TV AV questions

I would like to connect my LCD TV to a 2 channel system in my living room.  I do not have a system in the living room now and the partly DIY  basement system is too big for the living room.
The TV does not have analog audio out but, it does have coax digital audio out(no optical) and one HDMI- ARC
If I have any issues with ground noise are there 75ohm transformers made for this?
I am looking for a 2 channel receiver to do this and don't care for 5.1 etc
So far, looking on the web I have found a Onkyo TX 8050 that has coax and optical digital audio and also has a phono input and knobs
Went to the local BestBuy to buy one but they did not have any in stock
Does anyone know of any other 2 channel receivers with digital in? 
Does anyone know anything first hand about the TX-8050?

Another option is a 5.1 receiver and setting it to 2 channel mode
I don't know what happens with the other channels when set to 2 channel are they just muted or left open powered up or powered down etc.? 
I also wondered how they can sell a multi- channel receiver with all the channels and inputs and output connectors at the prices?

FWIW I bought a Radio Shack digital coax/optic to analog 2 channel out and was going to use a  Sansui 30 watt a channel receiver I bought in the late 70's? however I can't find it.


EDIT  forgot to add the TV is over the air no cable

Check craigslist, local goodwill, Salvation Army, savers, etc. there are all sorts of stereo rigs on the market after the holidays.
Maybe you have a local electronics recycling center?  Great place for receivers and ups units
Mike

Gus said:

I would like to connect my LCD TV to a 2 channel system in my living room.  I do not have a system in the living room now and the partly DIY  basement system is too big for the living room.
The TV does not have analog audio out but, it does have coax digital audio out(no optical) and one HDMI- ARC
If I have any issues with ground noise are there 75ohm transformers made for this?
I am looking for a 2 channel receiver to do this and don't care for 5.1 etc
So far, looking on the web I have found a Onkyo TX 8050 that has coax and optical digital audio and also has a phono input and knobs
Went to the local BestBuy to buy one but they did not have any in stock
Does anyone know of any other 2 channel receivers with digital in? 

Click to expand...

I have this problem, too, sort of. We've been running the TV (streaming, plus optical drive) from a Mac mini over the HDMI, and taking the mini's audio out to a pair of little KRK studio monitors and that's all been great. The gumstick Apple remote and the keyboard can control volume, and it's fine.

But ... the optical drive in the mini has been giving me agita, so we pulled our old DVD player out of storage and hooked that up to the TV via Y/Cr/Cb and audio, and that works, too, except the audio doesn't go through the KRKs.

I took this little Monoprice DAC and connected the TV's optical audio out to the KRKs, figuring that I can forgo the mini's audio out and instead use the HDMI audio path for computer audio.

And that works. Except: the optical audio out doesn't follow the TV volume control. I suppose the expectation is that the optical audio out goes to a receiver which has a volume control.

So I have designed this little volume control box, with analog in and out (both balanced) and both an IR receiver and a rotary encoder for control, with an LCD for status. It'll work with the Apple gumstick (which is NEC format) as well as other remotes that use the RC-5 format.  Take the TV audio optical out, go through the converter, go into the box, and finally it goes out to the KRKs.

I'm going to order boards once the firmware is (mostly) complete, maybe next week. it all fits into one of the Hammond extrusions, 120mm x 100mm PCB. I'll post project details here once I build and test it.

-a

Looked on Craigs list nothing interesting at the present time but that could change by the day.  It was interesting to see the number of receivers for sale.

Something else I was thinking about was the NAD D 3020.  It was interesting to read at the Hypex site that the NAD has  Hypex class D amps.

An update

I bought a Onkyo TX-8050.  Not bad.
Interesting part of setting up the amp is a selection  for the 'resistance" of the loudspeakers. below 6 ohms and above 6 ohms
I have the blue ray HDMI going to the TV and the TV digital audio output going to one of the four digital audio inputs on the the receiver.  Next I am going to try the blue ray digital audio out to the receiver to check if I hear any change.

Andy  interesting post, before I bought the receiver I tried a RS converter to a OK boombox the sound was better than the TV amp speakersbut the output from the converter going into the CD input on the boombox was low,  you might want a variable gain at the input before the volume control. (I don't know if you added gain from your post)