CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

**kal** · Last edited by kal on Sat May 31, 2008 3:15 am; edited 2 times in total

Starting today we're taking the confusion out of buying Home Theater products, starting with home theater receivers!

We're going through thousands of items and cherry picking the ones that offer the best performance and value for your dollar. We've teamed up with Amazon to bring you these items at low sale prices and free shipping!

This week it's Home Theater Receivers. See here.

Next week we'll attack Blu-ray players (hint: the PS3 will be high on the list - read why)!

Our recommended products will always be listed on our Products For Sale page and kept up to date weekly!

Kal

dropzone7 · Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 1070 Location: Charlotte, NC

I see my trusty Onkyo 705 is part of that list. I really love this receiver! I have had mine for a while now so I could buy the 805 for what I paid for my 705. Excellent receivers, all of those models listed. Thumbs Up

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6382

Why Onkyo Kal ? Do you have one for testing and which one ? Wink

Sounds like you just cut a deal with Amazon ...

**kal** · Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 8:32 pm Post subject:

Spend any time on the dozen or so HT forums around the world and the newest Onkyo line are always listed as the best "bang for the buck" when looking for new HDMI switching receivers that decode the new lossless audio codecs.

The prices are excellent as well.

Onkyo used to make some really high end stuff back in the 80/90's but then fell to the wayside for a few years, but now has been back on everyone's "best bang for the buck" HT lists for a while.

No deal cut with Amazon. I could have listed any number of the 100's of receivers that Amazon or their affiliates carry, really no difference. I list Onkyo because that's what is recommended.

Kal

dropzone7 · Joined: 12 Jun 2007 Posts: 1070 Location: Charlotte, NC

Tom.W · Joined: 09 Mar 2006 Posts: 6382

Just my opinion but I would NEVER recommend any product without at the least first testing it for a month or two myself ...

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7135 Location: Fort Collins, CO

But that would mean it would be basically impossible for anybody to offer any kind of recommendations. If Kal makes it clear that he's basing his recommendations on feedback from lots of users, I think that's a perfectly reasonable approach. It's certainly more useful than not making any recs at all, or expecting everybody to do their own trawling through dozens of forums.

**ecrabb** · Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 10:00 pm Post subject:

Tom,

Do you ONLY purchase products that have been recommended by someone who's used the product? Don't you ever do product research, then pick what you think is the best value based on whatever information you can find? The latest crop of Onkyo's is pretty tried and true - there's a huge thread of users at AVS (just as with several other AVR's) and the advantages and shortcomings have been well documented. The latest Onkyo's are pretty universally accepted as a good value.

For what it's worth, there was a little compo in the latest issue of Home Theater magazine that compared several new AVR's with HDMI and 1080p. The article was specifically focusing on the "V" in AVR. The Onkyo TX-SR875 was the only one of the group of six >$1000 AVR's to score perfectly on the HQV test battery. It was up against the Denon 3808, a Yamaha, a Pioneer Elite and two others. I was pretty excited to see the review, because I was already seriously considering that very model to add HDMI and advanced audio to my system.

For me, the 875 is kind of a sweet spot between the 805 and 905. It's about $400 more than the 805, but $500 cheaper than the 905. It has the same amplifier and 4 HDMI inputs as the 905, as well as the HQV Reon-VX chip for 1080p scaling. It's just over a grand. I think it's a hell of a value.

Onkyo TX-SR875

SC

**kal** · Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 12:41 am Post subject:

You're right SC. I wasn't sure if I should list the 805 or the 875 in my list. You've got me thinking that I should have probably gone with the alternate choce of the 875. I think that'll give a broader spread for people to choose from as the 705 and 805 are very similar. So there you go... I changed it. It is a better choice for most people, especially CRT users.

For what it's worth, I don't base anything on what *1* person (including myself) uses. One person can't test everything. You need to keep your ear to the ground and listen to what 100's of euthusiasts are saying and base your decision on that. I live and breath this stuff so I feel I'm pretty well positioned to make recommendations.

perisoft · Joined: 29 Aug 2007 Posts: 2907 Location: Ithaca, NY

So, I was looking at the amplifier list above, and I had an epiphany. So, here is my proposal to improve home theater quality:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 4:12 am Post subject:

LMAO@Peri

**ecrabb** · Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 7:24 am Post subject:

GEBrown · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 729 Location: Denver

FWIW,

I bought myself an Onkyo 605 for Xmas this past year. I have been happy with it, except that now I need 3 HDMI inputs and it only has two. It's replacement, the 606 has 4, so that seems like plenty (well, so did 2, so who knows?)

The main criticism that you will read about the 605 (and I assume its 606 brother) is that they won't matrix 5.1 Dolby into 7.1, even though they are 7.1 amps. The 705 is the lowest model that will do that.

The Audesy set up is pretty cool.

My 2 cents,

Gary

GEBrown · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 729 Location: Denver

I have been following the (pre)announcements of the new Onkyo AVR's and came across this link:

http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:LD9z9qzqwd8J:whathifi.com/home-cinema/archive/2008/05/22/japan-news-coming-soon-from-onkyo-more-av-receivers-163-500-blu-ray-player-and-hi-fi-and-home-cinema-systems.aspx+http://whathifi.com/home-cinema/archive/2008/05/22/japan-news-coming-soon-from-onkyo-more-av-receivers-163-500-blu-ray-player-and-hi-fi-and-home-cinema-systems.aspx&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

It's a cached page, so not sure how long it will be available, but if it is, page down 4 or 5 times and you'll see a picture of Onkyo's "Listening Room".

Can anyone ID that PJ?

**kal** · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject:

Looks like a Barco 7xx/Cine7 series to me.

Kal

Tedd · Joined: 18 May 2006 Posts: 104 Location: Ontario

I think the 805 is a pretty special unit with a very good build quality, above it's price point. Team it with a PS3 for Bluray and an Oppo 980H for SACD/DVD-A and that's one terrific budget system.

The April/May 08 issue of $ensible Sound Magazine has an extensive review/comparsion on the 705 and 805.

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 7135 Location: Fort Collins, CO

On May 30 Kal wrote:

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5198

faradayblue · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 2:45 am Post subject:

I picked up a used Lexicon MC-12 V5 one year ago. I only use it for audio switching & processing. It drives a Primare A30.5 + A30.2 + Velodyne Subwoofer amps for the main channels and primare A30.2 amps for zones 2 and 3. The price of a used MC-12 is considerably less now than it was one year ago. It will be some time before the firmware is considered behind the times. Not a budget system, but extremely capable!

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 629 Location: Northern Virginia

What happened to the reviews?