wizop

I owned several generations of ONKYO receivers but eventually I had issues with all of them. HDMI audio in stopped working on one. Rear speakers stopped working on another. I switched to Yamaha Aventage and had no further problems. Salesmen in my local BestBuy Magnolia room confirm similar ONKYO stories. i don't have an opinion on Yamaha versus Marantz and can only suggest you look at the specs carefully to make sure that the particular unit has all the channels you'll need as what is included at a particular price point can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

That's fine, but it's not going to add in the extra amp channels needed etc. I'm sure it'll be another hardware upgrade you would have to purchase after the fact. Somewhere in the fine print I remember reading that one hardware upgrade and several software upgrades were included in the price. I'm not sure if I read it online or in one of the booklets that were packed in with the units.

You need to factor in that you don't need a receiver.

I'm very happy with my set even though there is a minor problem with the output of my Sony TV. I chose the floor standing speakers for the fronts and bookshelves for the rears. I did find that I needed to turn down the fronts and turn up the rears but that wasn't difficult to do.

Does your new remote have the Klipsch Wireless HD Controller in its device database? I'm going to be purchasing a new remote this week and Logitech says they support my setup but if the URC is better, I'll look at it.

It is a Sony XBR-55X810C. I have chatted with Sony tech support. There is a setting for TV Speakers that can be changed to Audio System but if the TV can't communicate with the audio system it sets itself back to TV Speakers and no sound is output. The Sony manual clearly states that if ARC doesn't work you'll need to use an optical cable. I tried everything Sony tech suggested and the only thing that worked was an optical cable. If I add an HDMI cable too a message appears on the screen saying it has lost connectivity with the audio system and it turning TV Speakers back on. The only downside of this setup is that I can not see the Klipsch on screen menu. At this point I have a working solution with an optical cable so I'm okay but I'm quite willing to try to help Klipsch debug the problem so that they can figure out what they need to change to make their new controller work with Sony products using HDMI.,

The TV is clearly marked that HDMI_4 is the arc connection. with the Klipsch controller connected there, the TV reverts to its own speakers saying it can not find an audio system. so far the only way I've found to get the TV to output sound is to have the only connection between it and the HD Control be an optical cable.

I’m back to the setup with the cable box connected directly to the TV and only an optical cable connected to the Controller. Whenever I connect an HDMI cable from the Controller to the TV, the TV turns on it’s own speakers and says it can’t find an audio system.

Progress continues. I was able to wire the cable box to the HD controller now that the TV recognizes that there is an Audio System connected with the optical cable. Had a problem with speaker balance. I don't think the controller software recognizes that bookshelf surrounds are not as loud as the front speakers. I had to adjust the fronts quieter and turn up the sides to hear more than 2.1 from the cable box. I'm still not sure whether I'm getting more than 2.1 from the optical cable but that's today's experiment.

I have found something that works after a lot of experimentation. The Sony TV will not let you change the setting from TV Speakers to Audio System unless it can sense the speakers and I never was able to do that with HDMI. Perhaps ARC only works on a port I hadn't tried. ARC is turned on under advanced settings but it doesn't tell you which port to use. I had tried optical but I hadn’t realized that I also needed to change the TV setting. Here is what worked. I connected the Cable Box directly to the TV instead of to the controller and connected an optical cable from the TV to the controller and then told the TV to use an Audio System and it found it. I have the Klipsch controller set to optical. The downside of this is that I can’t bring up the Klipsch menu on the TV but I can try connecting a cable from the controller to the TV’s HDMI2 and change to that input when I need to change the settings. I haven’t tried connecting the cable box to the controller now that I know that the optical works. I suspect that might not work as currently I have the controller set to optical and I think it would need to be set to hdmi1 to pass the cable signal through and I suspect it would also send the hdmi signal instead of the optical signal to the speakers. I see two issues Klipsch needs to work on. 1) figuring out why the ARC port on the TV doesn’t see the controller. 2) allowing video to pass though to the hdmi out while playing the audio from a different input. Perhaps you can do this now. I haven’t tried.

No, unplugging the cable box doesn't help. Settings on the TV give a choice between TV Speakers and Audio System but so far no matter how I cable things it won't let me change to Audio System because it says it can't find one. I'm not passing the cable back out because I can test with the cable box off. when the cable box is feeding the TV everything is good because the Klipsch controller is ahead of the TV. the problem is when the TV is streaming something from the internet like Amazon or Pandora. I've tried everything I can think of. there is no HDMI marked as out just HDMI4 marked as ARC. there is an optical out but no go.

I believe Optical can only support 5.1. Can you share pics of your new setup? 5.1 is all I have so far so that isn't a problem. right now the TV is giving me 0.0 though whether I use hdmi or optical or both. will try to get some pictures soon.

I have the new wireless Reference Premier setup. I assume that makes me a very early adopter. The speakers weren't cheap even purchased online, but when you consider that the system doesn't need a receiver and I didn't need to tear up drywall to wire the surrounds, the total cost was quite reasonable for what I got. I chose to use bookshelf speakers for the surrounds for budget and aesthetic reasons. The fronts are floor standing and the center is quite sizeable. I have the Control unit installed between my DirecTV box and the TV and the sound on programming from that source is excellent. Okay, it might not satisfy some of the purists here, but it meets my needs quite well. I do have one issue though. So far I have not been able to get sound back from the TV. Obviously when the programming is on the cable-box this isn't necessary, but I have a SONY smart TV and it has a ton of apps like Netflix, Pandora, SiriusXM, etc. and so far everything I've tried has failed to output the sound back to the Klipsch controller. Sony suggested an optical cable but that hasn't helped. They also say HDMI should work if ARC is enabled and I found you had to turn that on in advanced settings, but that didn't help either. I have a ticket open with support, but if anyone has been down this path and found a solution, I'd like to hear it. At this point, I wish I'd bought a dumb TV and got the internet applications from a Bluy-Ray player but the Smart TV's were on sale Superbowl week.

A Logitech Harmony remote will work. You use computer software to tell it what you have. Get the cheapest model that will control the number of devices he has.

I'm no expert but I'd decide on 250's, 260's, or 280's and then use the same all the way around. If there were any way to get speakers in the ceiling, I'd do that for Atmos.. I'm shopping for an Atmos system too and while I really like the Marantz 6010, there are things that are only in the 7010 that I think I'd want while with Yamaha the 2050 seems to have them and it is priced like the 6010. Yamaha is worth a look. You can also get some deals on last year's models. With Marantz that means model numbers that end with 9 rather than 10 and with Yamaha it means models ending with 40 rather than 50.