I used to have a really nice surround sound system that I used with our main TV, but over the years, divorces, moves etc., it was whittled down to just a receiver and a couple speakers to the right and left. The receiver that I used was a really nice Sony ES receiver with excellent sound quality. However, because it was before the HDMI days it has become more and more obselete for use with today’s video components. With tax return season upon us I decided to hit up Best Buy today and pick up an upgrade.

One of the main reasons I looked into this now, is that we’ve run out of HDMI inputs on our TV (only 2) and I don’t really like the idea of having to un-plug and plug things in every time we want to switch the device. So my main item on my checklist was a receiver that could handle many different HDMI inputs to allow us to switch inputs easier.

I ended up going with a Pioneer model that has 6 HDMI inputs, and also has network connectivity for Pandora and remote control apps on your phone. Got it all hooked up and tried it out, and it seems to work as advertised. Getting Pandora logged in without a keyboard was a major pain in the butt, but it did work, and I was able to connect up to my stations without a problem. The box had an AirPlay logo on it as well, but I need to check into how to make that work.

I haven’t had a chance yet to crank the volume and see how it sounds, but without a big investment into some new speakers it’s probably not going to win any awards to quality. For what we use it for however, it will serve it’s purpose well and for the price it’s more than adequate.