Yesterday morning FedEx delivered the new surround receiver while I was walking the dogs. Even though I needed to be at a wedding in the early afternoon, I figured I had an hour or so to mess around with the new receiver and maybe get it set up. I took it out of the box first and it looked about the same size as my old Onkyo receiver. Also, I wouldn’t be needing my old Blu-ray player, so that left even a little more room on the shelf below the TV, which can’t hurt in something that gets pretty warm. So first I had to disconnect everything from the Onkyo receiver, which is a chore because everything connected into it including 8 speakers. Then I put the new receiver in place and started getting it hooked up.
One decision was whether to use the receiver as an input selector for the TV or as an optional sound source. With my old setup, it was optional and I could play any source through the TV without turning on the receiver. And my new UHD Blu-ray player has an audio output HDMI port that would let me run video and audio directly to the TV whether I was using the receiver or not, so I decided to try that. I still had to connect the cable box to the receiver and then to the TV since the cable box only has one HDMI output but the receiver would generally be left with cable selected which allows the pass through even if the receiver is off.
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