Revolver" or "Rubber Soul" while it sounds pretty good it doesn't sound unbelievable if that makes sense & I'm trying to figure if one or more of my components other than my Orb Speakers was different, would the sound quality when I played those albums be significantly better?

Hershon, to be honest, I don't know what to expect.
I think the integrated unit you have is probably very good at what it does, and I'm not sure that you'll hear a drastic improvement by adding a CD player.
If I had to rank the importance of items in the audio chain for achieving good sound quality,it would be:
1) Speakers
2) Room acoustics
3) Pre-Amp/Processing
4) Amplification
5) Source player
6) Choice of beer
7) Cables

I do believe that there are difference in performance across CD players etc, but I find that they are almost always small compared to the differences you'd have switching other components, and you often have to spend a pile of money.
That being said, I can't help but wonder if JVC has made any shortcuts in your unit to keep it inexpensive? I would certainly question its pre-amp/amp section.
In your situation, the CD player might not be the best way to improve your system.
But if you can return it, it might be a worthwhile experiment...try a receiver out too if you can, you may find that your expectations are just too high for your budget (a sad reality that most of us face).
Then you start to appreciate the gear you do have more.

[Woochifer]

In case I eventually get a new receiver, and I only want to listen to 5.1 sound, am I then spending and wasting my money on 6.1 & 7.1 receivers and wasting endless dollars for a feature I don't need. Again, music & 5.1 sound quality is my only concern

Waste of time obsessing about whether 6.1 or "7.1" are needed or not. You're going to get those features on just about any receiver above the entry level price points, whether or not you intend to make use of that capability. If you want to stick only to 5.1, then you're stuck with either the bottom of the line models, which might be missing some other features that you might want such as component video switching or digital outputs or preouts, or separates where you attach only five channels of amplifcation onto a multichannel processor and pay at least 4x what a midlevel "7.1" receiver would cost.

Just about any audio component that you buy will have some capability that you won't use, but that doesn't mean that other consumers won't find those same features useful and/or essential.