Home Theater people - new receiver and sub?

It's been a loooong time since I've looked into any of this stuff, I bought all my current stuff 10+ years ago.

I currently have Canton LE120 speakers front and rear with an ergo cm400 center channel, they seem to be fine so would probably leave them in place. I dont have the space for extra channels so it would stay a 5.1 set up

The receiver is an Onkyo, not having any issues but would like something I can stream music and such from my iPhone. I've been looking at some of the Yamaha stuff, MusicCast is interesting but looks like it only works with their speakers. It's not a deal breaker but being able to have a wireless speaker in a couple different places around the house would be nice, not sure what other tech might be out there for that.

The canton subwoofer bit the dust long ago and was never very impressive, I've been using a random sub a friend had laying around and it's ok but figure now would be time to upgrade.

Budget - 1k tops for both unless there's something that just blows my ****ing mind

I personally haven't dabbled in the wireless speaker realm, but a friend has a bunch of Sonos stuff that actually sounds pretty decent. As far as streaming music (outside of Sonos and the like), most modern receivers have bluetooth. That's how I do it from my iPhone to my Marantz. Not as fancy as MusicCast, but it works great. I've also had great experiences with Yamaha receivers so pick your poison. Pioneer Elite, however, not impressed.

As far as the sub, how big of a space are you working with? I'm assuming fairly small based on the size of your current speakers. Or perhaps you just don't like dedicating an entire wing of your house to audio gear like I do. lol I haven't purchased a powered sub in years as I started building my own. But I have heard examples recently from Klipsch and Miller & Kreisel. Both were very nice with a nudge towards the M&K for the warmth and depth.

Keep the receiver you have now and add a chromecast. You can easily stream music or video from your favorite service--and have the added benefit of being able to use any phone/smart device. Then, spend the budget on a sub. I am partial to SVS--check out their scratch and dents for a discount. For home theater, go with a ported sub. If you're a DIY person, check out Rythmik.

TerminatoRS said:

I personally haven't dabbled in the wireless speaker realm, but a friend has a bunch of Sonos stuff that actually sounds pretty decent. As far as streaming music (outside of Sonos and the like), most modern receivers have bluetooth. That's how I do it from my iPhone to my Marantz. Not as fancy as MusicCast, but it works great. I've also had great experiences with Yamaha receivers so pick your poison. Pioneer Elite, however, not impressed.

As far as the sub, how big of a space are you working with? I'm assuming fairly small based on the size of your current speakers. Or perhaps you just don't like dedicating an entire wing of your house to audio gear like I do. lol I haven't purchased a powered sub in years as I started building my own. But I have heard examples recently from Klipsch and Miller & Kreisel. Both were very nice with a nudge towards the M&K for the warmth and depth.

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it looks like most of the new receivers have bluetooth etc... so that takes care of that part. MusicCast is just the Yamaha wireless speaker solution. That room isn't super big, probably ~12' wide and from the couches to the back wall ~20' long. If you count the little area behind the couches where I've got a table and chairs it might be closer to 30' in length. The ceiling is probably 8' high on one side and slopes up to 12' on the other.

08mojo said:

Keep the receiver you have now and add a chromecast. You can easily stream music or video from your favorite service--and have the added benefit of being able to use any phone/smart device. Then, spend the budget on a sub. I am partial to SVS--check out their scratch and dents for a discount. For home theater, go with a ported sub. If you're a DIY person, check out Rythmik.

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I do have a chromecast laying around I never use, hadn't thought about that...that actually might be super useful as ultimately I'm trying to phase out my home theater PC before it needs another rebuild. Im going direct from my Xbox to the TV so don't need to worry about 4k video passing through or anything.

If you want to stream bluetooth keep your receiver and add either a Chromecast or an aptx-hd receiver. They can be had on Amazon for the cheap. While you're on Amazon, sign up for their lossless "ultra HD" streaming service.

DSG2003Mach1 said:

I do have a chromecast laying around I never use, hadn't thought about that...that actually might be super useful as ultimately I'm trying to phase out my home theater PC before it needs another rebuild. Im going direct from my Xbox to the TV so don't need to worry about 4k video passing through or anything.

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Big fan of chromecast. They allowed all of my old 'dumb' receivers to be used as 'smart' receivers and I can now stream music all over the house. I think I have 6 or 7 zones total (requires a chromecast for each zone). You can set up 'groups' and it allows you to control the volume to each chromecast in the group. I don't use them much for video, in fact they are mostly the old audio only chromecasts.

08mojo said:

Big fan of chromecast. They allowed all of my old 'dumb' receivers to be used as 'smart' receivers and I can now stream music all over the house. I think I have 6 or 7 zones total (requires a chromecast for each zone). You can set up 'groups' and it allows you to control the volume to each chromecast in the group. I don't use them much for video, in fact they are mostly the old audio only chromecasts.

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didnt realize you could do any of that with multiple, I have two different versions of the video ones.

I’m on my second Denon receiver and have nothing bad to say about it. Originally had an AVR-2100w and now a AVR-2500h as I had to upgrade to get hdcp 2.2 for 4K content.

Either way, it has Bluetooth, AirPlay, and HEOS which is like their version of Sonos style speakers. I can control the receiver with their iOS app or Alexa as well.

You can just go with an hdmi Bluetooth adapter to stream music but you’ll eventually want a new receiver if you want to support the latest audio codecs and 4K passthrough. It gets annoying having to change multiple inputs after a while.

Avr-x2600w is the newest model, I always go for one year older as they’re discounted pretty well. I paid $300 shipped for mine.

I picked up a Yamaha receiver for Christmas in ‘17 and got a 10” Klipsch sub for 150 this past Black Friday.

It makes noise and shakes things when I turn it up.

Got both for well under 500.

I will never be an audio junkie so I have no idea if it sounds great or not, but it works for kids shows, movies, and when my boy plays PS4 and wants to get killed repeatedly playing Star Wars...

2000GTSTANG said:

I’m on my second Denon receiver and have nothing bad to say about it. Originally had an AVR-2100w and now a AVR-2500h as I had to upgrade to get hdcp 2.2 for 4K content.

Either way, it has Bluetooth, AirPlay, and HEOS which is like their version of Sonos style speakers. I can control the receiver with their iOS app or Alexa as well.

You can just go with an hdmi Bluetooth adapter to stream music but you’ll eventually want a new receiver if you want to support the latest audio codecs and 4K passthrough. It gets annoying having to change multiple inputs after a while.

Avr-x2600w is the newest model, I always go for one year older as they’re discounted pretty well. I paid $300 shipped for mine.

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I have a Denon receiver as well; an AVR-X2000 7.1 4K. Bought it about 4 years. I'm very happy with it. I have a Klipsch sub-woofer.

The only issue I have with my setup, which could very well be from my lack of knowledge as far as the cable connections, is that I can only play auto/video to my home theater system from my Oppo UltraHD 4K blueray player. When streaming movies from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hula, nothing. For those I have to live with listening from my TV's speakers. I have talked to numerous people and tried various cable connections (HDMI and optic), but no luck. Very frustrating. When I had my old satellite service I could play their stuff easily through my home theater.

CobraBob said:

I have a Denon receiver as well; an AVR-X2000 7.1 4K. Bought it about 4 years. I'm very happy with it. I have a Klipsch sub-woofer.

The only issue I have with my setup, which could very well be from my lack of knowledge as far as the cable connections, is that I can only play auto/video to my home theater system from my Oppo UltraHD 4K blueray player. When streaming movies from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hula, nothing. For those I have to live with listening from my TV's speakers. I have talked to numerous people and tried various cable connections (HDMI and optic), but no luck. Very frustrating. When I had my old satellite service I could play their stuff easily through my home theater.

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Yeah, that's definitely a connection issue. Your streaming device (Chromecast, Roku, whatever it is), should be connected to an input on your receiver, not your TV, if you want to listen to streaming media through your stereo.

72MachOne99GT said:

I picked up a Yamaha receiver for Christmas in ‘17 and got a 10” Klipsch sub for 150 this past Black Friday.

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CobraBob said:

I have a Denon receiver as well; an AVR-X2000 7.1 4K. Bought it about 4 years. I'm very happy with it. I have a Klipsch sub-woofer.

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Klipsch FTW!!! Love that subwoofer on my home theater. JBL or JL Audio for my car subwoofer...……..

Denon receiver here and it is unnecessarily complicated to set up.

Klipsch tower speakers up front? Klipsch center, and surround speakers. The surrounds are just small satelites.

FYI $1000 for a receiver and 5.1 is not an easy task, unless you aren't much of an audiophile.

Edit: You can also buy used.

Black Gold 380R said:

Klipsch FTW!!! Love that subwoofer on my home theater. JBL or JL Audio for my car subwoofer...……..

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We had surround speakers in our walls when we bought our place in 16. Took a year for a receiver and center so i could use it.
And then 2 years to decide I wanted a sub. For what it is, it puts out pretty good sound.

The baby enjoyed it enough to start headbanging...so that’s another vote in favor of it...

98 svt said:

FYI $1000 for a receiver and 5.1 is not an easy task, unless you aren't much of an audiophile.

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receiver and sub only. I need to look in a little more detail but even if I did a new Yamaha receiver I believe there was one in the 350-400 range that looked like it would cover what I need and leave 600-700 for a sub. I might be willing to go a little more depending on where everything lands I just didnt want people to come in and recommend an $800 receiver and $1500 sub

72MachOne99GT said:

We had surround speakers in our walls when we bought our place in 16. Took a year for a receiver and center so i could use it.
And then 2 years to decide I wanted a sub. For what it is, it puts out pretty good sound.

The baby enjoyed it enough to start headbanging...so that’s another vote in favor of it...

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Agreed, I have an awesome sound bar and sub, it rocks

Coiled03 said:

Yeah, that's definitely a connection issue. Your streaming device (Chromecast, Roku, whatever it is), should be connected to an input on your receiver, not your TV, if you want to listen to streaming media through your stereo.

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You, sir, are a life saver! LOL. You're the first person I've connected with about this who has said the Firestick 4K streaming device has to be connected to the receiver. Sure, that makes perfect sense. LOL. Thanks for the solution that's eluded me for months. I'm going to set it up tonight.

CobraBob said:

You, sir, are a life saver! LOL. You're the first person I've connected with about this who has said the Firestick 4K streaming device has to be connected to the receiver. Sure, that makes perfect sense. LOL. Thanks for the solution that's eluded me for months. I'm going to set it up tonight.

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Not neccessarily, you can use audio-return-channel(arc) to play sound from the TV through the reciever as well. But plugging directly to the rx is certainly the simpler approach.

DSG2003Mach1 said:

receiver and sub only. I need to look in a little more detail but even if I did a new Yamaha receiver I believe there was one in the 350-400 range that looked like it would cover what I need and leave 600-700 for a sub. I might be willing to go a little more depending on where everything lands I just didnt want people to come in and recommend an $800 receiver and $1500 sub

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Keep an eye on best buy open box, especially if you're not in a hurry. I just picked up a marantz sr7011 for $450 (currently $1750 on amazon). It was missing the power cord ($5) and the wifi antenna ($10). Good deals to be had there, but you have to be patient.