I'm thinking about buying a new receiver as a "Christmas gift to self"

[jmowreader]

Right now I have a Pioneer 5.1 surround sound receiver that I bought four years ago at Value Village for twenty bucks. It's been decent but the volume control knob doesn't work - I use the remote control for that - and I basically have to patch around the thing with several converter boxes to get signal from my sources into it. I would really like to replace it with something a bit more modern that needs fewer cables to get it to work. Budget is $1200 but I'd prefer not to go that high.

Back in the day when everything you plugged into one of these things output line-level analog and stereo was The Mode I was pretty much the king of hi-fi but now that all this shit is surround sound and digital all the way through the frame I haven't kept up as well as I should have, so am seeking advice.

My current system feeds off four sources:
a Sony DVP-CX777ES 400-disc DVD carousel. This player features RCA jacks for video output and optical/coaxial digital output for 5.1 audio. I convert the RCA video to HDMI with a little converter box which works well.

a Sony DVP-CX995V 400-disc DVD carousel. This player features HDMI video/audio and optical/coaxial digital audio output.

A Sony BDP-CX960 400-disc Blu-Ray carousel. This has the same outputs as the -CX995 player.

A Pioneer LaserDisc player, which is completely analog and routes through another RCA-HDMI converter.

I really like buying "complete series" TV show DVD box sets, and some of those sit on 20 to 30 DVDs so I can foresee needing to buy another DVD carousel or another Blu-Ray carousel in the future. The only thing I'd want streaming for is NASCAR, which is getting into it bigtime - and I haven't decided whether to take the plunge just for a few races a year.

Here's the issue I'm having trouble with: There's no such thing as a RCA-HDMI converter box that'll convert 5.1 analog streams to HDMI - they're all stereo-only. That's fine with the LaserDisc player because they're strictly stereo. But with the -CX777 I can get 5.1 surround sound off the digital outs. Since it'll produce 5.1 audio I want to use 5.1 audio.

I need a receiver with at least six HDMI ins - preferably eight - that can assign a digital audio input to an HDMI in so this system will work right. Will they all do that? If they won't, what are good ones that will?

[SalamanderSleeps]

1. Maybe this will do the trick.

https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/onktxnr6100-rb/onkyo-tx-nr6100-7.2-ch-x-100w-thx-8k-a/v-receiver/1.html?gad_source=1

Why pay more?

[Lochloosa]

2. Ill vouch for Onkyo. I've had their system for 20+ years and never had an issue.

[Hotler]

3. Have you looked in to getting the Pioneer fixed? I had a 50-yr old Marantz reciever and a 50-yr old

McIntosh integrated amp fixed fairly responsible and it was worth it. One of them needed a volume knob and the repair guy found a new one on eBay. Google volume knob for that model and see what comes up.
Best of luck. keeps us informed.

[jmowreader]

4. Except for the volume knob it works fine

Given that, when I need to add another disc player I'm out of ports for it - the biggest stand-alone HDMI switch available has four and the one I have is already full - I'd like another pair of side-fill speakers which means going to 7.1 or 7.2 on the receiver, and it's a freakin' Rat's Nest back there.