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For the price this is must have AV receiver. I hear no buzzing at all coming from the speaker at any volume level, something that's been reported often. I recommend it to anyone starting their home theater system. Just had the Onkyo TX SR606 installed. I had 4 in ceiling speakers installed, a Polk subwoofer, and a polk center channel and it sounds fantastic.
I would say the sound is very comparable, but this has WAY more features and costs less. I love the lossless sound (DTS HD MA and Dolby TrueHD). This Onkyo is a great value. I use it for movies (DVD, Blu Ray, HD-DVD) and gaming (Wii, XBOX 360, PS3)and they all sound awesome. A must buy (I paid $348). It is powerful (90 watts per channel), clear, and full of the latest features, including:7.1 decoding for ALL surround sound codecsAuto Calibration w/ included microphone(easy AND accurate)4 HDMI inputs and 2 component inputs for 6 total HD hook-upsHDMI repeater, so the signal does not degrade and cause video drop-outsEasy to use universal remoteI have had it for a month and I love it. It replaced a 6.1 Denon.
The cable's remote has a dedicated "My DVR" button to do this and there doesn't seem to be a way to persuade the Onkyo's remote to do likewise. And I went to lengths to find a receiver that could support multiple speakers so this was a bit disappointing.The only other negative I can think of is the remote's ability to control other devices, specifically my Scientific Atlanta HD/DVR cable box. This is kind of neat if you want one audio source in one room (say where you're watching TV) and another elsewhere (say, listening to FM). Otherwise, the remote seems to support the typical cable, DVR, and DVD buttons (including the cables, A, B, C, and D buttons).If these nuances aren't important to you, go ahead. So if you're watching TV in one room (via HDMI, for example) and want to catch the sound elsewhere (say, on your deck while you're flipping burgers), you're out of luck. All-in-all, the receiver met my expectations.
The good news is that the "B" speakers can be set to a different source than the "A" speakers. Most things work as expected, with the one exception being the inability to bring up the list of recorded shows. The setup is straight forward, though the techniques to re-establish the speaker settings is hidden somewhere in the deep, dark bowels of the manual (first time's a snap). I couldn't say how many would be affected by this, but I was. I bought the receiver on Amazon for about $100 less than in typical retail stores. The sound is great and even the FM reception, using the supplied wire antennae, worked well.My complaint is how one configures the second set of speakers.
The complaint is that the "B" set can only be driven by analog input.
I am happy with the upgrade, I enjoy the quality of the sound more than I expected. I went for surround sound simply to get decent sound for dialogue.
I am going to try a Denon avr 888 next as it is in my price range ($350) but I don't like that the latest audio codexs are not supported. I then ordered another 606 and it did the same thing. Finally, I wised up and ran a component cable directly from the satellite box to the TV and my problem went away. I have a CTR HDTV that supports component not HDMI. Hopefully the Denon will not have video problems. The picture form the DVD player was solid; however, the picture from my directv satellite HR 20 box would show black lines at random and flutter. I ordered a Onkyo 606 and hooked it up via component cables. I called Onkyo and they said try different component cables which I did and there was no difference.
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