HD Audio AVR/Amplifier/Receiver
#1
I am starting to investigate purchase of a 7.1 HD audio capable AVR/Amplifier/Receiver for our forthcoming media room.

Presently I have audio passthrough up to DTS/AC3 to a Logitech Z5500 system via spdif. I love this system, but I want to move onto something HD capable and 'retire' the Logitech to the bedroom.

I have no need of multi zone or multi room audio in the amplifier. All music playing in the house is done via squeezeboxes and LMS. If I want sync'd music/radio in the house, the squeezeboxes do that.

My systems all run linux and presently my frontend is a Revo with ION2 - so I believe it is HD audio capable. Audio and video will need to be routed through the amplifier to get HD audio.

I often see threads on this board abut various problems with amps, like

* not syncing HDMI properly;
* not properly passing through EDID info;
* doing spurious video processing;
* not properly accepting some HD audio.

Does anyone have a recommendation, either as to brand, or particular model. The room is about 5m x 3m. I deliberately haven't included a budget as I am in NZ and our pricing will be different to most of you.

Obviously this discussion will end up talking about speakers too, and that is OK with me too.

I know this is a little OT but of course the source of all this HD audio WILL be XBMC!
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#2
I haven't had any issues you mention with my Yamaha 473 receiver +various nvidia gpu's, everything has just worked. Its only 5.1 and I'm no expert on avr's but I'd buy Yamaha again.

I also recommend paradigm speakers (I have the ct-100's) they sound amazing. Again I'm no speaker expert but I did listen to a few different types/brands and thes ticked all my boxes -price,size, quality and glowing reviews
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#3
Any major manu will work. Biggest thing is your budget. I'd head over to avsforums to complete that past of your research.
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A bunch of XBMC instances, big-ass screen in the basement + a 20TB FreeBSD, ZFS server.
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#4
I owns three Onkyo network AVR's (NR809, HT270 and NR515). It's connected to Intel, Nvidia and AMD graphic cards. It's bitstreaming HD audio flawless on XBMC.....
>Alienware X51- do it all HTPC
>Simplify XBMC configurations
>HOW-TO Bitstreaming using XBMC
I refused to watch movie without bitstreaming HD audio!
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#5
I have a Yamaha RX-A3000 connected to AMD graphics card and bitstreams HD 7.1/7.2 without breaking a sweat Has more features than you are looking for (read as: room to grow if/when you change your mind about your needs), but if you are willing to drop the coin, in my opinion, its big brother the RX-A3010 is hard to beat. Just my 2 cents.
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#6
I´m running a Marantz AVR atm, no problems at all =)
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