31–40 of 344 posts
Then Netflix, the race to the bottom in terms of bitstreams and portable devices happened.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious how large this market is. Speaking only anecdotally, when I was in my 20s, I bought a Sony "home theatre in a box" which included receiver, small subwoofer, and small satellite speakers. Over time, I upgraded to an Onkyo reciever and Polk center, surrounds, and subwoofer. But... then I decided I wanted a more minimal look, and switched to a JBL sound bar + subwoofer, which has detachable surrounds -- but…
There are some exaggerated setups showcased by users on reddit (/r/hometheater) You can see people with dedicated movie theatre-like rooms in their home. If you follow the discussions they all seem to have started where you did in your 20s and continued in the opposite direction.
Just in the past few years I was finally in a position to get a nice center channel, then sub, then surrounds, and then I eventually paid an electrician to pull the wires and do a 5.1.2 setup. It's certainly far from essential and overall is still pretty budget, but I love how it sounds for movies, PS5, etc.
There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
The thing is, traditional receivers wanted to be the "brains" of home theater, switching video inputs, managing audio, turning everything on. That role is no longer sensible when used with smart TVs/Apple TV boxes/Android TV boxes. As a result, traditional receivers are relegated to be being audio decoders and amplifiers. Honestly, I think there's already more manufactured and lying around than the world really needs…
I really really wish there were digital audio decoder/processors available. It sucks so bad that you either buy a semi affordable consumer amplifier with 7.2.2 Dolby Atmos out and ok amplification, or if you want to step up you need a $4000+ processor whose only real job is decoding Dolby formats & turning them into analog outs for amplification. And there's almost no market, just a couple odd products like Emotiva's XMC-2: https://emotiva.com/products/xmc-2-plus-16-channel-9-1-6-dis...
Opener standards like DTS would hopefully have some remedy here but if the source material isn't available it hardly matters. Hoping for actual open standards Immersive Audio Model and Format (iamf) and the Eclipsa Audio Format profiles atop that maybe some day give us good spatial audio that an rpi and multichannel sound out board can help us free ourselves from this vile civilization-scale Dolby tarpit with. https://opensource.googleblog.com/2025/01/introducing-eclips...
There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
The thing is, traditional receivers wanted to be the "brains" of home theater, switching video inputs, managing audio, turning everything on. That role is no longer sensible when used with smart TVs/Apple TV boxes/Android TV boxes. As a result, traditional receivers are relegated to be being audio decoders and amplifiers. Honestly, I think there's already more manufactured and lying around than the world really needs…
There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
I feel that sound bars + speakers directly attached to TVs has decimated the "home theatre receiver." "Back in the day", home theatre receivers made sense when you wanted Radio + CD inputs in addition to the TV input. But radio and CD players are gone. There is just TV. Even when I do audio, I run it through the TV. Thus why do you need a separate box? It just seems like a waste. Instead everyone these days are just…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could estimate it from sales or something, but Walmart has a huge wall full of various TVs, and barely one half of one aisle-side of soundbars, and no receivers/speaker setups. I suspect something like 80% of people use the TV, and of those who upgrade, use a soundbar, maybe. And even those with a dedicated theatre room, probably have other TVs that are just TV audio.
People who have a home theater aren’t exactly the core market for Wally World.
Thinking over everyone I know who has a TV, I'm the only one with a receiver connected. I think one has a soundbar.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could estimate it from sales or something, but Walmart has a huge wall full of various TVs, and barely one half of one aisle-side of soundbars, and no receivers/speaker setups. I suspect something like 80% of people use the TV, and of those who upgrade, use a soundbar, maybe. And even those with a dedicated theatre room, probably have other TVs that are just TV audio.
That's a really sad percentage of people listening to such subpar sound that they might as well not be. I understand not everyone can afford nice audio, but a soundbar is such a drastic improvement, VHS=>DVD level of improvement, while a soundbar to surround is a DVD=>BluRay improvement. It's great for those with discerning taste, but not noticed by the vast majority. Granted, I'm not an audiophile, but I've been in/…
It has to be absolutely seamless; the received stopped working and the TV was making the noise instead, and it took a month for me to be finally arsed to go fix it.
There are lots of speaker manufacturers; I'm not too concerned about Polk and B&W. But! There are relatively few home theater receiver makers, and the Denon/Marantz siblings have been a big chunk of them for decades. (Sony, Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon. Nobody else covers the low and mid cost market.)
The thing is, traditional receivers wanted to be the "brains" of home theater, switching video inputs, managing audio, turning everything on. That role is no longer sensible when used with smart TVs/Apple TV boxes/Android TV boxes. As a result, traditional receivers are relegated to be being audio decoders and amplifiers. Honestly, I think there's already more manufactured and lying around than the world really needs…
90+% of the things people complain about would no longer be a problem if they got a traditional A/V receiver, plugged all their sources such as streaming boxes and game consoles into the receiver, and just used the smart TV as a monitor (and as a tuner if they watch OTA television).
Until that is no longer the case there will be a role for traditional A/V receivers.
I feel that sound bars + speakers directly attached to TVs has decimated the "home theatre receiver." "Back in the day", home theatre receivers made sense when you wanted Radio + CD inputs in addition to the TV input. But radio and CD players are gone. There is just TV. Even when I do audio, I run it through the TV. Thus why do you need a separate box? It just seems like a waste. Instead everyone these days are just…
Most people are basic and have basic needs, and a soundbar suffices in most cases. I was sort of one of those people, with a soundbar, because it was easy and convenient. The soundbar came with a wireless subwoofer, and that solved the problem of running wires across my living room. But, I had a gifted B&W 5.1 system with powered sub collecting dust out in my garage for a long time. I recently made the push to dust i…