The problem there is the terrible UI of those A/V receivers, designed by committee that upholds long-standing traditions. It takes a lot of fussing with the complicated remote to get to where you want, which is perhaps fine for geeks, but annoying in a family setup, where all household members would like to know how to watch Netflix.
BTW, these traditions are ridiculous: as an example, my DENON receiver has two monstrous knobs on the front, like most AV receivers. The one on the left I will never use in its entire lifetime: it is for manually sequentially switching input sources, which nobody does anymore. And yet they still place it as the most prominent feature/control on the front panel.
The buttons that I'd like to use are small, black-on-black with dark gray labeling in 8pt type, so basically impossible to use unless you use a magnifying glass and a flashlight.
...then the AppleTV was released, with a remote that made the Harmony look like the console of a nuclear power plant by comparison, and I never went back
The problem is that as video technology has advanced, it makes less and less sense to pay for video processing technology on a receiver. Your new TV supports HDMI 2.1 with 120hz and VRR for your new PS5.
Does your receiver? Are you willing to spend $1000 to upgrade your receiver to simply correctly pass through that video signal, with little meaningful audio upgrade?
I think you hit the only problem I have with receivers being the upgrade of them as new versions of HDMI come out.
- An old LCD TV with 4(?) HDMI inputs and a few legacy ports.
- linux box with hdmi out
- apple tv with hdmi out
- console with hdmi out
- line out cable from TV to 1970’s receiver’s line in.
- line out from sonos to another line in on the receiver.
- roof antenna, with a Y to the TV and receiver
- turntable
- two extremely nice speakers
(Before someone asks, the TV has some sort of multichannel digital audio out. I don’t care. If I did, that’d give me surround sound. Similarly, I could get a subwoofer if I wanted.)
This is completely fine. The apple tv and console auto-switch the tv to their output, and sync the power buttons. The linux box doesn’t, but probably could if I decided to RTFM. The apple tv can be controlled with the tv remote, but its native remote is nicer. We only use the TV remote to access linux.
We only touch the receiver to switch between TV, turntable, sonos and radio.
How would an A/V receiver possibly improve this? (Note: I want the analog radio and record player with their nice mechanical switches and warm FM sound, and will run the sonos s1 app until the cloud side of it dies.)
Side benefits include:
- Adding more ports to often port-starved TVs or projectors.
- Providing alternative port-switching interface if you hate your TV’s UI and want something simpler.
- An organizational aid—you can put all your stuff somewhere away from the TV, and all that needs to reach it is a single HDMI cable. This can create interesting room layout options that are otherwise impractical.
All of these can also be accomplished by a simple HDMI port switch, but still, it’s handy.
The appletv is in the closet, but the other devices don’t make sense there. The linux box is about as big as a decent USB hub, and has a few wired game controllers plugged into it. The console is a switch, and going into the closet is too much trouble. I could put the sonos in the closet, but the play/mute button on it is too convenient when I don’t have a phone handy. The other stuff is self explanatory.
Can you not get a surround sound audio receiver/amp anymore? The digital out on the tv presumably would feed it. I had an old one like that, but it died.
No, not really. If you want surround sound audio, you probably want it over HDMI, and then they may as well have video features too.
But, if you have enough ports on your TV, and it doesn't do dumb things, and eARC works, and the TV doesn't forget it's attached to the receiver... You can still plug in everything to the TV, and you don't have to uss the receiver to switch inputs. I typically run the movie disc players through the receiver, because they have high bitrate audio, and tvs like to mess that up.
Its just I wouldn't want the TV doing the switching because you are still managing two remotes for that and I dont want the wiring to the TV, I would want more speakers and some basic room eq, delay correction and subwoofer management. And I always end up with more devices. I also want Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
My receiver does everything yours does and more, and the TV auto switches on and off but I am also been into this stuff for years.
Plus AV receivers can consolidate all the connections so there is only one run to the TV. This could be done with an HDMI switch if you can find one that integrates as well as a receiver, with similar number of inputs and isn't a large fraction of the cost.
Plus many (most?) very nice speakers need an external amplifier. Once you look at the cost of a bare bones amp, an A/V receiver with everything else they offer makes a ton of sense. Even for two channels.
The console might be suboptimal, but it knows the TV is in 2 channel mode, so it it’s emitting surround encoded signal, that’s just dumb.
I don't think too many people have, for example, a Samsung TV and a Firestick and use the 2 interchangeably for different apps.
I had this problem until the Samsung interface got too unbearably slow (6 year old tv), so I just bought a Google TV and that goes through my receiver's HDMI in port. Before this update, I was using optical out from the TV into my receiver, but the quality was noticeably degraded. I'm lucky I also don't use the radio function or a record player since that would just add to the chaos.
90+% of the things people complain about would no longer be a problem if they got a traditional A/V receiver, plugged all their sources such as streaming boxes and game consoles into the receiver, and just used the smart TV as a monitor (and as a tuner if they watch OTA television).
Until that is no longer the case there will be a role for traditional A/V receivers.