Hi all as it is my first post i might as well start with a question
I have just ordered a Onkyo tx sr606 av amp to replace my yamaha v630 rds, how much better can i expect this to sound and are there any set up tips or does using the mic do all the work for you.
Also i will be connecting a panasonic dvd and ps3 are there ways of getting the best picture and sound from them or does the hdmi leads take all the hassle of using other cables.
Cheers chaps.
Darren

what is your input source for tv channels? sky freeview or something else ?

Sky + and linked to Mission m70`s.

Will it "sound" better? Well, that's subjective, and only something you will be able to tell yourself. However, I'd give it a week or two of getting used to it, before making your mind up.

If the Panasonic sports HDMI then use that to the Onkyo. The Onkyo has HDMI out. It is a digital audio connection, so it will be as good as it gets. Plus the advantage of only using 3 leads to connect the two sources via the Onkyo, to the TV, making it much tidier.


The Onkyo seems to be a serious piece of kit, and I'm sure it'll give you many years of stunning audio and video performance. But like I said, it might take a few weeks to bed in.

What speakers do you intend running? The Onkyo is quite powerful, with serious high power peak performance. If the speakers aren't well matched, and you put on a movie with lots of audio effects, you could end up blowing the high frequency units even at what seems to be a reasonable volume levels, due to its exceptional wide dynamic range performance.

lots of different bits to this so i'll throw in my two penneth and no doubt others will add in as they see fit. I am not familiar with the Onkyo receiver but have auto mic setup on my Denon receiver. It is a pretty good feature and you might as well use it to get you going. It only provides a first iteration to the set up and you will need to go into the menus and set the satekite speakers to 'small' if they are shown as 'big' this will change the crossover freq and send the bass part to the sub where you want it.
The hdmi will route the picture and stereo sound only but no doubt you will have auto switching from the sources via hdmi. most on here will advocate the use of optical cable to get the best sound, connect this from sky box to receiver input and assign that digital input to the corresponding video input on the amp
sorry for the delay its the 31st you know and i've just had 3 witches at the door .

Such low cost speakers as the Mission M70's may not be able to give you the best performance.

But, they will sound okay until you can afford something better.

Thanks for the replies, the speakers are mission m70`s and mission woofer.

I have got mission m773`s but they do look big in the lounge.

No knocks at the door `yet` thank god
Thats another thing what is classed as big as i would of thought for surround speakers the m70 `s would of been big ?

There are several "M70"'s, I am presuming he means the "Cinema M70" set of 7.1's - which I've seen at about £150. There is also a set of bookshelf M70's.

Presumably by "routing ... stereo sound" you mean to the TV, thus not using the Onkyo for sound at all? It would be a travesty not to use it for all viewing and listening, even at low volume levels.

well if you have a pair of big floorstanders or bookshelf speakers they may well need to be classed as big but it will affect what gets passed to the sub. if you plan on using them then put them front left/right and put smaller sat speakers at the back. i would be more concerned about a mismatch between the fronts and the centre speaker if they are not of a similar type

nah, i was just refering to the stereo component which travels on that cable, i was not suggesting that would be the way to go with the audio aspect of the question.
all my sound sources use the av receiver all the time.
sorry for the confusion

They are all matched as i bought the set when i bought my last amp, they are the bookshelf style.This was the 4x M70 and M8 sub and mission centre speaker.
So is it advisable to set the speakers as small to get the use of the sub?

The Onkyo should set all configuration settings.

It comes with Audyssey 2EQ, what this mean is will auto setup the speaker levels, distances, delays, size and xovers, it will then run room correction for two listening positions, it will fine tune individual speakers by adjusting their output to match your room, it does this by increasing/decreasing certain frequency bands.

All you have to do is position the mic at ear level for the two seating positions then follow the onscreen instructions - just make sure the room is as quiet as possible otherwise the mic will pick up external sounds which can throw the measurements out.

yes if they are a matched set of speakers set let the auto setup do it all for you. however i went through some of the settings i got with deacon and had to do ssome manual tweaking as it got some of the distances to the speakers wrong, particularly the sub distance, room reflections i guess but all good now !

Thanks again guys ,some real helpful tips. The amp should arrive on monday so i will let you know the results.

Well the amp arrived yesterday and hooked all the conections up and i must say what a great improvment not only with the blue ray discs but the games sound so much better on the ps3 and normal discs on the dvd player.
The ps3 and dvd are using the hdmi leads its a shame that the sky hasnt got one and for some reason i couldnt get the Wii picture working through the amp for some reason so plugged that straight into the tv and have to turn the speakers up on the tv to get sound, but then its only the wife that uses that
The amp then has the hdmi to tv and that does cut down on a few untidy cables at the back for sure.
All in all i am very happy and must say the Onkyo was a good buy.

Very few (I don't know of any) can take a, say, S-Video input and output that to the TV via a different type, such as HDMI.

So if you wanted to connect your Wii to the amp you will need to run two output video cables to the TV from the Amp of the same type. Alternatively do what you have done at the moment and connect the SPDIF digital audio out from the Wii to the Amp.

In both cases you will need to change the input on the TV to get the video signal.

I hope that's simple to understand.

From your description I am guessing you currently use SCART straight to the TV. Set to RGB this will give the best picture (unless the TV has a spare VGA port), complete with sound - but you need to make an additional digital audio (or multi-channel-analogue) connection to the amp. This will enable you to forget about messing with the volume on the TV, which can be turned down to zero.