After over 50 hours testing eight new receivers hands-on, we’re confident the best receiver for most people is the. At this price, every receiver sounds indistinguishable until you turn its room correction software on; the software makes a big difference in sound quality, and Denon’s is the best affordable version we tested. Additionally, this receiver includes ample inputs and has the easiest setup routine of any receiver we’ve ever tested thanks to its on-screen prompts and user-friendly interface. Once set up, the AVR-S730H supports all the standards you’ll need today and in the future. Last updated: September 6, 2017 We tested seven updated receivers and remains the pick with easy setup and impressive room correction. We have a new budget pick for people that don’t need integrated streaming audio as well.

The stands out for its extensive feature set for the price. It has seven channels of amplification to support 7.1 systems (i.e. Seven speakers and a subwoofer), as well as Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, and it can support a second, separately controlled stereo zone. All six of its HDMI inputs support HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, which means they can deliver Ultra HD/4K signals with HDR (Dolby Vision and HDR10) and WCG. Ethernet and Wi-Fi are built-in along with AirPlay and Bluetooth, making it easy to stream music from your device, or you can use the integrated to stream directly from the most popular streaming services. Additionally, the room correction software from Audyssey sounds the best of the receivers in this price range, and an optional app lets you customize it more than the other room correction suites. It’s unlikely that any one person will use all these features, but the fact that it has them means it’ll work better for a wider variety of setups.

If the Denon is not available or if you want something slightly cheaper, you’ll also like the. It offers nearly the same sound quality, plus you get Chromecast Audio support, AirPlay, PlayFi, and Bluetooth for wireless audio streaming. However, it only features five channels rather than the seven of the Denon, has only 4 HDMI inputs (all are HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2), and isn’t as easy to set up because it doesn’t walk you through speaker selection, hookup, and setting up your inputs as well as the Denon.

If you don’t stream audio, don’t plan to use Dolby Atmos or DTS:X, or can get along with fewer inputs and lower audio quality, the is a good budget pick. It still has four HDMI 2.0 inputs and built-in room correction software (though it’s less capable than our other picks’ software). It does skimp on power (meaning you’ll may get distortion at loud listening levels) and on the speaker connections (only the front channels support banana plugs).

Similarly, it supports Bluetooth but not Wi-Fi music streaming. Most people can get better sound by going with a more affordable receiver and upgrading to nicer speakers. If you already have great speakers, look into the significantly more expensive. Our testing found that the Anthem (and its advanced room correction system) produced the best sounding audio.

Its seven HDMI 2.0 inputs and customizable room correction make it suited to more complex home theaters than the Denon. Additionally, it sounded better for both movies and music than any other receiver. However, it can’t stream online music and only supports 5.1 systems. We spent more than 10 hours researching and selecting models based on what more than 1,000 surveyed Wirecutter readers told us they needed in a receiver. We then spent another 70 hours installing, setting up, and testing each model in a home theater to determine which one was the best choice. This year’s process was even more extensive than last year’s, when we tested six models for 50 hours.

I’ve been writing about and reviewing home theater equipment for close to a decade. In that time I’ve listened to dozens of receivers, preamps, and amplifiers to recognize the differences between them.

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Who should get this. If you have an older receiver without HDMI support, now is a good time to upgrade. All the new models we tested support HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2, which means they’ll work with Ultra HD 4K displays and sources. So if you already have an HDMI receiver but want to buy a 4K TV and want to be able to switch between 4K sources now (or soon), consider upgrading. Wireless audio streaming has become much easier on newer receivers as well. Our top pick offers AirPlay, Bluetooth, Pandora, Amazon Prime Music, Spotify Connect, Tidal, iHeart Radio, Sirius XM, Rhapsody, and more, along with the ability to directly connect to Internet radio stations and local DLNA servers. If you’re still hooking your tablet or smartphone directly to your receiver instead of streaming, upgrading will make listening to that audio much easier.

Pull Quote if you already have an HDMI receiver but want to buy a 4K TV and want to be able to switch between 4K sources now (or soon), consider upgrading.New models also usually support, but as those audio technologies require more speakers, this isn’t a major reason to upgrade (for most people, anyway). Dolby Atmos does give you the option to use Atmos-enabled front speakers, or Atmos modules, to handle the surround channels without running wires to put speakers around the room. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good and something you can’t do without Atmos support. If you already own an HDMI receiver and don’t plan to use 4K sources or don’t need to stream wirelessly, you can hold off for now.

In most cases, new receiver models won’t sound any better than what you have; they’ll just offer more features and futureproofing. How we picked and tested.

Some of the models tested for this guide and for previous guides. We previously polled our readers to see what they wanted in a receiver. This gave us a good baseline for what inputs people need and what features might not be necessary.

While the features offered by receivers have changed a bit in the time since we did this, the data is still useful in helping us narrow down the list of what we want. This let us set out a criteria for what we are after in a receiver today: • Five or more channels of audio. Readers were pretty well split on if they were running two channels, three channels, or five channels when we asked. What no one was doing was running seven channels of sound. This was pre-Atmos, but almost no one is going to run rear speakers in addition to surround speakers.

• Four or more HDMI inputs with HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 support (along with a few analog-video inputs). Every year that goes by, the number of analog inputs drops, but having plenty of HDMI inputs is very important. Beyond quantity of ports, it’s important that most inputs support the latest standards: HDMI 2.0 full bandwidth (18.0 Gb/sec) and HDCP 2.2 copy protection. Without these two features, you will not be able to view upcoming Ultra HD sources with HDR at their full potential, including Ultra HD Blu-ray or the upcoming Microsoft and Sony consoles, at their full potential.

• A way to stream music wirelessly, either Bluetooth, AirPlay, or Chromecast. We listen to almost all of our music wirelessly now, and so do most people. You need to be able to easily get that music to the receiver, no matter if you have iOS or Android, or if you’re that guy with a Windows Phone. • Access to online content, with emphasis on Pandora and Spotify support.

Even better is when the streaming services are built-in to the receiver. You don’t need to have your phone being used to play music in addition to the receiver, and it simplifies the process. Spotify Connect is the most common service supported, but others including Tidal, Amazon Prime Music, and more are available on some models. • Full range room correction. Without room correction, all of the receivers we test are going to sound the same. Room correction is a built-in software application that uses microphones and algorithms to automatically measure and adjust the audio output to perform its best in your room.

Full range room correction can do the speakers and the subwoofer. • Easy setup. A receiver is the most complex piece of AV gear around today. HDMI has made it easier, but it still has more inputs and outputs than anything else.

Making the process of setting it up and verifying that everything works will make it easier for you to get it setup correctly. • Ability to decode Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. If you can’t decode the most recent audio codecs, you should look at a better receiver. • A built-in phono stage (a bonus). While most people stream their music, a phono input makes it easy to hook up a turntable if you prefer physical media.

• Dolby Atmos and DTS:X support (a bonus). Installing in-ceiling speakers might be too much for most people, but Atmos modules that sit on top of your front speakers are easy to install and can provide very good Dolby Atmos support. They can even take the place of surrounds for people that don’t want to run wires around the room.

This year, after all our research, we brought in and tested seven receivers that matched our criteria: the and, the and, the, and the and. I tested the receivers in a 13-by-11-by-8-foot home theater using a 5.1.4 KEF in-wall THX speaker system. I also performed testing with a pair of and modules for a smaller system. The KEF speakers are 8-ohm nominal loads and 88-decibel efficient (claimed), so a receiver should be able to drive them without too much effort. Finally, we compared the receivers directly to each other using an ABX switch from Audio by Van Alstine. This let us instantly switch between two receivers at once to compare the sound without knowing which we were listening to, for a true blind test. Sources, either a Chromecast for audio or an Ultra HD Blu-ray player for video, were split using a and the receivers were all level matched.

Our pick: Denon AVR-S730H. We picked the as the best receiver for most people because it’s the easiest to set up and has every feature most people will need (and many that are nice to have). These include built-in Wi-Fi, room correction, support for seven channels, both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X 3D audio support, and six HDMI 2.0 inputs. It consistently sounded very good during our listening tests and didn’t distort, even at high volume levels. It supports important wireless streaming standards and has enough inputs for most people.

Denon has made small improvements over last year’s model by adding support for more streaming services and upcoming Alexa compatibility. Pull Quote With room correction enabled, the Denon sounded better than the other models testedAbove all else, the Denon’s ease of setup sets it apart from the vast majority of receivers. Once connected to your TV, on-screen prompts explains how to prepare and connect your speakers, makes sure your devices are connected to inputs correctly, and allows you to run the Audyssey room correction system. Even setting up the Wi-Fi is very easy if you have an iOS device, as the Denon can copy the settings from it. Other receivers can help with some of this, but none are as easy to use or cover as much territory as the Denon.

This year our blind testing also emphasized one point: Without room correction, all the receivers in this price range sound identical. No matter how much I would ABX test them, if the receivers were level matched and had room correction disabled, no one could not tell them apart. Any difference in sound quality was inaudible even to experienced critical listeners. That changed when we engaged the receivers’ room correction. With room correction enabled, the Denon sounded better than the other models tested.

It produced better stereo imaging and improved clarity in the treble. Other receivers also sounded better after room correction, but not by as much as the Denon. With an optional, you can further customize the room correction of the AVR-S730H.

To get the most out of it, you should run it during your initial setup, and every time you move the speakers around thereafter. The app isn’t essential, but if you want more advanced control over the room correction, the app makes it easy to do. It also enables options previously only available on much more expensive receivers, such as setting a maximum frequency for the room correction to make sure you don’t negatively affect the natural sound of your speakers.

The Audyssey app shows how it has corrected a high-frequency roll-off in our test system. (Flatter is better.) While most people are unlikely to take full advantage of the Denon’s 7.1 capabilities, packing seven channels of amplification gives you some flexibility in how you configure your speakers. If you can’t run wires for rear speakers, you can set up the receiver to drive front Atmos speakers or modules, then combined with the available DTS Neural:X mixing, and have a simulated surround effect. It won’t be quite as good as running dedicated surround speakers, but since you can do it without having to run wires around the room, it opens up surround sound to more rooms. If you do choose to use all seven channels, your options expand even further: You can do a 5.1.2 (i.e.

A standard surround system plus two height speakers), 7.1, or 5.1 system with a second, separately controlled zone of analog stereo audio—perfect for on the patio or a in an adjacent den. The Denon is able to power a 5.1.2 Atmos system quite well, even with 4 ohm speakers. Driving more conventional 8 ohm speakers in a home system proved to be quite easy for the Denon as well. Pushing aggressive Dolby Atmos mixes, like Smurfs: The Lost Village (don’t laugh, the soundtrack is great) was no trouble at all for the Denon. The Denon AVR-S730H rear is labeled well and the layout makes connections easy. Six HDMI inputs, including a front input, on the Denon make it easy to connect all of your devices.

All of these inputs are HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2, and each can even pass Dolby Vision and HLG HDR signals that some other receivers cannot. Six HDMI inputs are likely enough, but if not, the step-up offers eight. You could also add an HDMI switch, but that makes the setup more confusing, and HDMI 2.0 switches are not easily available or affordable yet. We also like that Denon includes a variety of wireless streaming options. HEOS, Denon’s multiroom audio platform (think Sonos), is built right into its receivers which lets you stream from Amazon, Tidal, Soundcloud, Pandora and more.

It also has Spotify Connect, so you can use the Spotify app and have it directly stream to the Denon. Additionally, its integrated Bluetooth and AirPlay make it easy to stream to the Denon even from devices without the HEOS app installed, through with Bluetooth you then have to keep your device close to the receiver to stream audio. Getting these streaming services to the Denon is easy with integrated dual-band Wi-Fi and Ethernet. If you have a device with iOS 7 or higher, you can set up the Wi-Fi as if it was an AirPlay speaker. Doing this takes almost no work and is much easier than having to type in your SSID and password with a remote control. Horizontal, not vertical, arrangement of speaker binding posts makes connections easier.

Denon added a few little touches to make the receiver easier to use, like putting the speaker binding posts in a single horizontal row instead of stacked. That might not matter when using banana plugs, but if you are using bare wire to connect your speakers, stacked binding posts are harder to connect. Flaws but not dealbreakers. The Denon AVR-S730H has a few composite analog inputs, but it doesn’t convert these to HDMI, so you if you have composite sources, you need to use a composite cable to connect the Denon to your TV.

You can easily add a if you’d prefer all your devices to be HDMI. The Denon also doesn’t scale your non-Ultra HD sources to Ultra HD resolution.

Since, we aren’t concerned. If you’re planning to utilize two of the speaker outputs for a Zone 2 setup, you are limited to repeating what is playing in Zone 1 or using an analog source (i.e. You can’t stream Spotify to the living room and Pandora in the den).

Other receivers at this price have the same limitation, as getting around it requires adding another DAC chip just for this purpose, adding cost. If you want to stream different audio to a second zone, you’d need to have an external analog source (like a ) connected to an analog input.

We would prefer that the Denon used Chromecast instead of HEOS for audio streaming, as it doesn’t require installing a second app and registering for another account. The HEOS app works fine, but Chromecast is just easier, and it’s a more open whole-home audio system than HEOS. A phono stage in the Denon would be nice to have, but we figure most people shopping for a ~$400 receiver will be using a turntable with a built-in phono-stage. Finally last year we had an issue where the Denon AVR-S720W would sometimes (perhaps 1 percent of the time, based on our testing) power on without audio the audio kicking in.

Turning it off and on again fixed the problem, but it was still annoying. Over months of testing this year, the issue has not popped up with the AVR-S730H. Runner-up: Pioneer VSX-832. If the Denon isn’t available, the is the next best option. It came in just behind the Denon for sound quality with a smaller soundstage when using room correction, has even more ways to stream music from your devices with Bluetooth, Chromecast, AirPlay, and PlayFi.

Though it is only a 5.1 unit, a future firmware update will let you use 3.1.2 Atmos and DTS:X to simulate surround channels. Like the Denon, the Pioneer puts all the binding posts in a single row, making it easy to connect your speakers. It also has dual-band Wi-Fi, supports HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 on all inputs, and can pass Dolby Vision content without a problem. However, it only has four HDMI inputs while other models feature 5 or more. It can’t do a second zone or power more than five speakers, but most people don’t use those features, so that’s not as big a deal as it may seem.

A firmware update sometime this year will add features like Chromecast and 3.1.2 Atmos. This was the case last year as well, and while those features did appear, it would be nice if they were already built in. The Pioneer is easy enough to setup if you’ve used a receiver before, but it doesn’t hold your hand through the entire process—it’s not as simple to set up as our top pick. Upgrade pick: Anthem MRX 520. The offers the best sound quality of any receiver we tested, and it packs eight HDMI inputs, dual HDMI outputs, and the most customization.

Pre-outs let you use it with a external amplifier if you have demanding speakers, while RS232 and IP Control let it work with almost any universal remote or control system. As mentioned earlier, in our blind testing of receivers, each sounded the same without using room correction. Anthem has their own proprietary room correction, ARC, that sounds better than any other system we’ve tested. The MRX 520 is their most affordable model with ARC, and ARC provides a step-up in sound that you can hear.

The Anthem MRX 520 can be the central component of a pretty large system, offering seven HDMI 2.0 inputs with HDCP 2.2 plus dual HDMI outputs. It’s also the only receiver we looked at with a five-channel pre-out if you want to add an external amplifier down the road.

Unfortunately, the Anthem won’t give you any built-in music streaming. This Anthem model is meant for people who want high-end audio quality more than they want streaming features, as it excels for music and stereo listening. If you want both the sound improvement of this model and built-in streaming, the much more expensive Anthem MRX 720 is available, but it’s cheaper to just add a media streamer like a Chromecast or Roku. The customization possible with the ARC app lets you fix room issues without altering the natural sound of your speakers (as most room-correction systems do). It handles the integration between speakers and subwoofer perfectly so music retains focus and clarity.

Lower-cost systems improve bass reproduction at the expense of accuracy. ARC also has the ability to store four different settings, since what is ideal for movies might not be ideal for music. (Plus, each input can have its own setting.) The Anthem MRX 520 does have Ethernet and USB ports, but these can’t be used to play back streaming music. The USB port is used for firmware updates, which have to be done manually while other receivers can pull them down online. The Ethernet port is used for IP control, which makes integration easy but doesn’t provide any audio streaming. The Anthem MRX 520 is, on paper, somewhat feature-shy compared with other high-end receivers. But more isn’t necessarily better, and those “missing” features found in other high-end models aren’t really that useful for most people.

Support for nine or 11 audio channels might matter for someone who wants a huge Atmos system. Support for a third or even a fourth zone can be nice, but that might require a complete home-automation system to work easily. Eight or 10 (or even more) HDMI inputs might be necessary for the largest setups, but you can also buy a $40 HDMI switcher to achieve the same thing. And sound quality, room correction aside, gets noticeably better only when you spend a lot more money than you would on any of our picks, well beyond anything we’d recommend for most people. Budget pick: Onkyo TX-SR373. If you don’t need streaming audio features (aside from Bluetooth), the makes a good budget choice because you still get 5 channels of amplification, HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 on all four HDMI inputs, a smartly arranged back panel, and integrated room correction.

Only one pair of the speaker connections use banana plugs, and the spring clips on the others don’t easily accept anything larger than 14 gauge wire, but the receiver generally works well and sounds good. Compared to other budget options, the TX-SR373 drove our test speakers with more headroom to spare, so it will perform better for people using less efficient speakers. You’re limited to Bluetooth for streaming, and there’s no network connectivity, but otherwise, the Onkyo does a fine job for a basic home theater or stereo system. What to look forward to. The Sony STR-DN1080 receiver has added Dolby Atmos support this year and is one of the most affordable models with dual HDMI outputs. We plan to test it soon, but the past few Sony models we’ve tested had strange amplifier issues when tested on an Audio Precision test device. As soon as we can test this one, we’ll update the guide with results.

Marantz has a number of new receivers including the SR6012 that feature advanced room correction, 8 HDMI inputs, and streaming that could compete with the Anthem MRX 520. It also has the same easy setup routine as the Denon (Denon and Marantz are part of the same parent company), while the Anthem can be harder to set up. We hope to put these up against the Anthem to see how the room correction and other features compare. The competition. • The adds more HDMI inputs (8 total), upscaling of HDMI sources, and slightly more powerful amps, but costs nearly 20 percent more for those features that most people don’t need.

• The is a variant of the AVR-W730H that adds better Audyssey room calibration, Zone 2 analog outputs, and a 3.5 mm remote input. Designed more for custom install situations where these features might be relevant, most people should get the AVR-S730H as it usually costs 20-25 percent less. • The has fewer HDMI inputs than the Denon, and the room correction was not as impressive in our testing. • The has built-in Chromecast Audio, more analog audio inputs, and component video, but the setup was not as easy and the room correction not as impressive as on the Denon. We also ran into issues with Chromecast continually dropping our signal, even when hardwired to a gigabit fiber connection. • The doesn’t have binding posts for the main speakers, making setup harder, and the rear panel isn’t organized as well as our picks’ panels.

Only three of its inputs are HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2, so it isn’t as future-proof. • The was our alternate pick last year, but it didn’t get an update this year and other receivers are offering a better value now. I purchased a ‘cheap’ AV receiver a couple of years ago, and frankly I wouldn’t do it again.

To get a product out the door for that kind of price there’s to many compromises for my taste, especially in the power supply. Power output (especially bass, is dependent on a decent power supply.

While the RX-V375 is advertised as 100 watts per channel, this is 1 channel driven (at 1kHz), 2 channels driven is 70 watts, and I’m yet to see what the output would be with 5 channels driven. If you want to play loud, and have a decent sized room, chances are this amp would run out of puff and potentially clip if pushed hard, especially if you’re using low impedance, low sensitivity speakers. At $200-300, I’d buy myself a nice simple integrated. Or save my money until I could get something decent, preferably a pre/power-amp setup which start at around $1000 in the US. One big problem with integrated amps now is that most Blu-ray players and streamers are no longer including any sort of analog audio output on them. Because of this, you’d then need to route any of those devices through your TV to get audio out of them, and many TVs now don’t even include analog audio outputs, but possibly only a digital audio output. An integrated will work well if you’re going to use it with a dedicated audio source (turntable, CD player, Bluetooth receiver, etc) but if you have an HDMI source, there is a good chance now you can’t use it at all.

I also don’t expect most people to use low impedance, low sensitivity speakers with a receiver selected here. If you are using something like the Energy Take Classic 5.1 setup, they are 8 ohm, 89dB speakers that any receiver here will power to normal listening levels without issue.

If you have a low impedance, low sensitivity speaker, you probably know that it needs more power. And as I mention in the article “We will look into pre-outs later on in this guide, but if you need them, you probably already know that.” •. I think you’re seriously underestimating the ability of Audyssey (specifically MultiEQ and above).

My Denon AVR-1613 that I just bought (Denon factory refurbished for 214.99 actually, great deal) has MultiEQ and man, did it completely change the sound of my system, in the best way, it sounds like I’m at the theater now, and they’re average speakers. If you’re comparing to the Onkyo 515’s 2EQ, well, there’s your problem. I think the features the Denon has are very nice and I think it’s sound reproduction is top notch, especially after Audyssey over my old Yamaha. Networking is nice and so are the overlays.

If you really want the low down on a good receiver, do what I did and take it from the real audiophiles over at AVS Forum (no offense to you guys but AVS is just a mecha for this sort of thing). I don’t know about the civil part, they seem pretty ok to me, and if you were talking about me, I thought I was being pretty civil, sorry if I offended you but I was just expressing my thoughts on the matter, didn’t mean it personally. Audyssey on my Denon took my small powered sub and dropped it to -9.5 db when set to it’s midpoint (as it should be) and set my other speakers at small. At that level, the crossover is perfect and is able to cover the entire range, just like a theater, -10db less than that and it’d be completely lost and unbalanced with the mids and highs. It could be your personal preference or that your initial sub settings were not quite right, but if you follow the wonderful instructions Audyssey has on their site plus what others on AVS have done, Audyssey should give you as close to perfect as any “pro” calibration could do. I know some people’s preferences are different which is why I brought the point up in the first place, you shouldn’t give it lower marks because you think your sub was too loud for whatever reason.

There’s a lot of praise going around for the Audyssey and it isn’t unwarranted, the point I was making was that, if you had the choice between a receiver with or without it, and they’re right around the same price, you should probably go for the Audyssey. Especially since this article is for more budgeted buyers who may not have the knowledge or time to manually setup a system perfectly, Audyssey is unbelievably great for those people. Now I will say Yamaha’s build quality is probably better than Onkyo’s, but Denon’s isn’t too shabby either and the Denon AVR-1613 is still on sale for new at Amazon for only $305. Even if it’s last years model, the only real changes are trickle down from higher models, so getting last years is still a great idea if you can do it for a good price and get the features you want. Civil refers only to AVS, where discussions often break down.

With the subwoofer, as with all speakers, there is a proper level for it to be set to, which corresponds to the level that music and movies were produced. The way that Onkyo has implemented Audyssey in the 525 and 626 models is setting that level 10 dB too high. This can be measured and confirmed with test tones. This can be adjusted manually after setup, but that can also affect or sometimes disable Audyssey’s room correction at the same time.

Hopefully Onkyo can fix this issue with a firmware update, but right now it is wrong. If you like what Audyssey does, then you should use it. It’s free and everyone can test it out themselves easily. Right, I just don’t want anyone to right it off as a gimmicky feature or anything because it really isn’t.

Receiver calibration software has come a long way in a short time, a lot of that is due to Audyssey’s work in the industry. A couple of years ago you wouldn’t even think that built in microphone calibration would ever be this accurate in setting up your system, it was a mythical thing when I bought my last receiver (a Yamaha). But it’s just great to see this technology in affordable consumer products now, everyone should be able to hear their sound system perform at it’s best, and now they can.

It’s also discontinued and would be in the Closeout Models section. It was impossible to go into great depth about the discontinued ones because the amount of stock left of each is totally unknown at this point and they could be gone tomorrow. One major difference on this compared to something like the Onkyo 525 is using Audyssey 2EQ instead of MultEQ. 2EQ does not correct the subwoofer at all, and the subwoofer channel is what needs the most correction as it is more affected by room dimensions.

On paper it looks solid otherwise, but I haven’t used it because it’s likely to be gone soon. I didn’t come across anything that was cheaper than the Onkyo and had a phono stage that was a really good value. You can pick up a nice external phono stage for around $130 or so (see our Turntables article for some suggestions in there), which will have a couple benefits. You will not be limited in your choice of receiver/amplifier and can pick the best one overall. Second, most internal phono stages are MM only, so if you ever wanted to use an MC cartridge, you would need an external phono stage anyway. The one thing I dislike about most phono stages is the use of a wall-wart power supply instead of a regular IEC cable, but it helps to reduce costs an possible interference.

Thanks, Chris. I’ll figure out the phono stage later, perhaps even continue to use my old amp and speakers just for records. I am leaning towards the Yamaha you’ve suggested, but trying to decide whether it’s worth the extra money for a step-up to something like the Sony you’ve suggested, or the Denon AVR-X1000. I don’t care too much about streaming audio, but would like to access all of my iTunes music easily. It sounds like that’s done through AirPlay and otherwise I’d have to add an Apple TV as an interface, right?

Thanks Chris for this detailed review of low budget amplifier. I am inclining towards Yamaha RX-V375 to power my new Energy Take Classic 5.1 speakers. I had a HTIB Onkyo 3400 earlier which is facing HDMI issues in just a year and is now scrap. I seek your inputs to clarify the following 2 questions for my decision: 1.

Is this amp best suited to pair with Energy TC 5.1? I couldn’t understand the power output match between amp and speakers. The speakers have a max output of 200 w and this amp output varies between 70 – 135 w. Rated Output Power (1kHz, 1ch driven) 100W (6ohms, 0.9% THD) Rated Output Power (20Hz-20kHz, 2ch driven) 70W (6ohms, 0.09% THD) Max Effective Output Power (1kHz, 1ch driven) (JEITA) 135W (6ohms, 10% THD) 2. Yamaha RX-V375 vs 475? I dont need the additional network and airplay features of the 475.

But was wondering if the added feature of MHL on 475 produces better sound than 375. Assuming a plug my HDMI laptop to 475 (on MHL input) will it project AV better or similar to 375.

Ignore my ignorance if i am missing something here!! Hy Chris, I own an Onkyo NR807 with Klispch Synergy F2 5.1 speakers. Its really powerfull and i love how action movies sounds. I bought it refurb and was a good deal 2 years ago. I realised for some time that it has a lot of features i dont use, like zone 3? Even tried for 2 months some B&W front height speakers, I agree was a little more “spacious” but not the wow effect, so now I’m back to the “old” 5.1 set.

My question is simple: does the Yamaha RX-V375 will replace with success my 807? There will be any significant difference in power and detail of sound? I also want to upgrade to Klipsch Reference 62 II Line. Will Yamaha keep up? Hope to hear from you soon! The speakers are connected, that’s the first thing I did and had the radio on, so I know they work.

The image is what I have. I’ve hooked the plugs in the back and have had the setting on the front correspond with it (Audio 1, Audio 2, etc.). Question, do I need a different cord?

The one I have has 2 (red and white) ends on each end. Do I need something different (something with 3 ends on one end?) My CD player only has 2 spots, a red and a white one.

Thanks for your help, this was suppose to be a quick easy set-up. Anyone else have this problem? I have a Panasonic P60st60 with the RX-v375 receiver. TV is through Directv. The issue is with the audio, specifically with the ARC function. I have an brand new mono price hdmi cable hooked up to the correct ports on the tv and the receiver. The audio works fine when I am watching directv programming, but if I want to watch netflix through the tv the audio does not switch to netflix.

It remains on my directv audio. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this what the ARC feature is supposed to do? I did enable ARC on the receiver. Do I need to do anything on the tv? Chris, Great article. After reading it, I searched for the closeout Pioneer VSX–822-K that you noted. Found it refurbished for $160, bought it, and it’s perfect for our needs.

Have one question that I haven’t solved on-line. We have a bluetooth speaker in a room which is about 15 feet from the receiver. Is there any way to add a bluetooth transmitter to the receiver’s audio for pickup/play by the speaker. I realize this receiver has AirPlay which is much better, but AirPlay speakers are pricey, and I already own the Bluetooth speaker which has audio good enough for us. Is there a way to do this? The Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter for Bluetooth Audio Devices seems to only allow input streaming from a remote device to the receiver.

I love the fact that this author really breaks it down into what you need and don’t. For myself, I think this obsession with channels and audio perfection is crazy, reminds me of people who used to pay $500 for a phono needle back in the day. Love the economy approach. One functionality that I AM looking for is the ability to play wired speakers in other rooms. I’ve got wiring all over my house, but this receiver, as with most these days, seems totally lacking in what used to be called Speaker A/B and now seems to be called multi-zone. Is there any kind of aftermarket product or solution that would allow me to use this receiver to pipe analog wired signals to standard speakers in other rooms???

I have a question although this may not be the right place for it. I have the Panasonic L58E60, Yamaha RX-V375 and Pioneer SP-FS52. Using HDMI through ARC enabled on the TV and receiver. The problem I am having is that when I turn on the TV, my receiver turns on as well but sound comes out through my TV speakers instead of my uh speaker.

If I toggle the HDMI control off and on, tv sound is turned off and speakers are back in use. This is more hassle than turning the receiver on manually but defeats the purpose of ARC. Any Ideas what could be the problem?

Also my subwoofer (PSW10) has RCA inputs but the (and most) receivers have a single coaxial subwoofer preout. What is the proper way to connect this? Currently just have a RCA hanging out on the receiver side. My beef with the Sony DN 1030 is it will only handle an 8-ohm speaker and up. As I have a 6-ohm speaker (The Pioneer bookshelf speakers,) it takes more power to drive it. The DN 1040 will drive them. I looked at the Yamaha 375, but I liked the features in the 475 more.

I ended up finding an open-box Sony DN840 at Best Buy for ~350 after tax, so I went with that instead. Best Buy has a lot of open-box recievers, usually 50-100 off their normal asking price. If a store doesn’t have an open box of the model you’d like, a different store may. I see the Yamaha 375’s open box at BB for $210 before tax.

I just bought one to replace the Sony STR-DN1040 I got as a Christmas present. Nothing wrong with the Sony, its outstanding, at least it was after I found out to do a system reset after the firmware update. Otherwise you’ll have HDMI issues.

So why am I replacing the Sony? Because last week I was putting together a bookcase to put it in, tripped and fell on top of the Sony sitting on the floor and justcrushedit. Afterwards I looked down at it and almost cried. The whole chassis is twisted and caved in, and my back is totally screwed up to boot. Chris et al., I have a question on home audio logistics that I’m hoping you guys can help with.

My new TV will be sitting on top of a credenza with drawers taking up most of the space, but with shelves on each side that are only about 15″ wide. Purely for aesthetic reasons, I’d love to use a couple of bookshelf speakers and a sub for sound, rather than putting a soundbar in front of the screen, which will block the stand and look awkward.

Unfortunately, all of the A/V receivers I’ve seen (your recommendations included) are about 17″ wide, give or take a few tenths of an inch, and won’t fit. Are there any smaller receivers out there, or is this simply the size that they all come in? If not, do you have any suggestions for alternatives – would your recommended powered computer speakers do a good job and provide living room-filling sound? Does this receiver show an onscreen graphic when you’re changing volume? One thing that wasn’t mentioned in that in some AV receivers, changing volume always displays an onscreen volume bar, which can be distracting. I *downgraded* from a Yamaha RX-V671 to a RX-V571 just because it has a “Display Short Message” option that you can turn off. The current lineup doesn’t seem to offer the option in their menus (I checked the PDF manuals), but that could mean that the option is on OR off by default.

It will only work with component devices then. The Yamaha lacks video conversion, but there is also no receiver out there that will do this.

Going from HDMI to Component would require stripping out the HDCP copy protection that is part of HDMI, and so that manufacturer would never get an HDMI license again. However, if you look out there you can find HDMI to Component video converters on the market. They usually aren’t perfect, but you could pair that with an HDMI receiver, and just run the HDMI output to the conversion box, then component to your TV.

Gahhit return. I’m not sold on the potential 6 year longevity of a $600 product using an incomplete implementation of a new spec (HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2) over two $250 products across 3 year replacement cycles where the 2nd device uses a 2nd or 3rd generation HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2 chipset known to be compliant. The primary difference is you lose 2 HDMI ports and upscaling because these are entry level models. Also Onkyo products have not had stellar reputations on the HDMI front the last few years. Given it was a manufacturing/design issue and not a chipset issue the use of a new HDMI chip does not indicate that Onkyo has remedied a problem that has been ongoing for years across several models.

It’s been the Xbox 360 RROD of HT including Onkyo offering an extended HDMI warranty fix out to 2018. The extended warranty is nice but the hassle isn’t •. This is actually something that I considered. Part of the problem is that Onkyo has been the #1 or #2 selling receiver brand the past few years. It is hard, if not impossible, to be certain if there are just more reports of failures due to this, or more actual failures.

Without vendors disclosing their internal failure rate numbers, it is really hard to determine. The HDMI chipset and board used here would have to be updated from prior models due to HDCP 2.2 and HDMI 2.0, so even if prior ones had higher failure rates, that wouldn’t necessarily apply here. I’ll join the HDMI fail chorus. While I can understand the statistical rationale behind disregarding Onkyo’s HDMI issues, my first-hand experience compels me to disagree with Wirecutter, because (at least in my case) the solution was relatively simple, though totally unnecessary.

My Onkyo 515 had a wonky HDMI to start, and over the past year I’ve owned the receiver, the situation got worse until ultimately it displayed no reliable video signal. Onkyo’s receivers can be connected to the Internet via WiFi or Ethernet, and can receive firmware updates through those connections. However, the firmware update I needed to fix my HDMI issue couldn’t be pushed through those connections.

It wasn’t until I talked to an Onkyo rep that I realized—in my particular instance, at least—that I would have to download the update onto a flash drive, insert it into the USB port, and perform the update manually. I realized this last month, and have only watched the TV a couple of times since, so I’m hoping that it worked. (It seems to have.) Also noteworthy: This firmware patch-solution came from the second tech support person I spoke with. The first one just wanted me to ship the receiver to California (I would have to pay shipping) to fix this (known) issue. (In fact, only talked to a second support person because I called to see if they would pay for the shipping, since it is a known issue.) The bottom line for me is two-fold: 1.) Onkyo receivers, across the board, seem to have HDMI issues, and 2.) Even though the receivers are “connected,” they can’t always receive critical firmware updates via download.

Those two things, combined, tell me that regardless of sound quality or price, Onkyo receivers can’t be the best, because mainstream consumers can’t be expected to troubleshoot problems like this. There are no displays, or sources, that use the full Rec. 2020 color spectrum, which is part of the UltraHD spec. A device that is fully HDMI 2.0 can pass it but currently nothing uses it, and nothing will for a while since the displays can’t do it yet.

As I mention in the piece, many people are using HDMI 1.4 chips and claiming HDMI 2.0. If you implement 4:2:0 chroma subsampling (which wasn’t supported prior to HDMI 2.0), which can be done in firmware often, you can then claim HDMI 2.0. Many vendors do this, while some support this option (JVC, Oppo) but don’t claim it to avoid confusion. I’m interested in this as well. I’d like to know the performance of the 1050 vs. The 850, and the 1050 vs.

The Onkyo 636. The 1050 is priced the same as the Onkyo 636. It includes a 3rd HDMI output for zone 2, and AirPlay. Reviewers have bragged about it’s great sound as well, so I am wondering if there is a significant step up from the 850 that would put the 1050 more on par with the Onkyo. While the Dolby Atmos idea sounds cool, it’ll be interesting to see it implemented. You detract from your 7.1 system, down to 5.1 to add the additional 2 channels up top for Atmos.

Dolby also recommends a 7.1.4, which would require many more outputs than the Onkyo has, so it’ll be interesting to see how it really stacks up in the Atmos environment. Is it more of a marketing gimmick, or a true addition to the surround sound system. Also, I’m noticing a absence of Denon receivers.

Any input as to why these were not added to the review? Great review though.

I had been checking back daily to find this here as I’m getting ready to purchase a receiver right at this price range. Every receiver that isn’t from Onkyo or Integra right now is still using HDMI 1.4 chipsets to pass 4K content. You can pass 4K at 60Hz by using a combination of HDMI 1.4 chipsets with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling support, which is an HDMI 2.0 feature. So it doesn’t have the extra bandwidth of HDMI 2.0, or HDCP 2.2 support, and won’t support future 4K content that may use the enhanced gamut or bit-depth supported in the 4K/UltraHD specification (called Rec. It’s a band-aid fix that works fine for now, but isn’t going to work down the road. Perhaps more receivers with HDCP 2.2 will be announced at the CEDIA Expo in September, but right now it is only Onkyo/Integra. Everyone else is using a subset of HDMI 2.0 but not the full package.

I was in the same boat as you this past winter. Recently got a 1080p TV, running 2.1 audio, with vinyl, cassette, CD, and my Wii. I bought a factory-reconditioned Onkyo TX-NR626 from Woot! And it’s worked out great so far. (There’s no tape out, which doesn’t matter because nobody records to tape except boutique record labels.) While it doesn’t have AirPlay built-in, I have an AirPort Express that does, and connected it too. That said, I’m now considering picking up a center speaker because so much is designed for 5.1 and dialogue tends to suffer in 2.1. Another thing to mention on HDMI 2.0: We really don’t know what features anyone supports on it at this point.

HDCP 2.2 is the most important thing to have support for with HDMI 2.0, and only the Onkyo/Integra receivers use that now. They don’t have all the HDMI 2.0 features, but we don’t know what they have as there aren’t the capabilities to test it. A good reference point here is HDMI 1.4. HDMI 1.4 added support for sending Ethernet over an HDMI cable, which was awesome. You don’t need to hook everything up with Ethernet and HDMI, just a single HDMI cable will do it. It reduces cables and should make it easier. However, I still don’t know of a single component that uses this.

Even though everything needs an Ethernet or WiFi connection, nothing supports it. But everything is still HDMI 1.4 even without supporting this feature of it. So look for HDCP 2.2, since if you have that you’re almost certainly going to have some of the HDMI 2.0 features in there as well. I’ve owned an Onkyo and can testify to what others in this discussion have mentioned.

They have HDMI issues as they get older. HDCP 2.2 doesn’t count for much if you cant get a video signal. I recently was forced to upgrade my Onkyo because it would take literally 30 minutes for the hdmi connection to display the video signal. When this problem started it was only a few seconds, then later a few minutes. As months went on it would take longer and longer each time.

I googled the problem and there were many with the same issue. The receiver lasted about 4 years before i gave up on it.

In its place i got the new Denon s700w. 4k 60p passthrough, hdmi 2.0, 6 hdmi inputs, built in wifi and bluetooth. Only 450 bucks. Sounds great, works great, and I can update the firmware over the internet in a matter of minutes •. I appreciate the future proofing advice but I think 4k crashes and burns. We just went through the the hd transition, there is no OTA content, no discs, is there even any netflix streaming device that can transmit 4K? Netflix can barely get cable companies to stream their current content adequately.

4k would be a bandwidth beast. Anyway, I think a recommendation for a model that doesn’t support 4K would be useful for many. I am certainly not springing for 4k anything for a long long time. I mean 720p and 1080p are mostly indistingusiable •. Even if we don’t care about it, it’s still coming. Every TV manufacturer is investing in it and releasing it, and prices are falling quickly on them.

The 50″ Vizio UltraHD set this fall will be $1,000 and I’m sure others will follow. Even if we don’t care, or see a difference, it is the way things are going. Sources for this in the future will use HDCP 2.2. HDCP 1.x was cracked a few years back, so it is not going to be used for new content types. Sony requires their current 4K player to be directly hooked up to a TV so it can read the EDID information and only work with a Sony TV (not even with a receiver connected to the TV).

Even with 1080p sources it offers studios more security which they would be happy to take advantage of. It will likely be more like the death of analog HDTV. Once the market is small enough, they can move to just HDCP 2.2 if they want. It will only be 4K things at first, but eventually everything will probably be there. Chris great review, the Onkyo TX-NR636 is probably the best receiver for most people if you like surround sound. My problem is that AV receivers in general are not the best solution if you like listening to music more than watching movies.

I would rather invest in a great stereo amp (that doesn’t devalue as fast) and two good speakers instead of buying a midrange 7.1 speaker system and AV receiver. Streaming music is the future but there are no stereo amps or separate network boxes that have Wifi, Airplay, NFC, Bluetooth and Spotify Connect in one system EXCEPT AV receivers. (Sonos Connect gets close do or building your own streaming pc) So if you need an amp and the network functions for listening to music you will end up with an AV receiver if you have your own speakers.I think in this review there is too much focus on the HDCP 2.2 criteria and the video functions that AV receivers have. Why not let the TV handle the video and HDMI switching?

It’s more future proof. Let the receiver handle sound and streaming music. If you don’t focus on the HDCP 2.2 criteria, the Sony STR-DN1050, Marantz NR1605, Denon s700w, RX-V677 are all great (network) receivers. The Onkyo seems great but if previous Onkyo receivers broke down a lot I wouldn’t buy them.

Marantz/Denon/Sony/Yamaha seem to have a better track record of building lasting products so that’s maybe a better choice. I for now will wait.I hope someone will release an easy to use streaming network module so I can connect it to my stereo amp.

Make it with a user-friendly app with Spotify Connect,Wifi/Airplay/Bluetooth and a optical in for my tv. That would be nice! We’re focusing on the video and HDCP aspects of AV Receivers because we are going over Audio-Video Receivers, not integrated stereo amps or stereo receivers. Almost 40% of readers still use non-HDMI video sources, so analog to HDMI conversion is helpful and reduces cable complexity. Most TVs only have a single non-HDMI input now, so HDMI conversion might be essential. If 90% of readers wanted physical media and stereo speakers, then the focus would be different but that wouldn’t be as helpful in this case.

With an AV receiver I wouldn’t recommend having the TV switch the video because only Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio seem to output surround sound over optical. They also do not output lossless audio from your sources at all, so if you are using your TV as a switcher you’re losing the lossless audio quality that Blu-ray and other sources can provide. The focus for the article was dictated by what readers told us they look for in a receiver. One that handles at least 6+ sources, can still handle a legacy analog video source, handles streaming audio, and will last 6+ years. Fulfilling all those requirements led to the Onkyo TX-NR636, which also happens to sound very good. You can also easily pair it with a single pair of speakers and no surrounds at all if you want. There are so many great new or second hand stereo amps available with phono input.

Check out the recommended list on new amps on:. You can also look for older recommendations and use that as a guide for a second hand amp. Need something basic? Top of mind are the NAD C 316BEE and the Marantz PM5004 (5005 is out now).

Or get a second hand Marantz PM-80 like me. In my last post I was looking for streaming stereo amp solution. Yamaha has one now the R-N500, but it’s almost the price of a decent receiver. Thanks a lot for your quick reply and the reco’s.

I’ve spent all day looking into this and down the rabbit hole, going as far as checking out the old Dynaco ST-70 tube amps. Going the second hand route, and staying a bit more sensible, would you consider the NAD 3020? Also, where did you end up buying your Marantz PM-80? I’m checking ebay and craigslist but am a little worried about the condition of a second hand component.

As far as basic new components, I’m looking at your recommended NAD C 316BEE (possibly upgrade to 326BEE) and Marrantz PM5004. The Music Hall 15.3 amp seems to come up a bit on stereophile.com too – so may be a consideration here. NAD D 3020 also sounds interesting, mainly due to it’s digital capabilities. Thanks a bunch for your help! I just have to say, for anyone else that is concerned about heat dissipation for their A/V Receiver: The Pioneer Elite series receivers with the “D3 Amplifiers” are amazing with heat dissipation, almost scarily so. Yes, they might not have the “top of the line” capabilities, but for an enthusiast with dreams of a great setup that can be stowed away behind a door or in a home theater cabinet I honestly think these are the best solution.

My two-year-old Pioneer Elite SC-61 was had for around $700, on sale, and I bought a tiny little CoolerGuys USB fan to place on top of one of the vents And I have not seen the temperature readout (another CoolerGuys purchase) go above 105 degrees Fahrenheit, even under the most insane of circumstances. Even though it’s in an enclosed cabinet, with a hole cut out in the rear, I still have had no heat issues. They’re not exactly cheap, but they sound great. If you’re in need of a powerful receiver, that puts out a low amount of heat, and you can get the newer model SC-81 on sale Go for it.

I just purchased the Samsung 55″ 4k TV, Samsung 4k BVD. They are paired with Onkyo 636 receiver, Polk center and sub, Pioneer PS-52 floor-standing speakers; I can assure you that the 55″ is not “pointless.” Beautiful picture, fantastic sound, very easy to switch from 2,3,5 speakers with or without sub. Had Polk Monitor 70s II, but they were too harsh sounding.

The Pioneers are 1/2 the cost of Polks but sound much ‘warmer’, and really crank if you need them too. Love the Onkyo; last unit nr509 lasted 5yrs, sound just quit one day, but sounded great, so stuck with the onkyo. FWIW I have read the Onkyo 636 uses a 10.2Gbps HDMI 2.0 chipset which is insufficient for carrying 4k/60 4:4:4 — never mind any forthcoming expanded UHD color spaces (e.g. REC2020) or High Damage Range signal standards.

10.2 Gbps is the same maximum throughput as the highest clocked 1.4 chipsets, which is how many of the 2013 4k TV’s and select PC GPU’s were able to release “Software Upgrades” to support 4k/60 — they compress the signals to 8bit 4:2:0. The reason for this is that supposedly manufacturers were forced to choose between 2 HDMI 2.0 variants when they were finalizing this year’s AVR’s — one rated at 10.2Gbps WITH HDCP 2.2 OR one rated at 18Gbps WITHOUT HDCP 2.2. The Pioneer’s, Yamaha’s and Denon’s that do not support HDCP 2.2 supposedly opted for the 18Gbps variant. If this is in fact accurate, prospective AVR buyers are out of luck in both scenarios (with regards to future proofing) if HDCP 2.2 is enforced. The Onkyo will never support the expanded color spaces, HDR standards, or anything beyond 8bit 4:2:0.

Meanwhile the Pioneer’s, Denon’s, or Yamaha’s won’t support Hollywood’s 4k Media if they require HDCP 2.2. In future head to heads like this, you guys should really stick to the same model tiers. The 636 competes with Pioneer’s 1124 (not the 824), Denon’s S900, and Yamaha’s 677. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to compare it to lower range models. Between the two choices, of full bandwidth HDMI 2.0 or HDCP 2.2, HDCP 2.2 is the one that will wind up being more important. There will be future formats that use the larger bandwidth of HDMI 2.0, that is almost certain, but those are also very likely to require HDCP 2.2. Having that extra bandwidth if you can’t send content over it, due to copy protection, isn’t much of a benefit.

The Onkyo TX-NR636 was brought-in specifically as a step-up because of the HDCP 2.2 compatibility. There were many products below that level that suited the needs of our readers aside from HDCP 2.2 and so those models are the ones we brought in. Moving up to the Pioneer 1124 from the 824 might compete better with the TX-NR636, but it was really competing with the TX-NR535. Nothing could go head-to-head with the TX-NR636 because of HDCP 2.2. If you don’t want HDCP 2.2, or are going to wait for the next year as HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 work themselves out, then we would pick the Yamaha RX-V477. Let’s say I have an Apple TV, FIOS box, and Blu Ray to run through my receiver, preferably using HDMI for all of them. And let’s say I don’t care about future-proofing, and plan to use my old Bose Acoustimass, but with only four speakers and the sub (with the TV as the center channel if possible, but using a phantom center if need be).

Are there any cheap — say $250 or less — options you recommend? I’d like to stay away from Onkyo/Integra as my last Integra had HDMI/optical audio port issues from the jump. The updated model of our prior pick, the RX-V377, might work for you.

The $400 price point came about because of what people said is important in their receiver. With virtually all our readers needing a way to stream music from a computer, smartphone, or cloud service, we needed a receiver to handle that. You can add a $40-50 Bluetooth adapter later, but that means the receiver won’t automatically turn on when it gets a signal, and takes up an extra AC outlet, and extra cables, etc Finding the best model that met the needs of most people, without adding in extra features they don’t need, put us at the $400 price point. For people that want less, they can spend less, but most people needed the other features based on what they told us. So, I decided to purchase my first Onkyo based on this review. However, after purchasing and hooking up the receiver I’ve run into a nasty problem. Every time you change channels or skip 30 seconds forward on commercials you hear a relay click loudly as it re-aquires the audio signal and configures the speakers.

This is downright awful for an Audio Video Receiver given you typically want it to operate silently. I consider this to be a huge flaw, pretty much wiping out every good thing described about the receiver in this review.

I’ve never experienced the problem on my Denon which this was to have replaced. I don’t have a cable box to test this with, but I can provide you a couple of suggestions that were made to resolve the issue by others with Onkyo receivers: – Set a sound mode for all source types. DD 2.0 and DD 5.1 are the most common types of content that will be sent by your receiver and assigning them a mode instead of Auto has resolved this for some people.

– Send the audio over an optical cable instead of HDMI and assign the matching audio to be optical instead of HDMI. You might also try using PCM output instead of bitstream, though that will reduce output to stereo. Onkyo uses more expensive relays than other companies, and they get activated when the input or output signal is changed. Usually this would only happen at the start of listening, but some cable boxes cause it to happen all the time by sending different signals for every channel and commercial.

Try setting everything to utilize the same output format and see if that doesn’t resolve it. This thread at AVSForums mentions it: •. Hi Chris, I’ve been doing the same research as you did for the article and came to the same conclusion, this is the best receiver for 600$ bar none.

I wish that I found this article a few weeks ago and saved myself hours of research on the net. From a potential buyer’s perspective, what intrigues me the most about Onkyo is that they have a very good lineup of receivers that cover cheap to very expensive models. I am looking at the $900$ model, the TX-737, thinking that the added power, THX Select 2 plus certification, and other internal upgrades is worth the extra 300$, but I would really like to see the results. As you’ve noted, there is a HUGE improvement between the 535 and the 636, but does this improvement continue in the 737 and 838? What does a consumer REALLY get for the extra 300$? Myself, and readers, would really appreciate if you could do the same testing for the Onkyo lineup of receiver, and see the differences in the Audio Precision output graphs.

Maybe we can see where the ‘value’ in a lineup starts? It would be a very interesting article. I hope you take this up. Having once been salesman at a high end stereo store (remember stereo shops, back in the age of cavemen) and still a major audio buff, I can honestly say that the law of diminishing returns is alive and well in audio. The sweet spot for av receivers right now seems to be about $400 – $700. Would an avr in this price range sound twice as good as a $250 receiver?

Would a receiver that costs twice as much, say $1000 -$1200, sound twice as good? Maybe 40 or 50 percent better. And one at $2500 might sound 20 percent better than these. It’s sort of like sports cars. Is a $300,000 Porsche better than a $75,000 Corvette? Four times as good?

But we’d all take it if we could get it! The Sony media player has two outputs because it will only play on a Sony 4K TV. It reads the EDID directly from the display and if it is connected to a display from someone else, it just won’t work. Because of this it cannot run through any receiver at all since the EDID would come up incorrect. There will likely be some products with dual HDMI outputs, but as we saw with 3D Blu-ray players and other things, that option quickly becomes relegated to higher-end products and most only ship with a single HDMI output. I’d expect the same on 4K players in the future, where they might provide an optical output for people that wish to use them with non-HDCP 2.2 receivers, causing you to forfeit high-resolution audio. Very interesting article.

Indeed, there does not seem to be a lot of appetite from review sites to try and do in-depth measurements on low to mid-end AV receivers. I loved the commentary, too. This said, the Sony STR-DN850 frequency response graph looks like it is the result of a measurement error rather than a feature of the amp itself. What is strange: 1) You claim that a continuous sweep generates a normal, regular looking frequency response graph, but a stepped sweep generates the odd graph you display. You propose the theory that a stepped frequency “is more demanding for continuous power output” as an explanation for this difference.

Actually, there is no reason it should be more demanding, and even if it was, such measurements should be attempted within the actually useful power envelope of the amp: if the amp does not work at this power level, you should try again at a lower power. 2) The frequency response graph display a step of an amplitude of exactly 1 dB at exactly 100 Hz, and then another step of exactly 1 dB at exactly 1 kHz. This looks like a well controlled, digitally adjusted curve, rather than any random problem in the analog part. This actually looks like what one expects from the frequency calibration from the room correction procedure. 3) No other site having tested recent Sony AV models has reported such a behavior to my knowledge. My hypothesis is that you observe a digitally corrected curve from a previous adjustement to the receiver, or that the measurement is erroneous for another reason. I have a couple of questions on this topic.

A) What mode was the receiver set in during the measurement? Was it Pure Direct? B) Did the continuous sweep take place immediately before the stepped sweep? C) Did you try to redo the measurement to confirm the results?

If you did, was the outcome exactly the same? D) Did you contact Sony to try and understand what was going on? Thanks again for this test.

I hope you will continue to produce and make such interesting material available. These are all the things that I thought as well. All the tests are done in a Pure Direct mode when possible to get the best performance and bypass any processing.

With the Sony that meant using the AFD mode as it provided the best performance. I figured the response curve was also due to room correction, so I performed a factory reset and set all the speakers to large, as I did with the others, to avoid any crossover passing the bass to the subwoofer. The sweeps do not take place immediately before the others, but as part of the same test series through the Audio Precision. I also ran each individually to make sure it wasn’t a result of the test before it causing the issue, and it isn’t. I also tested different wall outlets to make sure that wasn’t the source of the issue, but it is something inherent to the test and how the Sony reacts to it. Given the result it seems like a design choice, but it’s not a choice that anyone else has made. I will ask Sony again to see if they have an idea of what is going on, but I usually don’t get feedback on these sorts of issues from most companies.

It’s a very curious result that seems to be a limitation to the amplifier section, but I’ll see what more I can find out. Regardless I was not a fan of the Sony sound in comparison to the Yamaha, and the nicer GUI didn’t make up for it enough. They have 4K pass-through support, which means HDMI 1. Hp 510 Sound Drivers Free Download. 4a, but no HDCP 2.2 support. It also means they don’t support 4K at refresh rates past 30Hz, because that requires at least one HDMI 2.0 feature and they aren’t claiming that.

So it can pass 4K, but not the 4K that most future content will be. Since future 4K content is likely going to require HDCP 2.2 to be displayed, the Yamaha will have the bandwidth to pass some of it but will not be able to.

Right now there are zero products with complete HDMI 2.0 and complete HDCP 2.2 support, but I would consider HDCP 2.2 to be the most important for the future. I will concede that only 4 HDMI’s could be a problem for some readers, but I would argue that those who need more than 4 are probably looking at spending much more than $500 on a receiver. The Emotiva 8100 actually does have Bluetooth 3.0 with apt-X. I must not know most readers, because I have helped more than a dozen friends and neighbors set up a home theater system in the last few years and every system I’ve seen has ethernet and streaming capability from at least one other device in the form of a Blu Ray player, Roku, Apple TV, smart TV etc. I also haven’t run into anyone who’s needs for analog video support couldn’t be fixed by spending $80 on a Blu Ray player.

For me and many others I’ve talked to, the GUI and menu on an Apple TV or smart TV is much easy to use than anything I’ve seen from any Japanese receiver. The biggest problem I see from my neighbors and friends that buy AV receivers is they can’t get a grip on the confusing GUI’s and menu’s that their receivers have. As a long time audiophile I can attest that the Emotiva 8100 sounds noticeably better and is more user friendly than anything I’ve seen from the big name brands that are widely available. As I mentioned in the article, almost 1,000 readers responded to our survey to help figure out what to look for in a receiver. Over 35% have more than 4 video sources, and the same percentage have a non-HDMI video source. So at least 1/3rd of our readers, and likely closer to half, would not be able to use the Emotiva as it lack the necessary inputs for them.

Suggesting reliance on an analog source can be fixed by buying a Blu-ray player suggests that people don’t have legacy components, like camcorders, video game systems, or other devices that need analog inputs. Since over 1/3rd of people still use those legacy inputs, a receiver with them was essential, and HDMI conversion is a big benefit. The Emotiva might sound great, but if it doesn’t work for most of our readers then it isn’t a good pick. I would strongly recommend not buying an Onkyo – their warranty coverage is horrible. I’m really suprised The Wirecutter has an Onkyo listed as its “Best Receiver.” Like many others, my Onkyo (TX-NR626) was hit with the dreaded HDMI issues.

In my case, occasionally after turning on the Onkyo it will fail to send a video signal via HDMI. The only solution is to unplug the Onkyo for a few minutes and plug it back in (and yes, I’ve spent hours Googling and trying everything to fix it). The bigger problem with these numerous HDMI issues is the fact that Onkyo has no official service centers in the United States! They outsource their warranty repairs to independent/third party shops: “Repairs are not performed at our headquarters; all repairs must be performed by our ONKYO Authorized Independent Service Centers” Source: My closest option is Norman Electronics. They’re only open M-F 9am-6pm, which is when I have to work. According to its two-star average Yelp reviews, Norman sounds like an absolute nightmare and they usually don’t even resolve the problem: My only other option is to pay around $40 to ship it to All Tech Electronics in New Jersey and wait a few weeks for it to arrive, receive service, and be sent back to me.

Regardless of the option I go with, I’m going to have to find a replacement receiver while I go through this third party vendor hassle. Calls to Onkyo go straight to voicemail, which are never returned. My emails receive unhelpful replies of things I’ve already tried such as “disabling Deep Color will solve the issue.” I guess I’m just going to have to eat most of the money I spent on this expensive Onkyo and try to sell it on eBay or Craigslist (listing the problem of course) and buy another brand. Please reconsider listing an Onkyo as your “Best Receiver.” The problems I’ve had with my Onkyo have taken dozens of hours of my time with no end in sight and trying to get it repaired at my local shop is going to be a huge PITA. These HDMI issues are widespread and the warranty coverage that Onkyo provides is an absolute joke.

The HDMI board issue is covered in the piece and the comments extensively. The 636 uses a new HDMI board with a new HDMI chipset that has no reliability data on it at all. Other vendors are also using new HDMI 2.0 chipsets (higher bandwidth but no HDCP 2.2 copy protection) and we don’t have any reliability data on those either, so everyone is in the same boat this year. As far as authorized service centers go, this is the case for many vendors. All of these service centers have the same service manuals that a main support center would and the same parts. It reduces the distance one has to ship a product for support, and can save on shipping costs.

As someone that just had to ship a 50 lb. Speaker across the country for repairs, a local service center can be very useful. Also, Onkyo isn’t alone in this practice.

Sony, Pioneer, Onkyo and Yamaha, all our receiver finalists, do this. Onkyo and Yamaha even use the same service center location here in Portland, OR.

Onkyo also offers regional service centers for repair if you don’t have a local one, or prefer not to use it. Some of the other vendors don’t mention if they offer this or not.

If the Onkyo has issues (it is in daily use here) then we will revisit this piece. Or if there are a rash of issues that appear on Amazon or AVS Forum, but for now I still believe it is the best pick. I’ve gone through the reviews.

On the Onkyo, 40% of the 1-star reviews are actually people giving it a bad review because they had a prior Onkyo receiver that went bad. It isn’t for the TX-NR636, so those can be thrown out. If you look at reviews for the Sony STR-DN1050, you’ll see the same average score at Amazon, and a similar number (for the number of reviews) of 1-star ratings saying the unit broke or didn’t work. The Pioneer VSX-824 has the same rating as well, but only 8 reviews so it is too small of a sample to use. The Yamaha has stellar reviews, though once you throw out the false Onkyo reviews its average goes from 3.6 to 3.9. I have the Onkyo here and it still is working fine, and I’m testing it with Dolby Atmos this next week as well so I can update this piece with that info. So while the reviews indicate some issues, it seems that the other receivers out there have similar issues at similar rates.

I have an Onkyo TX NR808 which over Christmas with a house full of family, the wired network and the sound went out. This is after sending it to a service center in Michigan twice last year, My local TV/home theater tech thinks I should get a Sony ES receiver which has 5 year warranty. Each time I send it out for repairs it takes a month to get it back. The Anthem 310 sounds good,but I have 8 speakers including woofer and center.Do you have any ideas on the ES Sony receivers? Also if Onkyo is buying Pioneer, when will we see new products as a result? Nothing else has HDCP 2.2 and so as things transition to 4K, which will use HDCP 2.2, that will be essential going forward.

If you don’t have that you’ll either get 1080p or no signal at all to your TV from a 4K source. Since people expect a minimum of 6+ years from a receiver, anything without HDCP 2.2 is going to be out-of-date before then, much like a receiver with only component inputs would be now. I did not do blind listening tests. I looked into doing blind tests but the hardware to do so ran into the thousands of dollars making it impractical.

Other test equipment that I have costs that much, but can be used for more than a single thing, usually all year long. They were all tested objectively on the Audio Precision, which showed large differences between them. Using the speakers I used (Revel f208, which is a hard speaker to drive) shows the differences between them as well. In some cases it was subtle, in some it just didn’t sound that great. But I did know what I was listening to when I listened to it. Received NR636 on July 25th Center channel died 8 27 Square trade warranty through amazon was worthless. Day past the return window for Amazon.

One place on the west coast to send for repair. Between shipping and what the charge to repair, just a big paperweight as far as HT is concerned. Might be able to use it in the shop as a stereo receiver. BIG disappointment all around. Unfortunately, for 4K upconversion, neither the Denon or Marantz, even in two tiers up from this, can compare. Off to the 838. After 2 weeks so far so good.

Maybe Onkyo’s QA just isn’t what it should be. AirPlay on a receiver or anything other than an AppleTV is audio only.

Working over WiFi is nice, but the cost estimate for the WiFi chip with AirPlay when I saw it was $15-20 for the chip. When you consider that the retail cost of a product is usually 4-5x the bill of materials (to account for R&D, marketing, warranty, dealer overhead, shipping, etc) then adding AirPlay can easily add $75 to the cost of a receiver. That’s likely not worth it for most companies. I’d assume some get a better deal or the cost has gone down by now, but I know companies don’t want to add an extra processor for room correction because it might cost $1 for the chip, and that’s in a $2,500 receiver. So as long as AirPlay remains a cost premium, I don’t expect it to be in everything. As I read this review, a question and a statement come to mind: * Just for your information, while Onkyo does offer a 2 year warranty, there are not many Onkyo Authorized service centers (or even authorized independent repair shops).

There isn’t a single one in Wisconsin where I live for example. This means that if you have to have a receiver repaired (as I have three times over two different Onkyo models) you have to pay out of your own pocket to have it shipped (and generally shipped back to you) because Onkyo doesn’t cover getting it to a service center, just what they do at the service center, regardless of warranty status. Very disappointing. * I was wondering how your unit was holding up over time. I’m starting to see a lot of one-star Amazon reviews creep up, mostly along the lines of “it was working fine, then it went POP, and now it doesn’t do anything”, which seems to be the standard complaint of Onkyo receivers. Just super curious as my current Onkyo died for the third time and I’ve decided I don’t want it repaired again, and while I want something that’s future-proof, I’ve been burned enough that I’m a bit hesitant to drop $450 on something from a company that has a less than stellar reputation (regardless of how anecdotal that reputation may be). I just went through reviews of receivers for another comment, and the Onkyo is seeing similar levels of reports of failure to current Sony and Pioneer models.

So some are failing, but they are for every vendor. Yamaha seems to have better reviews overall, but none of these sample sizes (Amazon reviews) are large enough to draw certain conclusions from. The service center thing really depends on geography. I can get Pioneer and Sony service where I live, but have to ship Onkyo and Yamaha for repair. The same goes for other components I own (an amplifier, speakers) where I’ve had to ship them to a service center across the country for any repair. That is the negative, but the positive is you’re going to a service center that knows that product better.

If you look up the reviews of some of the Authorized service centers they might not be as good at fixing the product, or take weeks to get in a necessary part. Each has a benefit and drawback. Folks, a friendly advice that will save you money and time.

NEVER BUY any ONKYO product. Their service and brand value is almost zero. I bought N709 for my Synergy F30 set and Onkyo has a global HDMI board problem on ALL their A/V receivers (manufactured 2009-2013) leading to global recall!!!!

Since I bought this device in UK 1-2 years ago and now living in Canada, I’m not eligible for repair/recall! And that’s even less than 2 years after the purchase.

So forget about Onkyo and complement your amazing Klipsch (or any other type) with a reliable brand. Cheers and have fun. I can echo this sentiment. I’ve had two Onkyos take the celestial dirt nap at just over 2y warranty in the last 4 years. Their support is deplorable.

If you go there just remember you should budget for the extended warranty no doubt. Overall I think this is a horrible time to buy an A/V receiver. The traditional rock solid job of a pre-amp/amplifier combined into one cabinet was challenge enough. Now these companies are struggling to stay relevant in a digital age with streaming and network hardware and bunged UX. And let’s just say it: most are doing a shitty job of it.

I’m most likely going back to a Sony product (yes really) as they seem to have turned the corner better than others. In the future I’ll always pick a company that at least has some experience with things other than audio as I think this just makes sense. As long as the sound quality is there.

If Steve Jobs was still alive he’d be zeroing his sights on this market. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’m not sure I have seen a consumer segment that is as ripe for disruption. Does anyone see a total rethink that supports the decoding for surround sound out there?

In terms of future-proofing, have you considered whether the Onkyo will be compatible with High Dynamic Range (HDR) 4K or Dolby Vision? HDR may be the thing that kicks off sales of 4K, because if you’ve seen it, it’s like the ‘wow’ factor HD had when it was released.

It does, however, require an extra 20%+ bandwidth to provide the extra chroma metadata, which makes me wonder whether the 10.2GB/s HDMI 2 chipset used by Onkyo will be up to the task. I’m wondering whether it makes more sense to wait for Dolby Vision-compatible receivers to be released before making a purchasing decision.

HDR 4K content will be coming this year from OTT providers, and HDR UHD TV’s will be hitting the stores probably late spring/early summer. The issue here is we don’t know how exactly that Dolby Vision content is going to be packaged.

We know we will be getting HDR content over Netflix for 4K displays, but the only 4K playback for Netflix right now is the TVs internal app, so a receiver won’t matter. If it is on a disc, HDMI 1.4 bandwidth provides enough room for 3840×2160 resolution, 4:4:4 chroma resolution, and 12 bits per pixel for bit-depth at 24 frames per second. Since all feature films are 24p, this means that HDMI 1.4 bandwidth with HDCP 2.2 should have enough room for even Dolby Vision content. Of course, since this isn’t out yet, and there are no details on players yet or the requirements, we can’t verify this. But the math says that it should have the bandwidth to do it for films. It can’t do it at 60p for video content, but films should be fine. I haven’t tested that Pioneer so I can’t offer many comments on it.

I’ve tested other Class D Pioneer’s and liked them, but this is going to have the same issue that almost all the others do with 4K content. Now that we’re starting to see announcements of 4K material and Blu-ray later this year, it won’t be long before you need HDCP 2.2 to pass a signal. Currently only the Onkyo can do that. Later this year we will have receivers that do HDCP 2.2 and full bandwidth HDMI 2.0, but right now we don’t. If you are not going to upgrade a TV before you upgrade a receiver, it probably won’t matter, but if you want it to last a long time, you might need to wait. Chris & Tony, Thanks for all of these reviews! Even after reading, I’m still confused, so here’s what I’m looking for & I’m hoping that the experts could help me make a smart choice.

I’m looking for a good audio only system, no video. I don’t have a TV & when I watch movies at home, it’s on my laptop. Budget is pretty flexible up to around $2000 (if spending that leads to a better sound/feature package than spending, say, $1000 or $400).

I just moved & left behind the mediocre all-in-one sound system I was using. For sources, I have a lot of music on my MacBook and a big CD, vinyl and cassette collection. I like TuneIn radio; I haven’t used streaming services (but am open to exploring). I’d like visiting friends to be able to easily connect their laptops or iPhones as music sources to share music or guest DJ a dance party. I’m trying to decide between using Sonos as a whole home audio system and adding a turntable (Audio Technica or Pro-ject) & inexpensive CD player & cassette deck (any recommendations for these?) VERSUS using a receiver — Onkyo N-636 or Marantz NR1605 (I live in a NYC apartment so space is tight) — plus a pair of bookshelf speakers (Pioneer SP-BS22-LR or whatever you recommend in your update) plus turntable, CD player & cassette deck. If I go this ‘component’ route, are these receivers overkill since I won’t be using video? Would a simple amp like Emotiva (Mini X A100 or Fusion Flex) be just as good or do I need the DAC, preamp and phono stage elements of a receiver even for my purposes?

Bluetooth, Wifi, Airplay (for when I upgrade my ancient MacBook) are all welcome, as is anything wireless (though not at the expense of much sound quality) since wires in this apartment with it’s weird layout could be tricky. The place is about 750 sq ft. Total with the main living/listening area 14 x 22. I’m grateful for any advice! So there are a few different options I could come up with for you. If you’re only playing stereo sources and don’t care about surround, I wouldn’t get a receiver.

There is no need for it, and all the money spend on HDMI, licensing codecs, etc are not going to stereo audio quality. So a couple different suggestions: – The KEF X300A speakers. They are $1,000 a pair, but they sound very good and include AirPlay. With a USB input you can hook them up directly to your PC easily for playing audio from there, and they have a line in for your analog sources like a turntable.

It’s a very simple solution. – The NAD D7050 is a small stereo amp that has AirPlay, an analog input, Spotify Connect, and is supposed to sound very good.

I’ve not heard it, but NAD usually does a very good job, and you can pick your own stereo speaker to use with it. We’ll have a bookshelf speaker update this year, it’s taking a bit as there are so many speakers to test out. Nothing like thewirecutter showing it knows little about audio; for the last few years Onkyo has been infamous for poor quality construction and higher-than-average breakdowns. How did the reviewer miss that? In 2014 they offered to extend warranties the blowback for poor quality has been so bad. Even the Best Buy sales people will tell you they’ve had huge issues.

This guy writes without an inkling of what issues owners have had in the last few years, FFS every audio forum has a thread on owner’s Onkyo issues. God reviewers suck.

Best Buy will also attempt to sell you a more expensive HDMI cable for improved performance when all it improves is their commissions. Most reviewers have a product for 1-2 months at most. We hold onto our picks and continue to use them. If the Onkyo starts to develop HDMI issues, we will track it. The prior issues on Onkyo units caused us a bit of hesitation, but the new ones use very different parts and out-performed all their competitors as you can see on the Audio Precision tests. I’ve also followed the Onkyo owners threads at AVS Forum, where no one with the current model has an issue with failure. If we see an issue we will update the piece.

I’ve had no issues with the Class D Pioneer models I’ve heard, but those have always been the high-end SC-models (85, etc) and not the lower-end ones. Class AB will still usually sound better (lower distortion) but comes with a weight and power use penalty.

If you’re running two channels, you can get a stereo receiver from someone like Yamaha and it’ll have a better amp for those two channels than a home theater receiver will. If you want a center channel, you need to get at least five channels because there isn’t a 3 channel model out there. Hey Chris, How does the sound compare with the Digital amps Pioneer uses on slightly higher end models (e.g. You mentioned the VSX-824 had harsh treble.

The Digital Amps sound appealing from an efficiency (but hopefully sound too) standpoint. I realize the SC-81 has no HDCP 2.2. It leads me to my next question. What would you get for a 2 or 3 speaker receiver (or equivalent setup). I have no surround speakers so the 5+ speaker receivers seem like a waste although I do use the 2nd zone to power another room. Very good article i have owned all the entry models from different companys (pioneer vdx 524, sony 550dh, denon ex200 and onkyo SR-333 ) and i noticed by ears all the flaws the testing provided as result. Sony and Pioneer are harsh, denon and onkyo sound thonier for entry models.

So what would be the best pick under 300 if someone only needs a 5.1 set up with or without internet fonctionnality, would the DEnon AS500BT be a good sounding receiver (how does it compare to sony DH550? There is no mention of it’s flaws in the article but i read elsewhere it was not the best sounding AVR and many prefered even the Sony to it, but the test seems to indicate sony sound is not accurate. Just wondering whats the best purchase underneath 400, since the onkyo 636 is well above that price, is the onkyo SR-333 the best choice? Or one of these Denon AS500BT, sony550H?? Not sure at all wich one to choose. The most significant difference in sound quality between these various brands will be how well they do the room correction. The huge variation in results in the very first step, determining the speaker size and level, suggests that there will be a big difference between various correction algorithms.

Perhaps the “harshness” that you heard in some units is just an equalization difference from the different correction results. Since you have the AP analyzer, it would be pretty easy to measure the corrected room response that each receiver comes up with.

That would be an interesting and useful comparison. “The [Anthem] ARC room correction works better than any other similar system in the price range” How do you know that? I’d recommend reading Dr. David Rich’s piece on Anthem Room Correction here: Be advised, it takes a long time to get through it.

Some of the main advantages to Anthem Room Correction are that it uses it’s own individually calibrated microphone while other systems only use a generic microphone without a calibration file unless you get the custom installer kit which is very expensive. It also offloads the calculations to the PC instead of to the receiver CPU, allowing it to do far more complex calculations and adjustments than the hardware can. ARC also gives you full control over where you want the effects to start and end. So if you like the natural sound of your speakers but want to fix the bass response, you can do that by setting an upper limit for calibration (say 250Hz or 500Hz) while leaving the natural sound alone. All receivers were also listened to with both room correction enabled and disabled. I also made sure to use the correct size and distance settings when testing them, even if the automatic detection routine didn’t do it correctly. I got the unit, and added GoldenEar 5- SSat3s and a ForcField 4 subwoofer and I have to say.I am blown away.

I just used my phone with a SPL meter on it, got the levels set rightthen fine tuned by ear there after. Took all of about 5 min to get it dialed in properly. Everyone is so worked up with the room correction. If you know the proper crossover points of your speakers and sub (any good speaker manufacturer should be able to recommend settings that work in the real world) It truly is not that hard. So if your in the market for a serious but not stupid expensive setup.the Onkyo pared with GoldenEar.go take a listen, you will thank me later.

I was a warehouse manager for a few years at a high end home theater company. We had about 30% failure on the Onkyo Integra *.3 () models within the warranty period. I was sending in about 3-4 receivers a week for replacement HDMI boards for over a year. There was a supply issue with the HDMI chips for that model year and they had to source the chips from another supplier. It was related to the tsunami that caused supply issues for hard drive manufacturers. They have since resolved the issue, but it left a very bad taste in my mouth and I have a difficult time trusting them to be reliable.

Interesting article with some important information. I’d like to address one of the observations made here – the apparently noisier output of the VSX-824-K, compared with the TX-NR636, as demonstrated for the low level sine tone input. It is unfortunate that the author didn’t specify what kind of loads (if any) were connected to the receivers when these measurements were made. The load applied to the receiver is important, as there is a significant difference between the architectures of the two receivers’ amplifiers. The TX-NR636 is probably a class AB topology, whereas the VSX-824-K is a class D topology (switching amplifier). The switching amplifier, by its design, requires its output to be filtered.

The output filter is obviously internal to the device, but it might be engineered to perform optimally when used with an actual reactive load such as a real speaker, that naturally has a frequency-dependent, complex impedance – hence the importance of specifying the kind of load attached to the output when the measurements were made. The different architecture is also relevant for the receiver’s weight issue, which was also addressed in this article. Switching amplifiers (e.g.

Class D topologies) are very efficient, and do not require a power transformer as heavy as is required for the linear amplifiers (e.g. Class AB topologies). The Pioneer VSX-824-K isn’t a Class D receiver, it’s still Class A/B. The Class D models at Pioneer begin with SC to help differentiate them. For Class D models Audio Precision has a filter that is attached between the output of the receiver and the APx test device to perform the filtering.

If that device was needed and won’t there, you’d know it instantly by looking at the output. All receivers were tested with 8 ohm loads since that is what they are rated for. I also tested with 4 ohm loads which showed that the Onkyo and Yamaha did better than others when presented with these loads. While most people will be using 8 ohm speakers with these receivers, even those can dip down to 4 ohms at points. Hi, I bought the Yamaha V477 after reading this article (and some others 😉 ).

Happy with the product. Good upgrade from my quite old Philips AVreceiver. Unfortunately there were some things I didn’t take note off.

Can’t play SACD anymore since my dvdplayer outputs in 6ch analog and the Yamaha has no 6ch analog input. Another upgrade to go I guess.

What surprised me was that new connectivity (HDMI) introduces new challenges. Had quite some problems connecting HDMI-ARC to my Panasonic P50VT60 plasma. It’s probably the Viera-link that’s mixing things up. It now is to the extent that I have to switch on Viera-link every once in awhile to get audio to the receiver. (Viera settings in tv-menu AND in the Apps-section Weird but true). In the end I did the audio out by optical Toslink to the receiver. Right now I’m trying to find an external Wifi dongle.

Maybe anyone here know whether it possible to use a standard external usb dongle to be bought from eBay? Bottom line, I’m very happy with the receiver and would recommend it. I am an avid FitBit user and have been for about 2 years now.

With the flex, I noticed my runs on the treadmill and days were I would use the elliptical, steps & distance were off. I’ve had the Charge HR for 42 days now. I’ve learned that clipping it to my underwear and holding it against my strap (elastic strap from gym shorts) helps in calculating more reasonable steps/distance for ellipticals, stair steppers, etc.

The numbers NEVER meet the machine numbers which assures me my method is working. I have tried this for 2 treadmill runs now and I am getting more distance/steps than before, but nothing outrageous. Would you agree with this method? In my opinion, we use our hips and legs to move. Not our wrists. When I was wearing the Charge HR on my wrist, it would only register when my hands actually moved.

Does it make sense that at the same effort on an elliptical in 30 minutes I only traveled 1.5 miles? One time when it was on my wrist at a 65 minute run ranging from 6mph-7.5mph the FitBit calculated 5 miles. I once wore it on my waist and got 5.74 miles. I found this more reasonable.

Also, when I had the Fitbit Zip, an attachable to waist product, I found that OVER estimated steps & distance. Any ideas would help me! I love this product, but of course I want the most reliable. **Another thing is sometimes my steps and distance do not equate. For instance just four days ago my steps were 15,305 and i was given 5.6 miles.

For a different day I was given 5.9 miles at 15,123. Great Article.

Very well put together and Chris, your responses are spot on. I purchased a brand new Pioneer SC-1222-k from New Egg about a year and-a-half ago on Black Friday. Paid like $400, it was a good deal. The damn thing crashed on me last week. Bad digital circuit board and apparently Pioneer wants $315 just to purchase the board, that doesn’t include installation, which I was quoted around $45. So I began looking at the option of possible purchasing a new receiver all together, when I stumbled upon this article. Was wondering if you had an opinion on purchasing the Onkyo 6363 for roughly $400 or fixing my SC-1222 for about the same price??

The Onkyo has the latest technology but less power. I have an even older Yamaha RX V673 since 2013 and I am still plenty satisfied with it.

And I do not have real reasons to replaced it. Apple TV supplies my needs in wirelles A/V and my Blu ray Sony BDP S590 can render Android stuff. I would like do expericence DTS Master Audio 7.1, but In real life, to place 7.1 speakers according technical recomendations is almost impossible in most rooms. Imagine Atmos.

I placed speakers in a 5.1, plus Presence Speakers (Front High). In my opininion •. I had an older Onkyo but the video stopped working. I replaced it just over 2 years ago with the most recommended at the time, The Onkyo 636. It went very quickly very quickly so was able to have it replaced by Amazon no questions asked and free shipping both ways. Now the 636 I have, the audio works but the HDMI output has stopped working.

A couple months of course out of warranty, so now I have another worthless piece of Onkyo. The cost to have it shipped to a repair center and back (since they are so heavy) would probably cost the price of a replacement on Amazon since they are now about half the price, not to mention the cost of the repair. Onkyo support has been very poor. So in the end, Onkyo continues to offer the best features and sound for the price, with the major down side being reliability. If you like have the latest and greatest buy and Onkyo, and in 2 years assuming it dies, you will probably have wanted to buy a new one anyway for the latest new feature. Otherwise a Denon or Yahmaha don’t seem to have the same hardware design flaws that the Onkyo has.

The reviewers mention it’s a brand new HDMI board meaning it shouldn’t have the same past problems that have plagued the lines. Which I believe. Instead I imagine we will get a whole new line of problems with the untime tested recievers. Then again you might get lucky and get an Onkyo that last up to 5 years. Purchased this unit about 3-4 months ago. Now I have random times where it completely cuts off.

Sometimes I can turn it back on, sometimes I can’t and I have to just let it “rest.” Called tech support and their ONLY troubleshooting option is to unplug the speaker cable and see if it still happens. Since it still happened I now have to pay for shipping for a new product that is defective, oh and be without decent TV for who knows how long. That and kids don’t jive well together. Don’t waste your time, I wish I wouldn’t have. I’m going to echo the sentiments here regarding Onkyo, I’d stay far far away.

I had a NR-626 Refurb (Woot) for a year plus and as soon as the warranty expires on the device it begins to fail with HDMI. Audio cuts off, Video handshake problems, and lets not even start with the WiFi connectivity! Factory resets to just get WiFi going again. I took a chance, yes you get more for your buck with Onkyo (and I took a risk with a Refurb!) but you are going to pay for it later on down the line when warranty expires on your product. I had a Yamaha HTR-6240 prior to the Onkyo that was a solid receiver, so when it was time to purchase a replacement for my troublesome Onkyo I went back to Yamaha, picked up a Aventage RX-A740 and it has been wonderful since. Let me hedge this with saying if you bought your receiver before this year, probably.

Part of Dolby Vision (which is a collection of things) is HDR, and HDR means you need a 10-bit signal. Because of that, you’ll need HDMI 2.0a and nothing has that as of today. HDMI 2.0 receivers with HDCP 2.2 can possibly be updated to it (as TVs are doing) but I haven’t seen an announcement about that aside from Denon/Marantz doing an upgrade for their high-end models.

Of course, if you get Dolby Vision over streaming, it’s likely built-in to your display and you’ll just use the existing audio output. Or you can get around this by getting an UltraHD Blu-ray Player that has dual HDMI outputs and run one to the TV and one to the receiver. Then you can do this without needing a new receiver. To update your “known HDMI problems” section: Onkyo recognizes the problems with previous selected models (checked through serial number) and extends the warranty on HDMI board and network chip until 2018. My trusted TX-NR609 (3yrs old) is now up for repair for a failing HDMI board.

One question though: besides the repair, I am also offered a cashback of € 125,00 when purchasing a new onkyo in the x3x or x4x series instead of sending my unit in for warranty-repair. Does the 636 (or to a lesse extend the 646 since it’s quite a bit more expensive) offer enough to warrant an upgrade over the 609 (wifi and bluetooth is not imporatant to me. Spotify connect is, but the 636 does also not offer this(?)). Two onkyo receivers have bonked out on me in a matter of about a year into use. I bought my second Onkyo unit based on this WireCutter recommendation and the infamous Onkyo HDMI issue came up with me and all HDMI ports stopped working (a replacement HDMI controller is quite expensive). A friend also bought an Onkyo and I had told him about my two Onkyo receivers’ issue before his purchase. He was hoping mine were bad eggs but just 5 months into use, same thing happened to him.

I am pretty sure I never want to buy another Onkyo receiver again. A good receiver can easily last you a decade, not 1 year. Hope others with their HDMI issues on Onkyo start voicing their annoyance. Also the RX-v479 has been out for some time, this article should be updated. I am looking to purchase that one next.

BUYER BEWARE!!! If you purchase the TX-NR636 on Amazon, as I did, from one of their Amazon re-sellers, MAKE SURE that re-seller is NOT on the Unauthorized list here: Unfortunately I did buy it from an unauthorized Amazon reseller, Infinity Sales, and now I have no warranty to cover the unit which is defective. Onkyo WILL NOT repair my defective unit because I didn’t buy it from an “authorized” re-seller, which to me is INSANE. It may be a better value, but seriously, STAY AWAY FROM ONKYO! They are literally the WORST for customer support. This is the case for all electronics.

There are lots of gray-market merchants out there that sell units that aren’t covered by a warranty for whatever reason. Often they are international units that are then sold back in a different country where the exchange rates make it favorable to do so. We see this all the time with cameras, TVs, receivers, and other electronic devices and I’d advise to only buy from an authorized dealer.

The response from Onkyo is the same response you’ll likely get from other companies when you purchase a unit that isn’t from an authorized dealer. Purchased the Onkyo 636 a few months ago based in large part on this review and it’s been stellar. Running a 5.2.2 Atmos setup with a pair of in-ceiling at Top Middle, all speakers installed per Dolby guidelines for angles.

Wonderful dynamics and punch, and I’ve concluded that Atmos is anything but a gimmick, increasing the immersion appreciably even on non-Atmos tracks due to the Dolby Surround upmixer. Atmos tracks, like that in Gravity, are stunning. And this is a bare-bones minimum Atmos install, can’t wait to go 7.2.4. I’ll mention that the lack of any kind of room correction for the bass range may have been a deal-breaker for me had I not other means (outboard EQ) of doing it. Beware, with this receiver you can NOT listen to glitchfree music from ANY source if a TV or Beamer that is connected through HDMI is in standby!!

This receiver, according to Onkyo support, tries to HDMI-Handshake with any device connected to the HDMI Main Output. Anytime the device does not respond (because in standby or even completely off the grid in my case an epson EH-TW6100) audio playback will drop out completely if the source is HDMI, optical or DNLA, or simply stutter, glitch if the source is internal FM-Radio or Webradio.

Don’t buy a TX-NR636 if you plan to listen to music with it while your beamer or TV is in standby. It will not work and I have this confirmed with Onkyo support. They don’t even see that as a software bug, but as a normal part of the working of this receiver! It makes no sense at all, that the receiver even tries to hdmi handshake if the user only wants to listen to fm radio or audio coming in through optical, but the receiver will still try to, and not succeeding causes it to glitch the audio.

As long as there is video coming in through any of the hdmi inputs it will try to handshake on the output. If you want to listen to music glichfree without a beamer or tv running you have to disconnect hdmi out or disconnect any of the video sources that may send a video signal, screen saver whatever, to the receiver. Audioplayback trough AppleTV is completely impossible because of this. Because it will always send a video signal to the receiver while playing back audio.

@Chris Heinonen, Thank you for your well written report, the nuances of testing and the comparisons provided. Appreciate the effort you put. I’m interested in upgrading my receiver (to the 21st century – relatively speaking; it is a Denon from 2001 (AVR3803) – still working fine!) and was considering your updated recommendation of the Denon SW710.

I notice that the article contents have not yet been updated with the testing results of the Denon SW710. May I inquire if the Denon SW710 recommendation is a result of same rigorous testing as those done for the Onkyo and others? Thank you in advance. @chrisheinonen:disqus Thank you for your continued responses to our queries here.

Appreciate the time you devote to your readers. I was planning to get the 4K Vizio M60-C3 soon (primarily based on your review). I read on rtings.com ( ) that the M60-C3 could use some improvement in it’s up-scaler for non 4K content. I was also planning to get the Denon S710W (again, primarily based on your review). I read on Denon’s website that the S710W does not upscale any input to 4K output. Given these two, and your experiences and exposure to several receivers as part of your examination thereof, is there one that you can recommend that does good 4K up-scaling of all content / input while providing all the important capabilities such as HDCP/HDMI/Color support etc like the S710W? I understand that the price point of such a receiver may be higher.

I intend to use the 4k output of such a receiver as the input to the M60-C3 thereby alleviating any scaler issues of the Vizio. Since there is a dearth of 4K content at the moment, perhaps a receiver that can provide good 4K up-scaling of all inputs might be a worthwhile purchase for folks looking to hook it up to a 4K TV. Thank you in advance. So, I purchased the AVR-S710W on Black Friday based on the recommendations on this site. Now, I am looking to pair it with some speakers and need some help.

I am quite limited in funds, though! I will be using it 70% for movies / 30% music and concert blurays. I like to listen to my music LOUD.

Therefore, I want to use the full power of my amp without clipping, distortion, or damaging the amp or speakers. I just saw a Harmon Kardon Cyber Monday deal for a 5.1 setup for $185 (HKTS 16). Would this fulfill my needs? Are these good speakers? Any other suggestions in that price range MAYBE up to $300! I really feel like there are no great low-end options.

I don’t care about Ultra HD, I’m sticking to my beautiful 1080p plasma for as long as I can; at least 5 years more I hope. My needs are light for our small living room; I have a 5.1 surround system that I want a receiver for.

We stream almost everything from our smart TV. With its built-in ARC HDMI port, I only need a receiver with ARC support and it’s just one cable between the TV and receiver. Then I just need 2 HDMI ports on the receiver for my Xbox 360 and Blu-ray player. 5.1 speaker support, 1 HDMI (ARC) out port, 2 HDMI inputs, 1080p/3-D HDMI support; I feel like this feature set is super simple and should be relatively inexpensive. I’ll probably find something used, but finding documention on ARC as a feature is difficult, especially for discontinued models. Lots of receivers are designed to be a standard size to fit into racks and other things. It also give it room to design it around an amplifier that can put out a decent amount of heat when in use.

If the box were to be ultra minimal, you’d wind up with a box that runs much hotter, and people would be trying to fit it into a more confined space due to the size. That would lead to even more issues with heat. You could see a smaller processor in theory, but since those are higher-end they also want them to be the same size to fit in AV racks and other areas. It also lets them reuse the same case from receivers, which saves money for companies as well.

Since processors are such a small market, it wouldn’t make as much sense to make a whole new case for them possibly. You’ve not considered audio.

I don’t need all the special codec support but I would want to push my 5.1 setup. PC surround kits can do plenty of audio standards processing and they can be very, very small. If a manufacturer could combine something that size, with an in-built hdmi switcher (like those you refer to) which are also tiny then the result would be a tiny ass basic surround sound AV receiver. That would make me so happy.

I’d imagine something like that would not cost us our first born. Bought the Denon AVR S710W at Best Buy on Black Friday. My unit has major HDMI handshake issues.

I’ve connected a streaming Roku, LG 3D Blu-Ray, Panasonic Blu-Ray/VHS and a venerable Toshiba HD Player. All pieces of equipment have the latest firmware. All are connected with new high speed HDMI cables except for the Roku. The Denon will recognize only the Roku.

The other pieces will occasionally transmit audio but not video. I’m using a 15ft Redmere HDMI cable from the AVR to my BenQ projector. It’s all very frustrating. I’m considering reinstalling my Onkyo HT-RC560. Chris, Thanks again for the great reviews, I’m very pleased to see that the update has been published. That said, I’ve got two questions: 1) It seems that it is safe to say that the Onkyo models in this price range are the only ones with direct phono inputs? Certainly appears that way.

Getting a second amplifier isn’t a big deal, but would add one more piece to the puzzle. 2) I see in your testing you used KEF R50 upward firing Atmos speakers.

I’m curious how you feel about that style of speaker vs. Ceiling mounted speakers (I’ve got ~7ft drop ceilings in the basement entertainment room and could mount a pair of in-ceiling speakers, but the upward firing option seems a bit simpler – I’m just not sure about the quality difference for receivers in this range). Any thoughts on that? I am finally getting around to upgrading my home theater for the first time in over 10 years.

I have an old Denon that doesn’t support HDMI and this looks like the right replacement. We have moved houses since the original purchase and the surround sound wired speakers I use are a mess. In fact I only have the front and center speakers hooked up as the the room isn’t wired to handle anything else nicely. So while I was looking to upgrade my receiver it seems like the right time to move to wireless speakers as well. I am pretty confused by the story for wireless speakers and a receiver like this.

I was looking at the Sonos Soundbar based on another review here. It seems like they can take an optical audio in, does this Denon receiver have an optical audio out that would support that?

Or are you still effectively “tied” to wired speakers with this solution. I have a DirectTV box, and an Xboxone as inputs, a Panny commercial Plasma panel for video output. The Xboxone is replacing my Denon DVD player.

Thanks in advance. I am considering the Denon AVR-S910W, however, Costco has the Yamaha RX-V779, but relabeled as TSR-7790 for the same price. Which is the better way to go? The Yamaha does not support Atmos, I’m not set-up for it, but it does have 7.1 plus a second zone. It also offers a Dialogue Lift, which seems important after listening to my Onkyo all these years.

I’m constantly changing volume and rewinding to catch the dialogue. The Denon HEOS speaker system seems less expensive than Yamaha’s MultiCast, $150 vs $250. IF YOU WATCH TELEVISION, then there is one feature that is ABSOLUTELY KILLER NECESSARY in any AV Receiver: AUDYSSEY DYNAMIC VOLUME.

Audyssey Dynamic Volume solves the problem of large variations in volume level between television programs, commercials, and between the soft and loud passages of movies. No longer will commercials blare and deafen you. No longer do you have to repeatedly mute or turn the volume up and down as you watch television. Dolby Volume is a similar feature – but I can’t find any receiver that has it. It is a deal killer to NOT have AUDYSSEY DYNAMIC VOLUME. Watching television – which is the most common reason to use an AV Receiver – is simply frustrating without it since commercials will always deafen you and force you to forever push the mute or volume controls like a lab rat. Only the Denon AVR-S710W and higher models have AUDYSSEY DYNAMIC VOLUME among the manufacturers reviewed.

As such, it has the only acceptable AV Receivers. Here’s a screwy one for you, but it doesn’t seem too rare a bird to consider. My current 10 year old receiver (Onkyo TXSR 804) has two 120v power outlets on the back panel–switched and unswitched. It also has a standard 12v trigger to power on an external amp or similar device. I don’t see these as features in either the Denon 710 or 910.

In fact, you only get a 12v trigger when you get at or above the $1k 3200w model, and still no switched outlets. Are these features no longer common with current AVRs?

I had almost never used these until I installed the old Onkyo in a new, confined cabinet, wherein it runs real hot. I plugged a cheapo USB fan (with 120v adaptor) into the switched 120v outlet and whenever Onkyo powers on, the fan powers on and keeps things cool. There are ways to construct a 12v triggered and separately powered 120v outlet that would provide the same power source even if the Onkyo had no on-board 120v outlets.

The Denons have none of this, until you spend $1k. Any thoughts about a workaround for an automatically switched-on 120v power supply? Won’t the heat output of the unit be about the same, requiring some fort of fan for ventilation? There are special powerstrips that, when a device plugged into a “master” outlet is turned on, switches on the “slave” outlets. The idea was to eliminated vampire power consumption (power used by devices that are nominally powered off.) But they should work for your purposes. I have one called the Smart Strip, that has a master outlet, two constantly hot outlets, and four switched outlets controlled by the master outlet. It also has a sensitivity adjustment, in case the master device itself draws a little power constantly.

Can the Denon or other mid-range AVRs sense AirPlay and automatically switch to the right settings and then return to home theater surround when AirPlay stops? I want it to be as easy as possible for my wife to use without using any of the buttons on the front, remotes, or smartphone apps? My Onkyo TX-DS595 is crapping out and lacks AirPlay and these auto-sense features. I have 5.1 surround with PolkAudio & Bose speakers in the living room and 4 sets of in-will speakers elsewhere in our modest (2,400 sq.ft.) home. It sure would be nice to start music on my Mac, iPhone or iPad from the home office and just have it start playing through the wall speakers without having to first get up to put the AVR in the right mode. She currently plays her music through the phone’s speakers (yech). Please let me know if this is possible and how it works.

I recently purchased a pair of Sennheiser wireless headphones and was dismayed to find that neither my soundbar or TV has audio out options (other than HDMI), so now I am looking at taking the huge step towards a proper receiver and 5.1 setup. My question has to do with the phono inputs: My Audio Technica LP120 turntable has a built-in phono preamp, so it should work fine with the Denon S710W. But I’m wondering if it will sound better plugged into the Onkyno TX-NR646 which has phono inputs. I.e., is there any advantage to this? I currently have to crank the volume on my soundbar much higher than the other devices when I am playing a record. Also, the 646 is only $399 right now, while the 710 is $479. (I’m also considering the Pioneer Elite VSX-90, which is currently $399.) •.

And let me add that a good test would be double-blind (meaning nobody in the room, neither the tester or the administrator, would know which receiver is playing at any time) and level matched to at most 0.5 db. A feasible method is to choose some samples of music, say. Each sample is played twice, and the receiver is switched, or not switched, according to the flip of a coin. The tester has to decide if the receiver was switched or not. If he or she can do that correctly more than 50% of the time, then it is pretty clear the receivers do sound different. According to the usual statistical standards, you need at least 20 samples. If desired, the tester can choose the samples and listen to either receiver as long as they like beforehand.

They can even control the button that switches (or doesn’t switch) the two receivers. The rest of the equipment can be as high-end as desired, and would not change throughout the test. I am willing to bet that all the receivers in this comparison would be indistinguishable in those conditions, but obviously there is no way to be sure until such a test is done. Previous carefully conducted tests have found that typical modern, well-designed receivers that aren’t overdriven do sound identical.

(So all bets are off if you are talking about things like class-A, singled-ended, high-distortion tube amps.) •. There may be some truth to your thoughts here Koko for these entry level receivers but I still think you could here differences in music with two-channel setup and material.

Obviously your ears need to be able to to discern between a high rez recording and an MP3, which to be fair there are many years out there that cannot. There are however many ears that can and some to a great extent. If yours are not able then this discussion really is pointless. Even so, I think with the receivers were looking at there’s probably a pretty even sound. I did take a NAD receiver and a Rotel home and did a double blind test with all receivers in their direct mode, no sound modification and there were just a little differences, there were big differences in the sound produced. Ultimately I went with the NAD receiver as it was warmer and more involving. The Rotel had a more district soundstage with placement in a wider area and could articulate instruments in a more delacite way, however it sounded a little more antiseptic to me.

Have you ever taken a listen to some higher in the receivers? I also brought in an Anthem and a Classe to compare and they were in a completely different category however outside of my budget at the time. It is curious how people who want to defend possibly nonexistent differences between audio electronics always go to the quality of the listener’s hearing.

You say that to judge audio equipment, the listener must obviously be able to tell the difference between a high-resolution recording and an MP3. Why would that be? Perhaps distinguishing the two types of things calls for two different listening abilities, like distinguishing color versus distinguishing shapes.

But since you ask, I can distinguish high-bit-rate MP3s from lower bit rate ones. Otherwise it depends on the material. If it matters, I am a semi-pro violinist and vocalist, and I can easily transcribe most pop songs I hear, remember pitches, etc.

So you took two receivers home? How did you conduct the double-blind test (which is impossible to do alone without computer-controlled switching)? Did you level match to within 0.5 db?

That requires a sound meter. How many trials did you run? You may also be aware that hearing has a strong placebo effect, where if you expect to hear a difference, you will. I heard audio salesmen tell stories about flicking a switch on some equipment that wasn’t even plugged in, and having customers marvel at the increased “transparency,” “liquidity,” “snap,” “bounce,” etc.

I have indeed listened to many high-end receivers, though they really were amps and preamps (the high end brands don’t make receivers for some reason). Actually I had a Krell amp and pre for a while (total cost $4,000), but I sold them when I realized what a crock of shit high-end audio is. Luckily, I never started down the single-ended class-A high-distortion tube amp road. Right now I have Adcom/Onkyo and am quite happy with them. The NHT speakers may need an upgrade, however. You don’t like what I am saying, so you slam me personally? Classy, dude.

But using double-blind, level matched testing of audio equipment is old science. But ask yourself, why would it be WORSE than wandering into a store and listening to a salesman’s spiel? If you are curious or brave (and I am sure you are neither), you can try it at home. Take home two receivers, hide them behind a curtain, level match them with a borrowed sound meter, and have a friend flip a coin behind the curtain to determine which one plays. Some “golden-ear” reviewers have done it, to their embarrassment.

But if you really can tell the difference, then you have made new science. I am open to that possibility. Re your first question, that is almost what I am saying. It is more accurate to say that other than features, there is no audible difference among modern receivers, provided they are not designed to alter or distort the sound. A few modern receivers are actually designed to do that.

They often use vacuum tubes. In fact, that is also true of every other piece of modern electronic audio equipment, including cd players, preamps, cables, etc. The only equipment worth auditioning is the speakers. They have distortion that is orders of magnitude higher than any other piece of equipment, and their distortion is DIFFERENT between different models, and even between different examples of the same models. They also very greatly in their bass extension, efficiency, dispersion, etc. Re your second question, more power in a receiver gives you more volume without additional distortion, so the point where that stops making a difference depends on how loud you want your system to be and the efficiency of your speakers. With most conventional speakers, 75 watts per channel will be more than enough.

Speakers with unusually low impedance will also need some amount of current (amperage) capacity, but that is not easy to assess. It requires a three dimensional graph, that shows voltage into varying impedance and phase, while holding distortion low and constant. The only reviewer I know of who did that was Peter Aczel in the now-defunct and sorely missed journal “Audio Critic,” using a Swedish instrument called a PowerCube.

Here is an example: •. For all of you folks who argue against the Denon as not being the “best receiver” in the world, please not that they state its the “best for most people”. As a former audiophile, I can tell you that most people do not want to fiddle around to get the best audio or video in the world. I’ve reached that point — I certainly don’t want to have to teach and explain every setting to my wife, children, pet sitters, etc. If you’re going to quibble over the definition of best, you should probably be over on AVS forum, or similar site.

SPARTANBURG, SC (FOX Carolina) - The Solicitor's Office released more than 250 exhibits in the case against serial killer Todd Kohlhepp, who confessed in May 2017 to murdering seven victims and kidnapping a woman who was kept locked in a storage container. The exhibits, which ranged in size from single photos to nearly-200-page documents, contained details on the rescue of Kala Brown and the investigations in the murders of four victims at Superbike Motorsports and three victims found buried on Kohlhepp's rural property.

SLIDESHOWS: The evidence was obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request. Deputy body camera footage released from the Solicitor's Office shows investigators serve warrants at Kohlhepp's home on Windsong Way in Moore on Nov.

After knocking on the door, officials notified Kohlhepp they would need to search his house and vehicle in regards to an investigation into the disappearances of Kala Brown and Charlie Carver. 'These people have not been found,' a deputy told Kohlhepp.

'You essentially were the last person to have contact with them.' WATCH: While deputies were at Kohlhepp's home in Moore, more investigators were searching his property on Wofford Road in Woodruff. There, they found Brown chained by her neck in a metal storage container which was sealed with padlocks. Photo evidence released from inside the storage container where Brown was held captive shows dog beds, chains, handcuffs and person items where Brown was held.

Investigator video showed the moments where crews opened the storage container and rescued Brown. After cutting their way inside using power tools, deputies found Brown chained and bolt cutters were used to free her. WATCH: While cutting the chains binding Brown, a deputy asked if she knew where Carver was. 'Todd Kohlhepp shot Charlie Carver three times in the chest, wrapped him in a blue tarp and put him in the bucket of the tractor.

Locked me down here. I've never seen him again,' Brown said. 'He said he's dead and buried and that there's several bodies dead and buried out here and he says the dogs will be ruined if they go looking because there's red pepper.' A deputy mentioned notifying their K-9 team after Brown said red pepper was spread near the victims' bodies and Carver's car. His vehicle was found covered in debris and oil nearby. After deputies found Brown on Kohlhepp's property, they arrested him in Moore. When confronted about where Brown was located, Kohlhepp told deputies he had no idea what they were talking about and asked for an attorney.

WATCH: In audio from a car ride to the detention center, Kohlhepp makes jokes about his family and hoping 'that my grandma doesn't come back from the grave to ground me.' 'I wasn't ready for you,' an investigator told him.

'You are much different than I expected.' Later in an interview, he confessed to murdering Beverly Guy, Chris Sherbert, Brian Lucas and Scott Ponder in 2003 at Superbike Motorsports, killing missing couple Johnny and Meagan Coxie in 2015 and gunning down Carver on his property. In the video, Kohlhepp said he is 'not a terrorist.'

'I would never do anything against the interest of the United States,' Kohlhepp said. 'I love my country.' He also said he wouldn't kill an officer, children or the elderly. Hours of interview videos showed Kohlhepp admitting to killing the Superbike victims after he said they joked about his inability to ride a motorcycle.

He had recently purchase a Suzuki from the shop and his name appeared on the customer log. 'They were on the rude side about my inability to ride that kind of bike,' Kohlhepp said. 'No one ever taught me.” Kohlhepp said no prints were found on the shell casings in the shop because he wore two pairs of gloves when loading firearms, 'even in practice.'

He said his father raised him with the mentality, 'if I got into a fight, if I didn't win, 'you're not my son'.' In one interview tape, Kohlhepp said he didn't think Brown deserved the $25,000 Superbike reward, but rather he did. A letter in the evidence file was sent to Kohlhepp in 2013 asking if he knew anything about the case since he was on the customer log. During the interviews, Kohlhepp admitted to making his own gun suppressors but said he would never shoot a police officer: 'I won't shoot a cop. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

I'll take it. But I'm not going to take one of you guys down.' In one of the videos, which takes place shortly before the Spartanburg County sheriff election, Kohlhepp expressed his feelings about Sheriff Chuck Wright. 'I like the Sheriff,' Kohlhepp said. 'I'll be very surprised if he doesn't win Tuesday.' In a plea deal to avoid the death penalty, Kohlhepp admitted to the crimes and was sentenced to seven life terms without the possibility of parole.

Solicitor Barry Barnette said the case was, without a doubt, a capital punishment case, but due to a shortage of lethal injection drugs and the lengthy death penalty process, he agreed with the decision 'I'm not getting out. I know that,' Kohlhepp said in an interview tape. 'You guys are going to go for death row and I'm OK with that.

Linktivity Presenter Download. Just don't drag it out 50 years.' He is currently being held at Kirkland Correctional, a maximum-security prison in Columbia. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Copyright 2017 FOX Carolina (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.