My home theatre in-a-box has finally given up the ghost. I have a (pretty crappy) Koss setup that shuts off randomly, will no longer play DVDs, won't play some of the newer formats (DTS HD master, for example) etc. The rest of my home theatre has been upgraded with an HDTV and a Sony BRD player. Now I'm looking at replacing the Koss with a receiver (either Pioneer VSX-920-K or Sony STR-HD720) and building it up piece by piece, rather than going with the in-a-box method, which means recycling some of my older components (particularly the speakers from the Koss) until I can save up the cash for better components.
Anyway, I was hoping y'all could help me with a question regarding the subwoofer, specifically. The receivers I'm looking at all use an RCA jack to connect the subwoofer. I'm assuming this means they're intended to connect to a powered subwoofer; the one I have is a passive model which uses speaker wire connections. I'm wondering a.) if using a passive sub on either these receivers would work b.) if this could potentially damage the receivers c.) if converting the speaker wire to an RCA jack would work without degrading quality.
Pioneer is a good bet but stay away from Sony audio. Onkyo and Denon are two other good choices in audio. You can use your old speakers but just be aware that the speakers in a HiTB are the weakest link so please upgrade in the future. Connect the sub to the front speaker out puts then the sub to the front speakers. In the receiver set up tell it you have no sub and large front speakers and the bass will be out put correctly.