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Help with sound system. (1 Viewer)

Stan

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I figure I'm allowed one stupid question per month, so here's my December question.
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Have DISH Network with their receiver and a decent HDTV. Been using just the TV speakers, which are okay, but I could do a lot better.

Had two DVD players, but got rid of them. I was an early adopter, so they dated back to the late '90s and didn't have HDMI outputs.

Looking at a new Blu-Ray player and a sound system to go with it.

Question is how do I hook things up? Is there an output from the DISH receiver? I'm also assuming there will be an output from the Blu-Ray player. But will the sound system have a way to switch between DISH and Blu-Ray? Haven't done something like this for many years so a bit out of touch.

Any advice, kind of like "Sound System 101" would really be helpful.

Done for now, next stupid question will be on hold until January :blink:
 

Dheiner

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It depends.

In general, if your TV has a sound output, you just plug that into a sound bar, for an easy solution.

Or, if you want to make a trip into "Upgradeland" (Which ain't got no end...) you could get a Receiver, (or a Pre-amp/Amp combination). That would allow you to plug your Dish receiver, and Blu-Ray into it. You would also have to get speakers. Could be from 2 to 8, for a fairly standard set-up.

Then it starts to get a little complicated.....
 

Wayne A. Pflughaupt

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The Dish receiver will have an HDMI output, just like the blu-ray player. Both will plug into a standard A/V receiver, or a sound bar (pick one you can’t combine them). Yes, you will have to switch inputs between the blu-ray and Dish, just as you had to switch between the two DVD players. It’s always been that way. The A/V receiver or sound bar can both accomplish that.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt
 

PhilAR

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Hi Stan!

The good news is that things haven't changed that much since you last dabbled... just kidding, they've changed a TON! But for your needs, the biggest changes to worry about are the cables and inputs/outputs. No more RCAs with the white/red audio and yellow video. HDMI takes care of all of that. And instead of hooking everything up to the TV, all of the individual components' HDMIs (DVD/Blu-Ray, Dish TV, XBox, PlayStation, etc) go to the receiver inputs and a single HDMI goes from the receiver output to the TV input. Switch your sources through the receiver instead of the TV.

I'll let the equipment pros bring you up to speed on the gear. Price ceilings on gear are without limit, but you can do what you're looking to do (enrich your movie and TV watching experience at home, I assume) for less than $1,000.

You can spend $60 or $600 on a Blu-Ray player and they'll both play discs.
You can spend $200 or $2,000 on a receiver and they'll both send a good 5.1 (or 5.2) audio signal.
You get the point. And I'm sure you're already up to speed on running speakers. Don't skimp on the subwoofer and front three, yadda yadda yadda.

Hope this helps.

Phil

Edit: Oh, and whatever you do, don't let the salespeople tell you that you need $100 super-duper cables. Not at all.Any HDMI 2.0 cable will work for basic connections.
 
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