[CombuSTIon]


Ok, new here, and I promise that I tried to dig around as best I could before asking but could not find exact enough info... 

 

My wife saw me sorting through the fistfulls of cabling behind the AVR recently and asked why there was so much, and I explained that an HDMI capable tuner would fix 90% of that; amazingly she saw the light and is allowing me to upgrade!  

 

I'm currently looking at upgrading from my old Denon AVR-3803 to a AVR-X4000, but in looking at the rear pic of the unit I am not sure that it will properly support my current 6.1 speaker configuration as it breaks out the rear channels to left and right?

 

http://usa.denon.com/Assets/images/products/AVR-X4000/EL_avrX4000_e3_bk_re.jpg

 

When I look at the Denon site it talks all about DTS 6.1 compatibility, but this likely has little to do with physical speaker configuration...  Is there a mode in the setup if I have a 6.1 speaker setup that will tell me to just plug into the left or right and just downmix the two channels down, or am I going to be forced to brave the wife and explain that I need to also add in a new speaker and change current placement of the rears for the new unit (I'd rather not do that just yet)...

 

Anyone with practical knowledge on this?  

 

Thanks Much!

 

[Phil17108]

The 4000 has all the decoding for surround sound. You can go the the Denon website and down load the owners manual. What it's going to tell you is the speaker jacks to use maybe a little change in the settings and then run Audyssey, the thing well set its self up. I just did the same thing and used the opportunity to add a speaker for 7.1. The Audyssey is what made the thing sound right.

 

[CombuSTIon]


Nailed it, page 158 of the e-manual gives a quick one sentence blurb that eludes that it will work and that in this config use the left channel as your single rear, thank you sir!  

 

This said though, it appears that this will eat my amped Zone 2...  It kind of seems like, although there are many new advents in audio tech, in some respects the tuners don't have quite all of the functionality (I/O's and such) and overall 'torque' that they used to...  Am I just missing something?  Also, there are nowhere near as many offerings as there used to be option wise; I guess everyone is going with speaker bars nowadays??!?

 

[Phil17108]

Yes sound bars are very popular today have 2 myself on TV's in other rooms in the house. I gave the zone 2 idea some though, and what to do with it, out side speakers maybe. Dropped it as way to much work for little return. Some times I think manufactures put capability in the box just to run the price up. When is the last time you used S-video, composite video in or out? Backwards compatibility is a wast of time in the new world of Audio/Video. But you never know, there may be people watching 20 year old VHS tapes with a Hi End home theater system!