Inherited “old“ receiver from my father, what next?

[LucaMotz]

Hello!
I recently inherited an old Onkyo TX-SR875 and hooked up my old Elac FS67 pair to it. Shortly after I bought an Elac Debut C6.2 and two Elac Debut B5.2 (as surrounds).
I then acquired two dirt cheap speakers and put them right behind my sofa for a 7.0 setup. Soon after I realised practically nothing gives me a true 7.1 signal. This led me to discover that my receiver has this neural THX 7.1 mode which to my ears does a great job of making everything sound “way more awesome”.
Well after a bit of Googling I also discovered that this neural THX mode seems to be quite old.

Now I was wondering if it was worth the money to get some new shiny receiver and go down some kind of Dolby atmos route (bear in mind I live in an apartment and the only way I could do it would be using these Dolby atmos enabled floor speakers that project to the ceiling), or just stick with what I have, or even upgrade some of the speakers first.

Regarding speaker upgrades: I actually think I am rather happy with the quality and honestly when I hooked up the center, which is of a lower quality than my front left and right, I was rather happy with its quality. So I assumed I wouldn’t be able to really appreciate something high end.
Well enough rambling, what do you think?

 

[LucaMotz]

Hello!
I recently inherited an old Onkyo TX-SR875 and hooked up my old Elac FS67 pair to it. Shortly after I bought an Elac Debut C6.2 and two Elac Debut B5.2 (as surrounds).
I then acquired two dirt cheap speakers and put them right behind my sofa for a 7.0 setup. Soon after I realised practically nothing gives me a true 7.1 signal. This led me to discover that my receiver has this neural THX 7.1 mode which to my ears does a great job of making everything sound “way more awesome”.
Well after a bit of Googling I also discovered that this neural THX mode seems to be quite old.

Now I was wondering if it was worth the money to get some new shiny receiver and go down some kind of Dolby atmos route (bear in mind I live in an apartment and the only way I could do it would be using these Dolby atmos enabled floor speakers that project to the ceiling), or just stick with what I have, or even upgrade some of the speakers first.

Regarding speaker upgrades: I actually think I am rather happy with the quality and honestly when I hooked up the center, which is of a lower quality than my front left and right, I was rather happy with its quality. So I assumed I wouldn’t be able to really appreciate something high end.
Well enough rambling, what do you think?

attached are some photos of my viewing area.

 

[nads]

More likely to be some setting on the amp or the blu ray player you have not configured correctly. Remember you need a suitably recorded source to get a 7.1 reproduction.

 

[Deleted member 196519]

Hello!
I recently inherited an old Onkyo TX-SR875 and hooked up my old Elac FS67 pair to it. Shortly after I bought an Elac Debut C6.2 and two Elac Debut B5.2 (as surrounds).
I then acquired two dirt cheap speakers and put them right behind my sofa for a 7.0 setup. Soon after I realised practically nothing gives me a true 7.1 signal. This led me to discover that my receiver has this neural THX 7.1 mode which to my ears does a great job of making everything sound “way more awesome”.
Well after a bit of Googling I also discovered that this neural THX mode seems to be quite old.

Now I was wondering if it was worth the money to get some new shiny receiver and go down some kind of Dolby atmos route (bear in mind I live in an apartment and the only way I could do it would be using these Dolby atmos enabled floor speakers that project to the ceiling), or just stick with what I have, or even upgrade some of the speakers first.

Regarding speaker upgrades: I actually think I am rather happy with the quality and honestly when I hooked up the center, which is of a lower quality than my front left and right, I was rather happy with its quality. So I assumed I wouldn’t be able to really appreciate something high end.
Well enough rambling, what do you think?

I remember having a demo of this amp at AVLand and it got 5 stars from WHF. It’s a THX ultra 2 plus amp. Bargain of its kind back in the day.

 

[Tinman1952]

attached are some photos of my viewing area.
View attachment 2776View attachment 2777View attachment 2778

I think those speakers firing into the back of the settee are a waste of time. Much better to have them as front ‘height’ speakers…..

 

[LucaMotz]

I remember having a demo of this amp at AVLand and it got 5 stars from WHF. It’s a THX ultra 2 plus amp. Bargain of its kind back in the day.

I loaned a Denon AVC-4700H today and also added Elac atmos enabled upfiring speakers to the mix (at the front) and when I listened to some atmos music it sounded quite amazing honestly. I was running out of time but quickly tried some Star Wars scenes which the receiver scaled up to atmos from 5.1 source and that was quite eye opening as well.
I am now considering buying the Denon which would set me back 1500€.
If I did that I would probably end up with another 500€ or so left to spend on the system till the end of the year. What do you think?

 

[LucaMotz]

I think those speakers firing into the back of the settee are a waste of time. Much better to have them as front ‘height’ speakers…..

So I have them resting on the sofa back support part now. They are quite close to the listener that way but do sound way better obviously. To be honest though I got them for like 8€ at a yard sale kinda event. So they are complete trash.
I am kinda worried that I‘m not really able to single them out as a weakness in my system right now.
Like to me everything seems awesome right now and I don’t know if I should actually be sitting there thinking “oh my, those rear surrounds do sound awful”
Is it still worth upgrading them, even if I can’t really single them out for their lack of quality, or would that be a waste of money then?

 

[Tinman1952]

I loaned a Denon AVC-4700H today and also added Elac atmos enabled upfiring speakers to the mix (at the front) and when I listened to some atmos music it sounded quite amazing honestly. I was running out of time but quickly tried some Star Wars scenes which the receiver scaled up to atmos from 5.1 source and that was quite eye opening as well.
I am now considering buying the Denon which would set me back 1500€.
If I did that I would probably end up with another 500€ or so left to spend on the system till the end of the year. What do you think?

Sounds good. If you liked what you heard then go for it! Much better than trying to decide from written reviews….👍

 

[LucaMotz]

More likely to be some setting on the amp or the blu ray player you have not configured correctly. Remember you need a suitably recorded source to get a 7.1 reproduction.

Well that is the thing. With the receiver not supporting atmos I can only really enjoy 5.1 content. This is why I tried out an atmos enabled receiver today.
That did make quite the difference…

 

[LucaMotz]

Sounds good. If you liked what you heard then go for it! Much better than trying to decide from written reviews….👍

I will probably end up pulling the trigger. The only thing that’s worrying me right now is that I can’t really hear the difference between those different speakers I have. Like my left and right surrounds should be sounding much better than my back left and right surrounds but I honestly can‘t really tell. Keep in mind, the back speakers probably cost like 50€ new whereas the left and right surrounds go for nearly 300€ a pair.

 

[Tinman1952]

So I have them resting on the sofa back support part now. They are quite close to the listener that way but do sound way better obviously. To be honest though I got them for like 8€ at a yard sale kinda event. So they are complete trash.
I am kinda worried that I‘m not really able to single them out as a weakness in my system right now.
Like to me everything seems awesome right now and I don’t know if I should actually be sitting there thinking “oh my, those rear surrounds do sound awful”
Is it still worth upgrading them, even if I can’t really single them out for their lack of quality, or would that be a waste of money then?

To be honest not much comes out of rear surrounds most of the time for movies. Some ambient sounds or the occasional sound effect…. 80% of what is on screen and all the dialogue comes from the centre channel.

 

[nads]

Well that is the thing. With the receiver not supporting atmos I can only really enjoy 5.1 content. This is why I tried out an atmos enabled receiver today.
That did make quite the difference…

I suggest you read the manual. It is a 7.1 amp and can do a whole pile of stuff which was why it was so highly rated when launched.
I have the not quite so highly specked 805 so have some idea what it could do.

 

[LucaMotz]

To be honest not much comes out of rear surrounds most of the time for movies. Some ambient sounds or the occasional sound effect…. 80% of what is on screen and all the dialogue comes from the centre channel.

Well true. But a lot of the soundtrack in the Star Wars scenes I was watching seemed to come out of the backs and well Star Wars being Star Wars had lots of booomy boom sounds coming out of them, too.
And then there’s the big atmos music elephant entering the room, which makes those speakers much more important again..

 

[LucaMotz]

I suggest you read the manual. It is a 7.1 amp and can do a whole pile of stuff which was why it was so highly rated when launched.
I have the not quite so highly specked 805 so have some idea what it could do.

Well as I said I was getting 7.1 content upmixed from 5.1 sources. That was sounding fine. Those streaming services (except apple plus funnily enough) didn’t give me a full 7.1 (or rather atmos source and then downmixed) source though.
Trying out a full blown atmos system today did. make quite the difference. And that would be something that the old Onkyo is just not capable of.

 

[Deleted member 196519]

I loaned a Denon AVC-4700H today and also added Elac atmos enabled upfiring speakers to the mix (at the front) and when I listened to some atmos music it sounded quite amazing honestly. I was running out of time but quickly tried some Star Wars scenes which the receiver scaled up to atmos from 5.1 source and that was quite eye opening as well.
I am now considering buying the Denon which would set me back 1500€.
If I did that I would probably end up with another 500€ or so left to spend on the system till the end of the year. What do you think?

I am not sure to be honest, I haven’t heard an Atmos system before, but if you like it then why not.

 

[LucaMotz]

So those are the changes to the system. Even listening to stereo music having the receiver upmixing it makes quite the difference. I raised the speakers behind the sofa up so they don’t sound as terrible. They are terrible speakers though, so I am currently in the process of deciding if I can hear them being terrible or not. I would be interested in upgrading my front towers (they were a birthday present for my 16th birthday, so it‘s been a while) and use the towers as surrounds, but I‘m afraid my room won’t allow towers as surrounds.
The only other thing I can see myself doing would be upgrading those crappy back surrounds to another set of Elac bookshelf speakers.
The obvious missing piece right now is a sub, but even with the bass coming from my towers I feel quite bad for my neighbours..

Does anyone here have experience with doing a 7.0.4 system with only atmos enabled upfiring speakers? I read on a couple of sites that having 4 instead of 2 atmos speakers makes a huge difference, but I wasn’t sure if that’s still the case if the speakers are not actually ceiling mounted..

 

[Tinman1952]

I read on a couple of sites that having 4 instead of 2 atmos speakers makes a huge difference

Personally I think in your small space that 2 Atmos height speakers will be sufficient…. If not on the ceiling then high up on the wall above your front speakers.

 

[LucaMotz]

Personally I think in your small space that 2 Atmos height speakers will be sufficient…. If not on the ceiling then high up on the wall above your front speakers.

Thanks!
What do you think about the current setup with the upfiring atmos enabled speakers?

 

[Tinman1952]

Thanks!
What do you think about the current setup with the upfiring atmos enabled speakers?

Yes. If you cannot or do not want to fix speakers to your ceiling or walls then I think it’s a good alternative.

 

[LucaMotz]

Personally I think in your small space that 2 Atmos height speakers will be sufficient…. If not on the ceiling then high up on the wall above your front speakers.

So I did some rearranging of the back speakers using them as atmos upfiring speakers. Both speakers are now mounted above the listening position firing into the ceiling and reflecting down. From what I‘ve heard so far (only music listening) the results were really good, much better than before. I‘d really like to figure the front atmos speakers out, but mounting those in a similar fashion would probably look rather ridiculous.
Ah well, now that I have rearranged stuff I will get to testing after the weekend (pretty busy the next couple of days) and figure stuff out from there.

thanks a lot for your advice so far!

 

[Tinman1952]

So I did some rearranging of the back speakers using them as atmos upfiring speakers. Both speakers are now mounted above the listening position firing into the ceiling and reflecting down. From what I‘ve heard so far (only music listening) the results were really good, much better than before. I‘d really like to figure the front atmos speakers out, but mounting those in a similar fashion would probably look rather ridiculous.
Ah well, now that I have rearranged stuff I will get to testing after the weekend (pretty busy the next couple of days) and figure stuff out from there.

thanks a lot for your advice so far!

The important thing is what works for you. Enjoy! 👍