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Okay, I am officially obsolete in terms of understanding what's being offered these days in home entertainment systems. I got my start with Marantz and Technics and other names no one here is old enough to remember. Reel to reel tape was the epitome of high fidelity reproduction, and video was laid down on 1" magnetic tape. Later I upgraded to 4 track, then 8 track tape, then on to cassettes and the magic of Dolby. Since then I've fallen a bit behind the curve...
My last purchase was a perfectly excellent receiver made by Technics (Panasonic) to match my turntable and cassette player. Both of the latter have since died, but the receiver is still going strong, so when my favorite lady suffered a terminal stereo receiver event at her house, I quite chivalrously offered my receiver as a replacement. The shameless hussy took me up on the offer, so I now have a TV and a DVD player left, and the TV isn't much good. It's time to build a new system from the ground up, starting with a decent receiver. I found a reasonably priced one at Walmart, an Onkyo HT-RC560 7.2 channel Network A/V Receiver that I think is a good platform on which to build my next, and possibly last entertainment system, but I have no idea what most of its features do for me.
Can someone point me to a tutorial about current tech so that I can at least read and understand the specs?
Will Rogers never met me.
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I am at least old enough to remember Marantz, you brought back fond memories of my first system.  I gave up on trying to understand the ipod generation's systems and play my music on window's media player, amplified through a system I bought at Wal-Mart. 
<sig notetoself="think of a better signature">
<first>Jim</first> <last>Meadors</last>
</sig>
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So, you are currently This guy[^] - it was ever thus for me...
Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952)
Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)
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Roger, you and me share the same problems. I don't have a HIFI anymore except that in my car where I stick a CD in and press a button to eject it. There's no ambiguity; it either works or it doesn't and if it doesn't then turning that rotary knob left or right to adjust the volume usually does the trick.
I have a similar setup on my iMac at home. I stick a CD in and the blasted thing greedily accepts it. There's no button to eject it, nothing. You have to press a so-called eject key. Maybe that works in Mac OS mode but I run mine using 7. The eject key does not always work, so I have to reboot.  On the few occasions I've used the CD slot I've regretted it so I don't bother anymore.
Best of luck in your mission to bring yourself into the 21st Century. You'll need it!
If there is one thing more dangerous than getting between a bear and her cubs it's getting between my wife and her chocolate.
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I usually look at a few things.
Many ways to input devices.
Nowadays you need more then a few male jacks for plugging in noise. There are optical cables, single jacks, double jacks (meaning the goold old fashioned white/red set), headphone jacks, usb ports, HDMI, dock connecters, bluetooth, ...
not sure what exists nowadays, but I would go for the more the merrier (you never know what they'll invent tomorrow)
Output
I find a 100 Watt system already powerful enough for home entertainment (I think they use RMS now, which has a different scale somehow) A system capable of 5.1/dts is always nice.
remote control
They try to connect devices so you can use them with one remote. Useless feature, because you'll probably never buy all devices from the same manufacturer.
Mine is a JVC I bought 10 years ago, wonderful machine, still does the job as it was new.
hope this helps.
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That helps a bit, V. 
By the way, honest manufacturers have always used RMS ratings; only a few played dirty using other terms. RMS is simply an acronym for a mathematical formula - Root-Mean-Square. What it means is that, for each point on a signal waveform, you square the value first, then calculate the mean of all the values. Since an ac signal has positive and negative, calculating the mean directly won't work, since most of the samples will be cancelled out by equally valued samples of opposite sign. The last step is to take the square root of the mean to return the value to a real scale. The reason we use RMS is to compare apples to apples when dealing with random samples of music signals. No matter what the wave shape might be, RMS reduces it to a common measure. It's easy to explain mathematically, but difficult in words. If you're curious, I'm sure Wikipedia has a decent explanation, with examples.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Onkyo at Walmart? Onkyo used to make top of the line equipment but like you I wouldn't know what features to look for.
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That surprised me, too! I'm not sure what specs are important, but I do know that my old one didn't have enough inputs for the devices I had. This one has a bunch of HDMI jacks, so I suspect that's a good thing. I can remember guys arguing about channel power, THD, bandwidth, dynamic range and such, and spending thousand$ on equipment that had specs far beyond what the human ear is capable of detecting. I'm thinking those days are over, and all the signal processing is done on a single IC used by all of them, so I don't need to read the details.
Will Rogers never met me.
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Yeah I can remember back in the day the EE's I worked with describing all the specs for their equipment and it was way over my head. I'm about have deaf anyway and have had a ringing in my ears since my little excursion across the big pond so for me to spend all that money on equipment would be a waste.
Roger Wright wrote: I'm thinking those days are over, and all the signal processing is done on a single IC used by all of them, so I don't need to read the details.
I think you're probably right, the only difference is the output power and the number of devices you can plug into it.
On a different note: Am heading to the west again for a month and going to be working my way around much of AZ and UT, don't know whether I'll get up your way or not but will give you a shout if I do, maybe we can get together this time?
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That would be good fun!
Will Rogers never met me.
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Still having problems with your neighbors? You could really piss them off with this[^].
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
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I'll see your Behringer and raise you a Labgruppen[^]It isn't just much more Power but also actually considered HIFI.
It also has a pricetag with two more digits in it. 
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Buy a Heathkit and assemble it yourself! 
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You know you want to... just click on it[^]. And turn the speakers up real loud! 
Will Rogers never met me.
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Thanks now I got that dang song in my head again.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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Muwahahahahahaaa...
Will Rogers never met me.
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You arean evil man, Roger, pure evil.
Within you lies the power for good - Use it!
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Given the choice between being water-boarded and watching this Flash animation, I would have to say: "fill 'er up."
“The best hope is that one of these days the Ground will get disgusted enough just to walk away ~ leaving people with nothing more to stand ON than what they have so bloody well stood FOR up to now.” Kenneth Patchen, Poet
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There are actually several animations on that site, Bill. I'm sure you'll find one there to your liking. Trust me. Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated...
Will Rogers never met me.
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I'm sorry, Roger; I know you meant well, but I just can't look at another one until that snake goes away.
yours, Bill
“The best hope is that one of these days the Ground will get disgusted enough just to walk away ~ leaving people with nothing more to stand ON than what they have so bloody well stood FOR up to now.” Kenneth Patchen, Poet
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So it's the snakes that get to you, eh? One of the videos features a (assumed) drunk college kid in a canvass sack playing the part of the snake. Does that help?
Will Rogers never met me.
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BillWoodruff wrote: can't look at another one until that snake goes away
I was getting some land fill in my back field today and more than once I looked at this vine and thought it was a snake. I eventually had to rip it out so I wouldn't be startled when I sat on the log again. 
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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Marmite, and it's cousin ![Good Stuff | [The good stuff]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/vegemite.gif) , are revolting effluent that don't belong anywhere near any kind of food. Ever.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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