New receiver advice please

[footman]

My fairly ancient Yamaha RX-A840 receiver has given up the ghost as of yesterday and I can't revive it so I'm looking for a new or used replacement. My needs are to connect my Sky Q box and a DVD player, my Apple TV and Amazon box are now superfluous.
The problem may be the number of speakers I have. There are 2 front, 2 rear and a centre speaker plus a subwoofer. Out of those I suppose I could lose the subwoofer and possibly the 2 rear although that would be a shame. I'm no audiophile and my funds are limited so I'd be grateful for any advice.

 

[hornetstinger]

Any modern AVR will connect to your existing speakers. Why would you ditch the subwoofer and rears?

Unless you just plan to shift to 2.1 or something like that, in which case get a stereo amplifier, but you'll need one with HDMI inputs and coaxial/optical. Just easier to get a AVR.

That A840 was a upper range model, so for similar quality you'd be looking at Yamaha A2A/A4A or similar

 

[footman]

Any modern AVR will connect to your existing speakers. Why would you ditch the subwoofer and rears?

Unless you just plan to shift to 2.1 or something like that, in which case get a stereo amplifier, but you'll need one with HDMI inputs and coaxial/optical. Just easier to get a AVR.

That A840 was a upper range model, so for similar quality you'd be looking at Yamaha A2A/A4A or similar

Thanks for that advice, it's the fact that I was looking at receivers in my price range and they were all 2.1.
However, I seem to have done a workaround by connecting my Sky Q box to the Yamaha using an optical cable which I didn't need before. I suppose that means that something must have failed elsewhere in the system but everything seems to work now...phew!
Once again, thanks for replying.

 

[hornetstinger]

So it's working now? I've been reading various Yamaha stuff can have PSU issues

stereo integrated are 2.0/2.1, also you'll lose DTS/DD decoding and downmixing, LFE soundtrack, HDMI in/out, bass management, room correction so for a AV system, a stereo amp isn't ideal.

 

[tom_nieto]

if you’re on a tight budget you might want to consider something second hand. It does seem silly to lose speakers in your setup that are already in place. AV amps are always ridiculously feature rich and tend not to be out of date for the mainstream user for many years in terms of video and audio processing. The amplifier and PSU bits don’t change all that much over the years.

 

[hornetstinger]

if you’re on a tight budget you might want to consider something second hand. It does seem silly to lose speakers in your setup that are already in place. AV amps are always ridiculously feature rich and tend not to be out of date for the mainstream user for many years in terms of video and audio processing. The amplifier and PSU bits don’t change all that much over the years.

yeah only concern is HDMI 2.1, if gaming.

Otherwise older HDMI 2.0 that is capable enough, if it decodes HD DD/DTS, passes 4K, HDR, HLG etc is good enough.

AVR's have gone up price recently

 

[tom_nieto]

Good point about gaming, but in a bind could you do Console —> TV —> AVR pass through that way?

There’s a Denon AVR-X4700H for £650 on the for sale section which illustrates how much these amps can depreciate. A decent chunk of cash, but a monster of an amp.

 

[theone8181]

Good point about gaming, but in a bind could you do Console —> TV —> AVR pass through that way?

There’s a Denon AVR-X4700H for £650 on the for sale section which illustrates how much these amps can depreciate. A decent chunk of cash, but a monster of an amp.

Ouch. I think I paid 1200 for my 3700 when new, assume the 4700 would have been more. At least someone's getting money back for it.