Unfortunately a modern receiver is worth the money.

A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room.

On the TV side, a modern receiver probably has built in chromecast. It will support eArc so your TV can control the receiver directly - when watching TV you don't need to use the receiver remote at all, it will switch sources and be able to change volume with the TV.

The good thing about this kind of setup, if you're interested in it, is that you can buy some speakers that you really like, and they will never be obsolete; but you will need to replace the receiver occasionally (maybe every 10 years).

The UX on all AVRs is always the same and always dreadful though. People who buy them buy them for featureset not UX, which I guess is why it hasn't really improved.

This matches my experience, too. Setting up eARC and especially getting PS5 to use all speakers while being connected only to the TV took quite a bit of time, though.

Why wouldn't you connect the PS5 to the receiver?

Because then I lose 120Hz, which my TV supports, but the receiver doesn't.

> A modern one will have Bluetooth and Wifi connection, so you can stream and control music direct from your phone or computer in another room.

Watching any video or listening to hi-fi audio from another room is, to put it mildly, undesirably suboptimal: this is what I'd call an attack surface, not a feature.

Honestly.. just drop 400 to 500 bucks on a recent Marantz or Denon amp, your experience will be infinitely better. Five bucks might have been extortion and/or theft. Also, a decent sub (or two ;)) and spending time tuning it to your room, makes maybe more difference than anything else.

Unless you then try to hook that Denon up via HDMI to an LG TV - eARC won't work.

Why not? Regular ARC works fine on my Denon/LG setup. Is eARC lacking support because of a driver issue they could fix, or some kind of licensing issue?