Recommended receiver for HT

Cox TV via Zone 2 from the Bryston SP3 to the Audioengine 2+ is the solution I sought for energy efficient TV.  It uses the volume control of the SP3 but completely circumvents the rest of the HT setup.  Unexpected is the ability to play the Cox music channels directly to the AE 2+, and the discovery that its sound is pretty damn good for music.  It won't fool you into thinking you're listening to the Ayre 5/20 series digital hub, preamp, amp and KEF Ref 1s, but then its MSRP is about $200 vs about $4K for the Ayre/KEF stuff -- of course that's without the SP3 that had an MSRP about $10K.

Glad I bought the Ayre gear and SP3 used, so MSRP didn't apply. 

db

Hello DB,

     Excellent!  Not just success but finely refined success.  Good job.
     Now, to lock up your winning the 'Montecito Green Man of the Year Award' , you just need to share your energy efficient TV watching method with your town neighbors.  
     My wife and I will try to make it out there for the award ceremony.

Later,
 Tim
 

Fyi guys, 
The Ayre DX-5 was not a rebadge of the Oppo bdp-83. Ayre only uses Oppo 83's disc drive (disc transport mechanism), Oppo's chassis, Oppo's video processing board & video clock, Oppo's firmware & GUI & OSD & possibly Oppo's remote. That's it. Everything else was Ayre all the way. Ayre built & designed its own power supplies, power supply caps, regulator, voltage regulator, USB input implementation design, audio clock, DAC, DAC implementation & configuration, digital filters, analog output buffer, analog audio output stages, etc. 
The only things you will find inside the Ayre DX-5 are Oppo's disc transport mechanism (disc drive) & Oppo's video processing board & Oppo's video clock but not the audio clock. They share the same platform (chassis). 

Ayre wasn't the only one that used Oppo's disc transport & Oppo's video processing board, firmware, GUI & OSD. Some other high end hifi manufacturers also do the same with their universal bluray disc players. Theta, EMC, MSB Technology, and McIntosh MVP901, which uses the same Mediatek based video processing platform as the Oppo 105. The McIntosh MVP901 uses same disc transport mechanism, HDMI & video processing board, video clock and all the way to HDMI output transmitters as that of the Oppo 105/103. Both the Mac MVP901 & the Oppo 105/103 also share the same menu setups, GUI, OSD. Except on the main menu on the MVP901 says McIntosh instead of Oppo. 

I concur with caphill; the same disc played on the Ayre DX-5 DSD and Oppo 205 sounds better on the Ayre, perhaps even better than when played on my Ayre C-5xeMP, the component that introduced me to Ayre.

Tim, I’ve delivered a Velodyne HGS-10 and -15 to George Meyer in LA. Turns out the other HGS-15 functions as it should, as does the other HGS-10. According to George, those HGS models are fine subs.

db

Hello DB,

     Yes, I know anything from Ayre is going to sound very good.

     I've never used a Velodyne sub but, from the reviews I've read and your comments, I think they'll perform very well in your custom 4-sub DBA.  Positioning and precisely adjusting the volumes, crossover frequencies and phases will probably be the difference between optimum bass performance in your room and something less which, however, will still likely sound very good.
     When do you expect them back?  Are you all set on how to best position and configure them?

Tim