Good system for my PS3

[arthursiew]

I am looking for some surround sound speakers and a good receiver for my PS3. I am not looking to spend that much. What can you recommend? I want my PS3 to play some HD sound for games and Blu-ray movies.

I currently have a FM-AM receiver, so I don't think it will produce HD sound. I have a Sony STR-DE545, and 5.1 Bose Surround Sond that's pretty old. It will be nice if I don't have to buy new speakers, cause these Bose were expensive.

[webseeker2008]

Try an onkyo 5.1 or 7.1 system

[arthursiew]

I would like to keep my current speakers. They are quiet old, so if I wanted to get a HDMI Receiver... will it affect them in anyway? Will it still play the HD sounds you get from watching blu-rays and games? What receiver is cheap, and good? I want to connect my 60GB PS3 to it.

[tbizzle]

You could get an Onkyo 605 or 606, that would allow you to utilize HDMI with your PS3 and it will give you plenty of power to drive your speakers nicely. And your speakers will play HD audio, it's the receiver you gotta worry about. So make sure you get a receiver that's can decode HD audio, like the Onkyo 6 series or up. A couple of other great brands are Yamaha, Sony, Marantz and Denon, although I don't have any experience with them

And if you're looking at upgrading your sound system, I would start off with some nice towers, and then build from there. Anyone on here will give you the same advice: it's better to build a quality system piece by piece, instead of buying a cheaper 5.1 system all at once.

Or are you just looking at buying a smaller HTIB system? I would recommend looking into some towers, they'll make a huge difference in your movies, music and games

[arthursiew]

Originally Posted by tbizzle

You could get an Onkyo 605 or 606, that would allow you to utilize HDMI with your PS3 and it will give you plenty of power to drive your speakers nicely. And your speakers will play HD audio, it's the receiver you gotta worry about. So make sure you get a receiver that's can decode HD audio, like the Onkyo 6 series or up. A couple of other great brands are Yamaha, Sony, Marantz and Denon, although I don't have any experience with them

And if you're looking at upgrading your sound system, I would start off with some nice towers, and then build from there. Anyone on here will give you the same advice: it's better to build a quality system piece by piece, instead of buying a cheaper 5.1 system all at once.

Or are you just looking at buying a smaller HTIB system? I would recommend looking into some towers, they'll make a huge difference in your movies, music and games

I am interested in the Onkyo 605 rite now. Since I only have 4 of the five speakers right now (back left and rite, and front left and right), I am only interested in connecting the back left and right for now. Can I still connect my PS3 to the receiver via HDMI, and get HD sound from only two speakers? I'm looking at the cables to connect the speakers to the receiver and they look like cables with the medal tips on the end. Are those the right cables to connect to those new receivers? On my receiver, you need to press a tab which keeps the cable locked in place.

[tbizzle]

Originally Posted by arthursiew

I am interested in the Onkyo 605 rite now. Since I only have 4 of the five speakers right now (back left and rite, and front left and right), I am only interested in connecting the back left and right for now. Can I still connect my PS3 to the receiver via HDMI, and get HD sound from only two speakers?

Sweet, the Onkyo 605 is a great receiver! And yes, your speakers will play whatever the receiver sends to them, no matter how many speakers you have. So yes, you'll be able to listen to only 2 speakers

QUESTION: Why do you just want to only hook up your surround speakers? If anything, you would just want a 2 channel setup, which means just your 2 fronts. The 2 fronts will play the entire movie, and if you add the surrounds in the back, your receiver sends them the movies background noise. If you just hook up your rears, all you will hear is bullet ricochets, cars driving by, etc. So I would recommend hooking up all of the speakers you have. Especially if you have the center speaker, which takes care of all the dialogue in the movie, as well as a lot of the music and sound effects

Originally Posted by arthursiew

I'm looking at the cables to connect the speakers to the receiver and they look like cables with the medal tips on the end. Are those the right cables to connect to those new receivers? On my receiver, you need to press a tab which keeps the cable locked in place.

Yeah that's the way receivers used to be, with the tab design. The way that you connect your speakers now, on the back of your receiver will be speaker terminals that you will slide the speaker cable into, and screw a knob down that holds them in place. It'll show you how to do that in the Onkyo manual

[RBBrittain]

Your current receiver has a 6-channel analog input, so if you're happy with it you can get the Atlona or Ambery box described in this thread to extract 6-channel analog from the PS3's HDMI output. Either box is cheaper than a new AVR, but you'd still get HD audio--though you might not get all the processing options of a current AVR.

Otherwise, I'd second the other recommendations; the Onkyo 605 & 606 should both work well for you, as well as any other AVR whose HDMI inputs are NOT "passthrough". (It does NOT need TrueHD or DTS-HD MA decoders, but any stand-alone AVR with those decoders will work as they'll have the correct HDMI inputs.) I have a Sony HTIB myself, but your wanting to keep your existing speakers means a stand-alone AVR is best for you.

Also, you'll probably want to review the thread I linked above for setup instructions for your PS3. Your PS3 should be set to decode all audio to Linear PCM (as instructed in that thread), as pre-Slim PS3s like yours will *not* bitstream TrueHD or DTS-HD MA. This means you won't see a Dolby or DTS light on your AVR; but as long as the right soundtrack is selected, you'll still get HD audio.