New Marantz 5009 or old HK AVR + HTPC dilemma

ArnieSilvia

I recently purchased a brand new Marantz SR5009 7.2 Network Home Theater A/V Receiver. I'm also using Tannoy Mercury Fusion 5 speakers set (floorstanders, centre, rears) Got to say the sound is beautiful.

Primary reasons for that purchase:
- USB (playing media from USB sticks)
- blutetooth (playing media from the phone or laptop)
- spotify (access to playlists etc)
- network (access to other 3 PC's in the house for media)
- marantz android app
- future proofed with 4k 60Hz (important when playing PC games), 3d etc.

I have a new house with cat5e cabling throughout and in the living room hard wired everything with network, HDMI 1.3 & 2.0, optical audio plus speaker cables in the walls

The reality:
- USB can't play media from android phone
- blutetooth reduces quality
- spotify requires premium account to use with marantz
- network - and that's a big one - can't play movies over home network so have to have a PC hooked up to it via hdmi
- 5.1 audio from PC over HDMI is nowhere near quality of dedicated PC audio card (Creative Supreme FX XFi)
- I'm yet to see a movie using more than DTS: Neo6 sound. Everything is dumbed down
- Only using full HD tv at present and happy with that

So being unable to play movies over network I brought PC to the living room and after a while I found that I'm not using any of the Marantz AVR futures. I hooked up PC to it and set up my racing sim rig (steering wheel, seat etc) so I figured out I'll keep it here and put it into a nice HTPC case. I come across Jonsbo HTPC, got it and it looks the part.

Now, Jonsbo case looks like part of Harman Kardon AVR lineup from late 2000's and this got me thinking whether to sell Marantz (I got it on sale and they cost more now so likely won't lose on it) and set-up HTPC with older HK AVR (ones with HDMI 1.3). Reason for it is that I don't use network features of the Marantz and start up my PC everytime anyway to play music or movies. Also, it would be nice to have matching looking PC and AVR (trivial reason, I know):D.

The setup would be as follows:

H/K AVR with 1.3 HDMI, 3 optical inputs and component audio input (apart from lots of other outdated connectors) - AVR 255, AVR 355 or similar (must have second zone).

Video:
PC - HDMI 2.0 - TV
SAT box - HDMI 1.3 - H/K AVR - HDMI 1.3 - TV

Audio:
PC - toslink (or composite 5.1 audio???) - H/K AVR - speakers
TV - toslink - H/K AVR (required for some sat boxes)

AVR GUI (required on some older H/K AVR's):
H/K AVR - Composite video (or just yellow video) - TV

What you think? Any possible future challenges? Legacy connector issues?

As daft as it seems, it might work.

akaSol

It will work fine with a few if's/but's:
That beautiful 60 fps / 4k will not exist as older AVR's don't support it. Wiring the PC direct to the TV you will get a better picture (4k60) but by using optical your sound will downgrade to 16bit (DVD) so that might be where the analogue 5.1 might work better

Outside that when I used the 255/355 they tended to soft lock frequently : staying in stand-buy or unable to change source until you cleared power from the board. Which was a pity - I really like there design.

ArnieSilvia

The 4k seems to be the major future-proofing problem indeed. The flipside is that 1920x1080 and 40" at 60Hz is what I will be using for simulators for next 5-7 years so I won't be changing the display, therefore won't be using 4k. My PC can display only around 60fps @ 1920x1080 at ultra detail settings so no point getting better display yet.

I still rate the Marantz SR5009 highly. It can do full 4k at 60Hz which is the key parameter. However, I think that in my circumstances I only need 1080p at 60Hz. There is also content issue as quality varies greatly especially online. High quality video and particularly audio is relatively rare compared to what is offered hardware wise.

My biggest concern is sound. I'm getting another optical cable to compare 5.1 sound from PC via HDMI and optical to receiver. I also discovered that there's a coaxial digital at the back of Sat box so will test that too. I know it won't be "true 5.1" but I'm also hoping to see no or very little loss in quality.

meep

You could also add a cheap an cheerful silent PCIe video card to the HTPC (AMD HD54xx for example) and use that as your audio output device. This would allow you send any audio format to the receiver and continue with the direct HDMI connection from your existing HDMI card to the TV. Much more flexible than a Toslink/SPDIF hook up.

I do this to connect my PC to projector as I run it at an oddball resolution to support contestant height projection.