Same set up for 10 years. Time for an upgrade. Help please!

[steve 111]

Been running the same set up for 10+ years now.

Panasonic PT-AE4000 Projector
MA Silver Floorstanders
MA Gold Centre Speaker
MA Silver FX Surrounds
MA Bronze Rear Surrounds
Onkyo SR-605

Sky Q Mini and Non-4k Blu Ray as inputs into the Receiver, and then one very long (10 metres+) custom made HDMI cable from the Receiver to the Projector.

I'm thinking of upgrading my projector and receiver so I can watch 4k content and get Dolby Atmos etc.

Prob got a budget of £500-£600 for the receiver. Any advice on what's going to work best with my set up?

Also, will I need to change all the HDMI cables to the latest standard?

 

[Jamie]

Sadly prices have moved on a bit so you might need to compromise somewhere, wether that's increasing the budget, going 2nd hand or sacrificing ATMOS or number of channels.

Your current system is 7.1 so to retain the 7 speakers for your base layer and adding 2 or 4 ceiling or upfiring speakers would require a 9 or 11 channel receiver

The Denon 2700 would be around your budget but only 7 channels and no preouts. So you'd either get your existing 7.1 layout or drop the rear surrounds and go for 2 overhead ATMOS speakers.

The Denon 3700 is significantly more expensive (double your budget) but has 9 channels of amplification (and can process 11 channels, simply add a basic stereo amp to use the extra 2 channels)

Personally I went the second hand route, something like the slightly older 3400/3500 models are still new enough to support 4k and Atmos with 9 amps and 11 channel processing just like the current models.

The other thing to bear in mind is the 10m run to your PJ, your existing cable may not work at 4K, you may require something like a Ruipro Hybrid Fibre HDMI cable to be able to use such a long cable, 4K is obviously more demanding on bandwidth than 1080P.

 

[steve 111]

Thanks @Jamie This was exactly the sort of advice I was after.

 

[Deleted member 901590]

Personally I went the second hand route, something like the slightly older 3400/3500 models are still new enough to support 4k and Atmos with 9 amps and 11 channel processing just like the current models.

Just to let the OP know, those models don't do that, see here:

Speaker selection for rear speaker in 7.1 setup

Hi All, I have Paradiam studo speakers, 2 x studio 60 v2, studio center v2, and studio adp v2. I am thinking of adding the rear speakers. I wonder if I should add a pair of adp spreakers or a regular bookshelf ones. Also thinking of atmos setup. Not sure if Atmos 5.1.2 will be better than 7.1...

www.avforums.com

Unless you meant the x4400/x4500, they do 11 channels processing with 9 amps.

 

[Jamie]

Unless you meant the x4400/x4500, they do 11 channels processing with 9 amps.

Exactly this, I had a slight brain fart in translating models between Denon and Marantz equivalents. My Marantz 7010 processes 11 channels and has amps for 9 of them.