Are receivers still warranted nowadays, or are they simply the fancy of audiophiles and old people?

I'm wiring my house right now for 5.2.4 during a remodel. It's in my living room but whatever, all decent receivers are Atmos now and inwall ceiling speakers are cheap even for decent ones.

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Nice, i hope you've got some decent sound treatment in the room. Also hope your speaker placement isn't asinine. I understand not everyone wants to calibrate for the room, but if you know how, or have an audio company nearby that can do it for you, it can really help bring a home theater to the next level.

I'm just about to set up and start using my Pioneer SC-2022. It has a 165W amplifier for all (surround) channels, so I kinda had trouble choosing speakers for it that I wouldn't worry about blowing up when someone/me decides to crank it up to max volume.
Had to shop around for it, I specifically wanted a more high-end receiver that DID NOT have Atmos, because I have a lot of Dolby Pro-logic and Dolby Surround content and apparently Atmos replaces their capability to decode that.

You'll be limiting yourself going forward, most UHD blurays and such generally have Atmos.

It's my living room so I can't go nuts, but I'm pretty knowledgable about this stuff. I'm going to put panels behind my LCRs and at the first reflection points. I also have some soffits that I can actually hide base traps in. It won't be nearly as good as a dedicated purpose built room but I'm making the best of it. Gotta keep the gf happy so can't go too crazy. The great thing with Atmos is that with ceiling speakers the WAF is super high so it isn't any uglier than 5.2.

I don't plan to move to UHD in close future. When I do, I'll keep this one for the retro content, maybe in a separate room, idk.

Okay, so I should have said mine is around 5 years old. Yours I guess it's like what 10?

>because I have a lot of Dolby Pro-logic and Dolby Surround content and apparently Atmos replaces their capability to decode that.
the specs sheet for the highest end Onkyo appears to list a ton of audio decoding ability

> 3D, Audio Return Channel, DeepColor™,
x.v.Color™, LipSync, Dolby Atmos, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby® Digital Plus,
Dolby® Surround, DTS:X, DTS-HD Master Audio™, DTS 96/24,
DTS-ES, DTS Express, DTS Neural:X, THX® Cinema/Music/Game,
DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, Multichannel PCM, and CEC
> Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD Master

How does Audio Return Channel work? You can plug a device into your tv and pass the audio back to the receiver?

Aaand there's no Pro-logic :^)
Trust me, I done my research. The "Dolby Surround" it refers to is not actually the old standard, but a rebrand of some kind of upmixer, see here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic#The_New_Dolby_Surround_(2014)
Literally the only receiver I found that did *both* Atmos and Pro-Logic was some ultra slim joke (looked like it came from a supermarket home theater set) and in the manual it said that "Dolby Atmos will come with a software update. After this update, Pro-Logic support will be disabled". From this I inferred that the Atmos decoder/upsampler somehow replaces the old Pro-Logic matrix.

You plug the receiver into your TV via HDMI ARC. When you use the TV's built-in tuner to watch terrestrial/cable/satellite, the TV will send the audio backwards over the same cable to the receiver. Saves you using an extra optical cable.

just bought a Denon AVR-X2400H its great,
I have always had my sound going into a receiver/amplifier then to 5.1 this is the first time I have one with HDMI ports that manages the video too, also has airplay and options for another 2 speakers for a "Zone 2" my house is too small to utilise it but maybe next house but my speaker system is good

Neato thanks!

I just watch stolen movies off Plex because too cheap for cable but great to know.

>still falling for the atmos meme in 2018
>muh two extra speakers on the ceiling

xbox to receiver, receiver to tv, video goes to the tv but audio doesn't play on tv speakers, it returns to the receiver to be player on your high end speakers.

>two extra
four buddy

Atmos you can go up to 32 discrete channels, up to eight on the ceiling. Obviously only makes sense for a multi row theater. Most dedicated installs are now doing four or six height speakers depending on size. For a single row four is good, two row then six makes more sense.

Lots of content out now too.

sounds mad, my current lounge is only fit for 5.1, ill have to get a larger one to justify filling it with more speakers, (dont get me wrong 5.1 still sounds ace)

extra speakers look cool I just dont see the clearly defined difference between DTS/Pro Logic but if it's the next standard and everyone supports it then ill get there eventually. Do you know what happens if I have an Atmos A/V receiver but it's only set up for 5.1?

With Atmos really ceiling speakers are perfectly fine, and blend easily. Basically all decent receivers now are Atmos, so if you buy something pre-outs for example, it'll be an Atmos receiver. If your receiver receives Atmos content it will seamlessly work with just a 5.1 setup. That's one of the main ideas of Atmos, it's object based so very scalable.

I'm not saying in a living room it will blow your doors off like going from 2 channel to 5 and adding a good sub does. But it really does add nice atmosphere to soundtracks and a nice dimension, and what do four decent inwalls cost? not much.