My trusty 6-year old Panasonic SA-HE70 is sadly now starting to go wrong (intermittent F70 error - all fuses are fine - out of ideas on how to fix it), so am in the market for a new receiver.
What I REALLY need is one with 5.1 analogue inputs so I can continue to play SACDs and DVD-A from my Pioneer DV-696 - it won't output audio for SACD/DVD-A from its HDMI interface according to the manual, and my BluRay player (80Gb PS3) won't play SACD, so I'm stuck with it, so must have an amp with 5.1 analogue inputs.
However, I haven't looked at amps in years, and it now appears that what used to be a common feature on entry-level boxes is now a premium only tending to be found on higher end kit.
Does anyone have any suggestions on a suitable amp for me that's not going to break the bank?
It MUST also obviously accept optical, coax and decode at the very least DD5.1 and DTS.
Since I'm upgrading it would be nice if it could handle HDMI and possibly the newer HD audio formats, but it really must have 5.1 analogue inputs as a minimum.
The cheapest ones I can find are around the £400 mark where I was hoping to be able to spend roughly half this
There are plenty of entry-level amps (for less than £250) that handle HDMI and the new HD audio formats, but just don't have muti-channel analogue in.
What I REALLY need is one with 5.1 analogue inputs so I can continue to play SACDs and DVD-A from my Pioneer DV-696 - it won't output audio for SACD/DVD-A from its HDMI interface according to the manual, and my BluRay player (80Gb PS3) won't play SACD, so I'm stuck with it, so must have an amp with 5.1 analogue inputs.
However, I haven't looked at amps in years, and it now appears that what used to be a common feature on entry-level boxes is now a premium only tending to be found on higher end kit.
Does anyone have any suggestions on a suitable amp for me that's not going to break the bank?
It MUST also obviously accept optical, coax and decode at the very least DD5.1 and DTS.
Since I'm upgrading it would be nice if it could handle HDMI and possibly the newer HD audio formats, but it really must have 5.1 analogue inputs as a minimum.
The cheapest ones I can find are around the £400 mark where I was hoping to be able to spend roughly half this
There are plenty of entry-level amps (for less than £250) that handle HDMI and the new HD audio formats, but just don't have muti-channel analogue in.






(great TV's and videos though)