What would you go in my situation?

[GTaudiophile]

My situation:

I want a decent 2.0 stereo setup BUT one that will play nice with my HDTV, Blu-Ray player, HTPC, and OTA HD antenna.

I also want a pair of Dynaudio Excite X16 speakers that run at around 6 Ohms and require some power behind them.

After doing lots of research on AV receivers, I more or less decided that I really don't need all the features that they offer, so I went for what I think is a good compromise solution:

The Harman Kardon 3490 stereo receiver: 120 WPC @ 8 Ohms / 150 WPC @ 4 Ohms. (Of all the $400-$800 receivers I looked at, it was the only one actually rated at 4 Ohms.) The 3490 is also the only receiver in its class that also accepts S/PDIF and Coaxial digital inputs and can decode stereo PCM signals. The HK 3490 only cost me $450 / on the low-end of what I was originally looking at BUT pretty much none of the $800 receivers offered 120 WPC much less a 150 @ 4 Ohm rating. From pretty much all sources I could find, such as Amazon, B&H, etc., the HK 3490 also came highly reviewed/recommended.

So the HK 3490 arrived, and I set it up (minus the speakers…using headphones to test).

My Blu-Ray player and HTPC connect to my Panasonic Viera P50G25 HDTV via HDMI. All audio sent to the TV via HDMI is automatically downmixed to 2 channel PCM when sent out via the S/PDIF output. All audio (Dolby Digital) received via the OTA antenna is sent "as-is" through the S/PDIF output. Otherwise, all audio sources can be sent "as-is" via the HDMI/Audio Return Channel to an AV receiver if present. I obviously did not buy an AV receiver so therefore the HDMI/ARC output is not an option. The TV does not feature any analog audio outputs.

So what does all this mean?

-2 Channel PCM audio is successfully passed from the Blu-Ray player to the stereo receiver (via the BR-HDMI-TV-SPDIF-RECEIVER network OR via the BR-COAXIAL-RECEIVER network).

-2 Channel PCM audio is successfully passed from the HTPC to the stereo receiver (via the HTPC-HDMI-TV-SPDIF-RECEIVER network).

-2 Channel PCM audio is successfully passed from any of the Viera Applications like Netflix (via the Ethernet-TV-SPDIF-RECEIVER network).

What is missing?

-I am basically SOL when it comes to OTA content. The SPDIF output is only sending a Dolby-Digital signal to the receiver.

What would you do given all this?

Keep in mind that OTA TV probably accounts for only like 25% of what is viewed on my TV. The majority comes from the BR/HTPC/Viera Apps.

-Would you return the HK 3490 and go with a lower-powered and more expensive new AV receiver from the likes of Yamaha? Probably about $100 more after refunding the HK.

-Would you return the HK 3490 and go with an even lower-powered and even more expensive used AV receiver from the likes of NAND? Probably about $200 more after refunding the HK. Doing this might put you out of budget.

-Keep the HK 3490 and live with the OTA TV issue and remain in budget.

 

[NutBucket]

Is there a setting in the TV to downmix OTA audio to 2-channel?

 

[kornphlake]

This is how I have my HT setup, although I use an old Onkyo 5.1 HT receiver I only have 2.1 channels connected, all the switching is done through the TV and a single toslink cable connects the receiver to the TV. I use Dish Network for broadcast television so getting sound to the receiver isn't a problem the TV downmixxes it and outputs the sound PCM. As I recall my television does have an option to output PCM instead of DD for OTA but I've never tried using an OTA source, except to see if I could pull in any channels without an antenna, I couldn't so I gave up.

Edit:

If you ever plan on adding a sub you're going to have another decision to make rather you want to run the mains full range or high pass, if you think you might want to high pass the mains it's a lot easier with a HT receiver than with the HK3490.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Is there a setting in the TV to downmix OTA audio to 2-channel?

TV can't do this to my knowledge.

 

[GTaudiophile]

This is how I have my HT setup, although I use an old Onkyo 5.1 HT receiver I only have 2.1 channels connected, all the switching is done through the TV and a single toslink cable connects the receiver to the TV. I use Dish Network for broadcast television so getting sound to the receiver isn't a problem the TV downmixxes it and outputs the sound PCM. As I recall my television does have an option to output PCM instead of DD for OTA but I've never tried using an OTA source, except to see if I could pull in any channels without an antenna, I couldn't so I gave up.

Edit:

If you ever plan on adding a sub you're going to have another decision to make rather you want to run the mains full range or high pass, if you think you might want to high pass the mains it's a lot easier with a HT receiver than with the HK3490.

The 3490 does have dual sub outputs as far as I know.

 

[kornphlake]

The receiver does have dual sub outputs but those are just full range volume controlled outputs, there is no high pass crossover for the main speakers and the sub outputs are not low passed. You have a lot more control integrating the sub with main speakers when you have the ability to high pass the mains. I'm not saying it can't be done, you can set the crossover on the sub at the natural rolloff frequency of the mains, but the mains natural rolloff isn't always ideal.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Well, the sub question is really not a question at all at the moment as I only aspire to a 2.0 setup for the time being.