Creative ways to avoid a receiver in a multichannel home theater?

Well you and I think a little differently on this. If a $50 HDMI switch is all I need, I buy that instead of buying a $600 glorified HDMI switch with amplifiers and DSPs.

I don't know how ARC is crappy. It's sending a digital signal with error correction. If it were sending stereo analog then yeah, I agree, that is not optimal - I want to use my good DACs and not the DACs that are in my TV.

I shouldn't have used the word "obsolete" in so universal a language. I think there are plenty of setups where an AVR provides a good value - lots of inputs from disparate sources (analog, digital, phono), room EQ, tunable DSP presets, night listening modes... there's definitely a case for the AVR, but I think a lot of people don't need them anymore.

I'm personally in that situation. I have an AVR, but I'm changing my setup and now the only thing I need is a DAC/decoder - but like I mentioned in the original post, the component versions of just that feature are more expensive than the integrated receiver. I'll probably end up buying another AVR just because it's the most economical, but it irritates me that I have to purchase a piece of equipment that will be 85% unused.

/r/BudgetAudiophile Thread Parent