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Seeing as we are getting all Home Cinemary

DaveI
in The Technology Shed

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I'm looking at buying a home cinema amp (and speakers) to add some decent sound to my setup, It used to be fairly simple but now seems fairly complicated with the different certifications HDMI etc.

At the minute I have a Tosh 42X3030D LCD TV which has the following connected:

PS3 via HDMI

XBOX via Component

HTPC via VGA, sound is from a little 2.1 speaker setup (which actually sounds better than my TV speakers)

Sky Box via Scart but this will be replaced by Sky HD in the near future

Wii via Scart

What Amp should I be looking at to get all of these connected, bearing in my mind I don't want to spend more than £350 ish :)

Cheers!

Any mid-entry-level amp should do the job.

You need something with at least two HDMI inputs. Be careful with some of the cheapest amps as they only provide an HDMI passthrough / switcher and so won't pick up the audio if sent over HDMI. Also, the last time I looked, the Sky HD boxes only sent 5.1 surround sound via the optical. Of course, you can use the HDMI connection it provides, but it's limited to 2ch stereo. So if that's still the case and you want to benefit from surround sound, you need an amp where you can combine different audio and video inputs, i.e. Video source is HDMI 1 but Audio source is Optical 2, etc.

For a starter system, don't be fooled into needing something that can decode the latest high definition audio codecs such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. A PS3 can fully decode these formats and send them to the amp as linear PCM which any audio-capable-HDMI amp can manage.

Most of the amps also offer audio delay compensation so you can manually fix the issues with lip sync as Ian pointed out. But this option may not be available on the entry-level range.

Of course, if you're going down a proper 5.1 sound, you'll also need to budget for some proper non-amplified speakers, i.e. the hi-fi type and not the computer type, and also an active powered sub.

we have an onkyo amp and it works great :thumbup:

it has a few hdmi inputs and an output and will pass thru 1080p :)

it can also link up optical inputs with hdmi/component inputs :thumbup:

only issue is it won't output through hdmi a source from component so basically the input and output video have to be of the same type :(

If you don't want to spend all of your budget then one of these might be what you need:

Sony STR-DG820 review - whathifi.com

They can be had for about £239 if you shop around.

What speakers are you going to use it with? I'm interested as I'm shortly going to be investing in a home cinema system and will probably go with the Sony receiver and possibly some Q Acoustics speakers.

My vote would go to Yamaha,having been a Pioneer fanboy for years i took a leap of faith and thankfully have been very pleased so far,maybe look at the DSP-AX763:)

yamaha are good but not that cheap, we have found this onkyo to be excellent though :thumbup:

I have the Onkyo 605 which is a very good amp. The 606 is out now for the same price, so i would recommend the 606! It has more digital connections.

Onkyo Europe - TX-SR606

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