hookup question with OLD Technics receiver??

I put this in the wrong post, so I am not flaming...or whatever that's called (lol). And I am sure there is a sticky on stereo hook-ups that I can't find.

I have an old old old Technics SA-EX900 receiver and two 12yr old 10" Infiniti Speakers. Also have Got a Cerwin-Vega surround sound set that is about 12 yrs as well and collecting dust in the closet. I will eventually get around to getting this Denon receiver I like, but for the time being what do I need to make this joker sound decent?

I hear all this stuff about optical audio, but don't know too much about it. I believe my Technics has an optical output. Is the sound that much different with optical?

This is my situation. I just picked up a 50" Panny plasma (Model: TC-P50S1). I will have my Technics hooked up, a Panny Blu-Ray player and my x360. Now I have hooked stuff up in the past and I don't know why this confuses me, but couldn't I simply just run the optical from my TV to the receiver, plug components (xbox/blu-ray) up via HDMI cables and call it a day?

What confuses me is the ports on the box, blu-ray player, fios cable box, etc. Why would you hook an audio connection (e.g. optical) directly to the FiOS cable box versus the plasma?

I guess I will find out with trial in error, but I am stuck at work and figured I'd ask.

You have it backwards. You want the optical from the SOURCE devices (i.e. cable/sat box, DVD player, etc) to send the optical OUTPUT from them to the INPUT on the receiver. ;)

The optical output on this display like all I have ever seen only sends out 5.1 IF you are using the internal tuners of the Tv as the source. It does not send 5.1 output from any HDMI input source unfortunately, but this is the way all optical outputs on displays work which shouldn't be the way they do it IMO. But it is what it is.

So you need to run the audio from each device directly to the receiver via optical. If you do not have enough optical inputs on that receiver then look for any Digital Coax audio inputs (orange RCA type plug) and see if any of the devices have that to use instead of the optical to utilize more inputs.

Hope this helps!