I hate remotes: Looking for Receiver with auto on/off based on active TOSlink input

How about a universal remote like one from Harmony? It makes using a multiple component system with different functions very easy to operate.

Bill

I understand your point but what about simple functions such as volume control and track changes? I remember when devices didn't have remotes as well. At that time you had to manually push the buttons for on/off, volume control and channel changes on ones TV. I much prefer the present even if it means if I have to carry my 688 around .

Bill

No such beast.

Just buy a Denon (or similar) receiver. They have iOS remote apps available, so you can use your iOS device to turn the receiver on/off, and select the input for Airplay. Then you'll have volume control, zone control, etc.

Well what you're looking for doesn't exist.... it's just a single extra 2 steps to use an app to turn on the AVR, then start using AppleTV via iOS Remote app. I do this all the time and it is very intuitive and convenient. The whole process takes 7 seconds, max.

Just leave the receiver always turned on.

No, of course not. How would a receiver know which active input you want to use? There's a good chance that your Apple TV's optical digital output is always active. Would you want your receiver to always switch back to the Apple TV's input when you're trying to use another device?

An auto-sensing receiver would use an inordinate amount of power to be in that kind of "standby ready" state. Maybe 100watts consumption. Totally inefficient.

yeah lol it would basically be using the exact same amount of power as it normally does in its off/idle state waiting to see a signal from a remote to turn on, but regardless you are one lazy dude to not wana take the 3 seconds to switch to the remote control app. Also the usual design implementation on active lines is to send a wake up/on pulse on the wire to tell the device to start listening

Let us know when you can design such a thing for 10W. I'm not trying to be an a-hole, just revealing a dose of reality.

You only asked for something that could turn on automatically, and you don't need the remote to turn it on if you just leave it on.
It would have to switch to that input first and try decoding it in order to see what if anything is being transmitted.

Look at all the complaints people have here about auto-sensing subwoofers that don't turn on when they expect them to. It would be much worse to have your receiver turning off and on and switching inputs when you didn't expect it. There's no market for this, and if you think it through you'd probably realize you don't even want it.

Based on your stated requirements so far, what should work for you is an AV receiver with AirPlay support. Leave it always on or in network standby mode and it should automatically switch to the internal AirPlay input whenever you start playing something using AirPlay.

my marantz av7005 auto-senses when i stream to it from jriver or pandora. it will turn on and automatically switch to the "network" input without having to pick up a remote or switch to the marantz app. it is, however, an airplay avr. also, it does not auto shutoff.

At least some AV receivers can be set to go into standby automatically after they haven't been operated for a certian amount of time.

Not sure where this thread is heading, but I'm currently putting together an A/V system along the lines of Marty's thinking, I think. I'd like to touch a remote as little as possible.

At the moment, I've got an Apple TV and a couple of other devices plugged into an auto-switching HDMI switch. The output goes to my TV via an audio extractor that feeds the audio to a class-T amp, which I have been leaving on much of the time. No receiver.

One problem is the Apple TV, which doesn't ever turn off and even in standby it doesn't cut its signal to the HDMI switch. So if the XBox is active, and I send audio to the Apple TV, there's no change in state to make it switch back to Apple TV.

Now what I really need is an auto-sensing toslink switch so I can get my TV audio into the system without touching it. And if that existed, I could just use my Airport Express instead of the ATV for audio.

And just throwing this out there -- if you want auto-off, how about presence-sensing or timer-based power strips?

That assumes the Airport Express doesn't behave like the Apple TV. Since the Airport Express never goes into standby it has even more reason to keep its optical output always active.

Pick up a separate auto-sensing switch, something along the lines of the Audio Authority 1154 for analong & toslink, or one of the Moniprice options for hdmi, and feed it onto a single input on your avr, which you leave on & set to that input.

Best I can do, sorry

I'm trying to find the same type of setup as well. The best I've found is the Emotiva mini-X a-100:

http://shop.emotiva.com/collections/amplifiers/products/a100

The drawback is it doesn't have a toslink input.