[glockuser]

Here's my dilemna: I have a Pioneer HTIB set up with 5 disc changer, the DVD player went out and now I'm forced to find a "head" replacement to push the 5 speakers and sub. The problem I'm having is finding a unit that has the right connections. I currently have speaker wire run through the walls and that's how it needs to connect to the unit. It seems that a lot of companies are going to their own connectors to make it easy for installation. But it makes it difficult to EVER change out a unit.


I'm open to running a DVD player with surround connections (like original) or changing to a surround sound receiver and adding a DVD player. What are my options here?? I would think that if a house was built with surround sound run, it would be with plain speaker wire, not some type of funky plug that was useful for only one system.


Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

You'd be better probably replacing the wall plate with a standard straight wire push type, or 5 way binding post. I don't know exactly what you mean by what type of connectors are on the wall now, but I wanna say I think it might be RCA style.


What model of Pioneer HTIB do you have? It might not even be worth getting a new receiver to power them as they are probably about at their maximum sound and quality capacity on the supplied amp. I don't know your budget, but you can get a nice lower end Yamaha or Denon for around $300-500, and maybe look at some speakers like the Klipsch Quintet III 5.0 speakers and Klipsch Sub-10 from Best Buy for around $700.


Or a very well performing Onkyo 7.1 HTIB for around $550 online, with a very nice feature set and great quality. the S6100. (you don't have to use all 7 speakers, you can use it in a 5.1 setup like you currently have)


What I'm trying to say is probably about 95% of home theater in a box systems, especially with the built in DVD player usually don't have the best speakers. And it's probably time to upgrade your whole system.

 

[glockuser]

I already threw away the DVD player that ran the system so I don't have the model #. I would agree that it's just a throw away HTIB system but now with the speakers in place I'm just trying to replace the "head" and get back to watching movies! I do have an Onkyo TS-XV535 stereo receiver and I thought I might be able to run everything through it but I didn't have any luck getting all the speakers to work. Especially the Sub which most units have the RCA plugs.


As far as my speaker connections, imagine speaker wire coming out of the wall. That's what I have to work with. You'd think that would be most universal but I'm finding that most companies are putting "easy assembly" plus on there.


Thanks for your post.

 

[glockuser]

In my opinion, the Onkyo TX-SR304 would work just fine for me. The only problem is on that unit the sub has an RCA plug and my Sub has the aforementioned speaker wire coming from it with no "plug". Any simple solutions to that??

 

[Tulpa]

I think they make RCA to speaker wire adapters. I would look to replace the sub, though, with one with an RCA input(s). Would definitely sound better with a powered sub like that.


Another option is to find someone who had an Onkyo HT-S590, HT-SR600 or maybe an HT-S3100 that wants to sell the receiver, as those receivers had speaker wire outputs for passive subs (but are otherwise the same receiver as the TX-SR304.)