Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on January 20, 2011 at 21:33:17

In Reply to: RE: Why sound AV receiver less than $3000 rubbish posted by JohanV on January 20, 2011 at 02:11:29

Question: why are there no $499 surround processors?

Answer: because sales of those expensive processors and >$1200 receivers would drop like a boat anchor tossed in a pool (ie, profits --> toilet).

If you're serious about Home Theater, you get a surround processor and pair it with high quality multichannel and/or stereo amplification, not a surround receiver, to power your speakers. For $499, you can get a surround receiver with three 32-bit processors that will decode all of the audio formats for movies, do bass management, time alignment, blah blah blah, etc for a 7.1 system and provide seven channels of amplification. If they'd ditch the amplification and instead provide pre-amp outputs with an improved analog stage (making it a surround processor), there'd be little to no need for expensive surround receivers. Supplying your own amplification, using high quality amps, you'd be better off and a lot happier than someone spending far too much money on an expensive surround receiver.

But it won't happen. Why? Because the manufacturers have us by the balls (read the second line again!).