Okay...I'm going all out next year. I'm going to pimp out my apartments living room and need some things if they can be had cheap.

I need a 56" or bigger DLP that displays 1080p (not i).

I also need a cheap 5.1 receiver with close to 70 watts per channel. I'm going to be running Blu-ray audio out of a HTPC (192kHz 24bit analog) so I don't want any Analog -> Digital -> Analog conversion within the receiver, (I'm not 100% sure this can be done. Please let me know.) I guess some car amps would work for what I am doing. I have (4) 65 watt RMS satellites, (1) 69 watt RMS center, and (1) 188 watt RMS sub. I just need to drive these. Please help me out.

Thanks.

Gonna be hard to find this from a college student. I'll keep my eyes out on the deal sites though.

depending on what you are doing with your htpc, I would suggest looking at the new popcorn hour, $300 and you can add a bluray drive.


http://www.popcornhour.com

Most amplifiers have hdmi ports on them, i would suggest cnet reviews to find a good one in your power needs.

Why run an analog signal from your HTPC? You should run an digital optical cable from your HTPC to your receiver. It's a whole lot better sound quality and you can get cheap optical cables at http://www.monoprice.com. I got a pretty nice 50ft optical cable from them for only $10 or so bucks. Also, watch out for certain DLP TV's. Some brands have a problem with the bulb burning out way too fast and they are like $200+ a piece.

My receiver only has one optical input. I just do all audio to the TV over HDMI, and then optical audio from the tv to the receiver.

First of all, thanks for the Popcorn Hour suggestion, but it's not exactly what I am looking for. I need an all in one and my HTPC is also going to be my storage server. I'm also going to be running a touchscreen off of it in addition to the TV and will have a tuner card for DVR work.

Second, I am going to be running an Asus Xonar and it has better DAC's than any receiver I am going to buy and has good reviews, so I want to let it do all of the work and just pass through everything after that. Optical makes the PC not do any work and passes the DA conversion to the receiver.

I have an Onkyo TX-SR605 and on that, my optical sounds so much better than analog. But thats just me.

KingKoopa - I know what you mean, but that's what the $200 sound card was there for. However, I like the receiver you mentioned even though I am only going to run 5.1. I think that may be the best price/performance I am going to find as it also will work for my amp. My speakers are rated at 69 watts RMS. Could I run these at 90 watts or will it hurt my speakers?

When receivers state their max power output, it doesn't mean that's what they output at all times. You don't have to worry about overpowering your speakers(unless it's like 1000+ Watts too much). What you have to worry about is under powering them. They way most speakers are blown is from people under powering them and turning the volume up too much.

Kingkoopa - Sounds good. That should make it easier to find a receiver, and save me the cost of the sound card by that Onkyo having onboard decoding. Thanks for your help.

I still need a receiver though, so anyone who has one please let me know what it is and what you would want for it.

none of that makes any sense

an amplifiers rating is always listed as what it can constantly output (split over all channels). A speakers power rating should should show a normal value and a peak value. If your amp exceeds the peak rating on your speaker you can potentially damage the speaker if played to loudly for a long period of time. Any good speaker will not pop if you just crank it all of the sudden, unless it is above the power rating for the speaker.

Sorry, maybe I worded it confusingly. Or maybe I'm completely wrong. This is the way I understand it. Please correct me is I am incorrect.
A 1000W receiver is rated to be able to output 1000W at all times, but that doesn't mean it always does. If you hook a 500W sub to a 200W amp, and crank the volume up, to top of the sin curve of the signal sent to the sub will start to flatten out, also known as clipping (pic). When this occurs is when your speaker will blow. Yes, you can blow a speaker at any time even with it powered correctly, but you are much more likely to blow a speaker that is underpowered than a speaker that is overpowered.

Hey Bowser...how do you like your SR605 overall? I'm considering it highly for my setup and was wondering what you though of it. How is the analog to digital video conversion in your eyes? Some reviews said it wasn't "perfect".

I love my receiver. I haven't had any problems with it and the faroudja chip is awesome in my eyes. It converts all my signals from composite, s-video, and component to component and hdmi. The sound quality is top notch too. It's very easy to set up and comes with a microphone to automatically balance your individual speaker volumes (I know a lot of receivers do that nowadays). I highly recommend it. The only problem is that it's discontinued so I wish you luck finding one.