What use is an old AVR receiver when upgrading to a new one?

[Dave Moritz]

I currently have a built in sound card (Realtek) on my mother board and will use that if it has a digital out. If not I will need to go pick up a SoundBlaster audio card with a digital out straight to the digital input. Or I might just analog 5.1 out to the receiver, I have not given it alot of thought yet as I am still working on saving money for the new receiver.

[busyhands]

Mine is used to power the sound in the backyard "drive-in" theater. All that last-generation stuff that used to gather dust in the garage is getting put to use now!

[keroadykerry]

I once fed two G-9700 Sansui receivers from a Toshiba Dolby Pro-Logic Surround decoder. It was also using a DBX RTA Equalizer in the signal path. The two receivers drove four JBL L series speakers. There was no center or sub. The system was sooo loud but was over driven by connecting multiple active signal processors in series which caused ground loops and distortion. But the fact it worked made me happy. It was good for impressing visitors and disturbing neighbors. Another use I had was to bypass the tuner section of an old Fisher and use the STK chip amplifier section to drive a bunch of Aura Bass shakers. This worked quite well as it was a fair match for the Bass shakers. And the last one I'll share with you is wasteful but I was in a hurry. I used an old 2 channel amp as a heat source for my wife's cat during a cold snap where the cat stayed in the garage. The safety circuits were functional so my only concern was cat pee but he, (Sonny), was too cool to do any thing silly like that. I have many more Billy Bob applications I won't go into but you get the picture. I like to think everything has more than one use to it. It's our job to find them.