I need to buy a new AVR and BR player. These are for our workout room. Pretty simple setup. A sat box and a BR player. 32" 1080 TV. I use a pair of M3's for this room. I was using a cheap Onkyo, and it has decided it no longer wants to live. The BR player I was using was a first gen Oppo, that has also decided to give up on life.

I was surfing Amazon for one of each, and had no idea there were so many sub $200 BR players available, and so many sub $300 avr's.... It's mind numbing...

I've had great luck with Denon, so I'm inclined to stick with Denon on the AVR. Clueless what BR player to get... Don't need 3D or 4K, but looks like both are standard nowadays.

What would be cool, is if I could get an AVR that I could integrate Blue tooth into for wireless headphones. I see many AVR's offer Bluetooth, but I'm not sure if that just means you can sync a phone to it, or if you can also sync a headphone hub to it???

I've been using a Sony BDR (around $100, 1 model from the top of the line) for 3 years. It has worked flawlessly & plays SACDs as well - stunningly good video out of it.

They are even cheaper now but the lowest model doesn't play SACDs...

TAM

Thanks TAM. I'll look at the Sonys.

I agree, Sony BRPs are cheap, can be had at Costco for under $100 with wifi.

I would stay away from Onkyo, although they have been my go-to choice for many generations because of their HDMI board failure issue on all their models. I had good luck with a Pioneer 11.2, superb sound quality with ESS Sabre32 DACs, but after 2 years, the video out HDMI function just failed. So ...

That leaves Denon and Yamaha. I'd look for a local used unit.

The Onkyo I have been using, has worked fine...till it stopped. Sound output is dead, no matter what input I use. It may have blown a an amp fuse or capacitor. I'm not in the mood to mess with it. Too bad to hear you had troubles with a Pioneer. I was actually looking at one.. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0141JVEHS/ref=...=I17MXQL61ITU7C

This Denon is also one I was looking at... http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017AECEJI/ref=psdc_3213035011_t1_B0141JVEHS

The refurb model is quite a bit less.

I have a Sony like TAM's (BD-6200? I think?) and it works pretty darn well. Says it plays SACDs (haven't even pulled any out), but the network stuff is good, BDs load pretty fast, so I'm happy with it.

Which Onkyo? They have a sound board issue that has a greatly extended warranty where it costs you nothing but a little more than 1 week worth of time without the Onkyo and they fix the issue.

Here is a link:
Onkyo Loss of Audio/Network Connection Customer Care Program

You just need that link and your serial number to see if you are eligible.

Thanks Ken. It's amazing how inexpensive these players have become, when I reflect back to when they first came out.

Hey Nick I had no idea Onkyo was doing that. I have a NR509 model. Don't recall when I bought it. It was pretty cheap though. I will look into this warranty offer.

That's pretty cool. I'll have to see if my 809 is eligible, although it's not having any problems (yet).

We all seem to have the X09 series as I had a 709 and it was and is covered until 2018!

Great minds?

Not wanting to spend money for no real gain, but I am wondering if the quality / features of blu-ray players have changed over the past 4-5 years? I got a sony unit about 6-7 years ago. it was a dog to work with and doesn't really work now. I replaced it with a Panasonic unit about 4-5 years ago to work with the family room tv and it works much better.

I got myself a 4k TV and find it hard to justify spending the $600+ on the only 4k uhd blu-ray player that is out right now. I am wondering if I really will ever get one as it's not that I go out and buy all that many Blu-rays and they don't rent anymore around me. the library does let you borrow them but I doubt they will ever get the 4K ones and they still buy DVD's.

Needless to say I am down a blu-ray as the sony doesn't work and 2 rooms with different tv's and just one unit. Someone is loosing out.

Would one of the 4k upscaling blu-ray do a better job than what the TV internally is doing? just wondering

Well that was simple enough....

Onkyo offered two options. 1) Send the unit in for repair. 2) A rebate that can only be applied to the purchase of a new unit.

They offered me a $100 rebate, which isn't bad considering I only paid about $200 for the thing bout in 2012. I took option 1 though. They will be sending me a box with pre-paid shipping to ship it back to their repair center. They fix it, send it back to me.

Gotta admit, that's some pretty amazing product support.

Yeah, I forgot about the upgrade option.

It is really painless, and they include everything, and I mean EVERYTHING to box it up...

Box, packing material, plastic bag for around the receiver, twist ties for the power cord, shipping label, and even a roll of packaging tape.

I managed to have my box arrive at 4:30pm one day, and the receiver was all ready to go, so I put it in the box, and ran it to the nearest shipping location 30 minutes later and it went back out the same day that the box arrived.