Onkyo receiver on the fritz

[TLS Guy]

I'm not sure how long "A few years" means, but I've had my TX-SR520 for about 6 years (or could it be 7?) before it's starting to fail (and technically still works more or less fine....and I put a *LOT* of use on my AVRs....20-40 hours a week I'd say, on for 10 hours periods at a time. I'd say it was a pretty solid unit, reflects well on the brand. I also have a 604 on the HT setup that is 3-3.5 years, but that's far less pounding than the 520 has taken. Worth noting though that the 604 doesn't run as hot as the 520...

From my own experience and what I've heard overall (despite the occasional disgruntled person), Onkyo is one of the more reliable units. Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo (and Pioneer?) tend to have the most durable/reliable. HK, Marantz, Sony, are less known for reliability, though that doesn't mean their products aren't always reliable (unless we're talking about the Marantz 5004/6004.....)

That may not mean EVERY model...but the mainstay models are definitely quality units. If you're looking for cheapest I'd still recommend the 50x series...(507, 508 is current?) It's probably a notable improvement from your 300 series, though not as good as, say, the 700 series, in terms of the DACs, PSU, etc.

I'm personally switching brands, not so much due to distrust of the brand but for perceived sound quality of some other brands....my needs prefer something other than the "big" Onkyo sound...(though it does very well in the more acoustically suitable room.)

What TRS Guy said is true....of all consumer electronics...quality is dropping steadily (though a $500 flat fee is also insane...it's a tax, plain & simple, and resolving quality issues can be done for far less than that and would very by the device, feature set, etc.) Some of Ford's worst recalls (flaming steering column) were due to omitting a $0.49 harness. A $500 tax doesn't spare that kind of stupidity Still, problems aside, there's a lot of reliable units from all of the above brands. I have no reason to believe something from the Onkyo 500, 600, 700 series would fail unless abused (or defective) in less than 5-8 years, but none will survive 25+ years like the separates of the '60s I'm not even sure the $4000 ones would do THAT these days.

No, I'm certain even high priced units will not last like the 60s and 70s units. However there is a link between complexity and increased processing power and longevity.

The reason, the higher the processing power the thinner the semiconductor material is, and the greater the odds over time of holes getting punched through the semiconductor. Getting the heat away also becomes increasingly problematic.

I think with the current video resolution and performance of the new loss less codecs, there needs to be a recognition that AV technology is entering its mature phase.

What this boils down to now, is that there needs to be an emphasis on quality and durability, rather than a features driven free for all.

[sholling]

What this boils down to now, is that there needs to be an emphasis on quality and durability, rather than a features driven free for all.

Ah yes the good old days. Plain vanilla stereo with bass and treble knobs the only "processing".

That may be what you want but those days are over and businesses like to stay in business. That means selling people new products at affordable prices every 3-5 years. That means innovation. Sorry my friend but you're living in the past. Gone are the days when the average Joe had to spend a day's pay for a decent wrist watch or a month's pay for a 100w receiver. New features will continue to drive the market the way that new models and features drive the car market. That's just modern life and as somebody that likes toys I don't mind upgrading every 3-5 years. The Average $300 Onkyo or Pioneer is going to last 5 to 10 years but will be outgrown feature wise in 2-3.

[TLS Guy]

No, I'm certain even high priced units will not last like the 60s and 70s units. However there is a link between complexity and increased processing power and longevity.

The reason, the higher the processing power the thinner the semiconductor material is, and the greater the odds over time of holes getting punched through the semiconductor. Getting the heat away also becomes increasingly problematic.

I think with the current video resolution and performance of the new loss less codecs, there needs to be a recognition that AV technology is entering its mature phase.

What this boils down to now, is that there needs to be an emphasis on quality and durability, rather than a features driven free for all.

What you are missing is that every technology goes through phases.

The Acoustic era, the electric era, the Stereo era, the digital audio era and now the AV era.

You should have seen the obsolescence in the stereo era, through the fifties and early sixties. However by the late sixties things were mature, and prices stayed stable and there were big gains in reliability.

Same with AV. We have had analog switching, to digital switching, and now even HDMI is on the threshold of maturity.

1080p has the resolution at least as good and likely better than film. On the audio side the loss less codecs are at the limit of human hearing. Really the only big advances that can now be made in audio quality is in speakers and microphones, especially speakers.

So I personally think BD will be with us until the Internet has the bandwidth to compete on video and audio quality with a reasonable download time. Even with that change, it will not require the huge changes in processing power required for recent advances.

So for the time being we are approaching the top of the curve, until some new totally revolutionary format appears.

So yes, now is the time to take stock and mature this technology, with a huge emphasis on build quality and longevity. In other words giving value for money in the widest sense of the term.

Having been in this hobby for over a half century now, for the first time ever, I see little to be gained in increasing the quality of the video and audio playback medium. With the media we now have and the technology behind it, I can achieve truly spectacular results.

Now what we need is to extend that at sane price points with an eye to long term consumer satisfaction. The OP here is not happy. Now he bought at a time were the technology was very much in evolution. However we need to move to the point where we can satisfy his reasonable beef. At the same time come clean of what is possible to achieve at insanely low price points.

[Award]

Same with AV. We have had analog switching, to digital switching, and now even HDMI is on the threshold of maturity.

HDMI is a disaster is what it is How versioned inputs, versioned cables, where each version doesn't need to support all features of said version, and now as of 1.4 they don't need to tell you what version you're working with, all in an all-too-fragile non-locking connector which the sheer weight of the cable can pull on the jack and damage it, all wrapped in a content protection mechanism that has too many sync issues was supposed to make connection simpler for consumers is beyond imagining! Even as a technophile it gets confusing.... I'm hoping it matures and vanishes. Soon. I'd gladly upgrade to get rid of it maybe 1.8 can have a simple locking prong and mandatory strain relief!

1080p has the resolution at least as good and likely better than film. On the audio side the loss less codecs are at the limit of human hearing. Really the only big advances that can now be made in audio quality is in speakers and microphones, especially speakers.

So I personally think BD will be with us until the Internet has the bandwidth to compete on video and audio quality with a reasonable download time. Even with that change, it will not require the huge changes in processing power required for recent advances.

That will be quite some time, outside Japan and a few Scandanavian countries. Beyond the Big Telecom interference, topography remains a big issue. They keep upping services, but usually in selected high density areas. Japan on the other hand runs OC lines to apartment blocks (one reason Japanese electronics manufacturers seem out of touch at times...they're already living in tomorrow...)

So for the time being we are approaching the top of the curve, until some new totally revolutionary format appears.

So yes, now is the time to take stock and mature this technology, with a huge emphasis on build quality and longevity. In other words giving value for money in the widest sense of the term.

I can certainly hope and dream you're right on that. Quality used to be a key feature back in the day on most things...now everyone expects a $10 plastic replacement in Walmart, and wants it to last 3 months before they change the color. I see the current economy in the world either finally restoring quality (demand for what people buy to last) or finally destroying t (cheap above anything else!)

Now what we need is to extend that at sane price points with an eye to long term consumer satisfaction. The OP here is not happy. Now he bought at a time were the technology was very much in evolution. However we need to move to the point where we can satisfy his reasonable beef. At the same time come clean of what is possible to achieve at insanely low price points.

Agreed...though I think the first trend we'll see is $150 networked 12.1 with 10 HDMI inputs, from brands like "Coby" After hi-fi becomes low-priced with all the features to the point that it's commodity, we'll see the normal priced stuff start touting solid state capacitors.

The thing that amazes me is for $300 I can buy a PC motherboard with all solid caps (more complex than an AVR board), designed for 50,000 hours use. PC CPUs are generally accepted to never fail. Yet all other electronics still use nasty $0.29 gel caps. Power supplies (often caps) cheap IC materials, and low end caps and windings are 90% of the problems on AVRs, and would cost less than $100 (to $200 depending on model) to make them tank-like. It's that "It's $10 cheaper" mentality that drove quality down...and for some reason few companies tried marketing durability as a selling feature (which is sad....the sales of extended service plans are proof positive that appealing to people's desire for a long-lived purchase sells very, very well.)

I *AM* sort of annoyed at the feature packed billing though. DTS:MA and DD:THD is silly to even put in a receiver since half the HD content REQUIRES it to be decoded in the player anyway. Why not leave that in the domain of players if it'll reside there half the time anyway. It's lossless, it's just a decompressor, it's not like audio quality can suffer. At the high end they're pushing 10, 12 channel surround...how many people have the room for that many speakers, let alone the money for that many *good* speakers? There's a few silly directions appearing in the AV world to convince people they need the next thing.

There's another plague in the AV world though with all the new gadgets: heat. I think a lot of flaws (voltage issues aside) are heat related. There's no good cooling in AVRs. Stagnant air and passive ventilation just don't work with the PC-like processing going on. But add active fans like Pioneer does and everyone complains it's ruining the sound quality, creating interference, etc. Maybe some heat pipe designs should be worked out...or some system of quietly moving air through the system rather than hoping for passive convection cooling in a big aluminum box. Those days are done. Some of those hot ICs don't even have a heat spreader or sink on them.

Personally I'd take quality over features any day so long as it does what I need. When was the last time you used the exciting Jazz Hall mode? :P

[TLS Guy]

HDMI is a disaster is what it is How versioned inputs, versioned cables, where each version doesn't need to support all features of said version, and now as of 1.4 they don't need to tell you what version you're working with, all in an all-too-fragile non-locking connector which the sheer weight of the cable can pull on the jack and damage it, all wrapped in a content protection mechanism that has too many sync issues was supposed to make connection simpler for consumers is beyond imagining! Even as a technophile it gets confusing.... I'm hoping it matures and vanishes. Soon. I'd gladly upgrade to get rid of it maybe 1.8 can have a simple locking prong and mandatory strain relief!



That will be quite some time, outside Japan and a few Scandanavian countries. Beyond the Big Telecom interference, topography remains a big issue. They keep upping services, but usually in selected high density areas. Japan on the other hand runs OC lines to apartment blocks (one reason Japanese electronics manufacturers seem out of touch at times...they're already living in tomorrow...)



I can certainly hope and dream you're right on that. Quality used to be a key feature back in the day on most things...now everyone expects a $10 plastic replacement in Walmart, and wants it to last 3 months before they change the color. I see the current economy in the world either finally restoring quality (demand for what people buy to last) or finally destroying t (cheap above anything else!)



Agreed...though I think the first trend we'll see is $150 networked 12.1 with 10 HDMI inputs, from brands like "Coby" After hi-fi becomes low-priced with all the features to the point that it's commodity, we'll see the normal priced stuff start touting solid state capacitors.

The thing that amazes me is for $300 I can buy a PC motherboard with all solid caps (more complex than an AVR board), designed for 50,000 hours use. PC CPUs are generally accepted to never fail. Yet all other electronics still use nasty $0.29 gel caps. Power supplies (often caps) cheap IC materials, and low end caps and windings are 90% of the problems on AVRs, and would cost less than $100 (to $200 depending on model) to make them tank-like. It's that "It's $10 cheaper" mentality that drove quality down...and for some reason few companies tried marketing durability as a selling feature (which is sad....the sales of extended service plans are proof positive that appealing to people's desire for a long-lived purchase sells very, very well.)

I *AM* sort of annoyed at the feature packed billing though. DTS:MA and DD:THD is silly to even put in a receiver since half the HD content REQUIRES it to be decoded in the player anyway. Why not leave that in the domain of players if it'll reside there half the time anyway. It's lossless, it's just a decompressor, it's not like audio quality can suffer. At the high end they're pushing 10, 12 channel surround...how many people have the room for that many speakers, let alone the money for that many *good* speakers? There's a few silly directions appearing in the AV world to convince people they need the next thing.

There's another plague in the AV world though with all the new gadgets: heat. I think a lot of flaws (voltage issues aside) are heat related. There's no good cooling in AVRs. Stagnant air and passive ventilation just don't work with the PC-like processing going on. But add active fans like Pioneer does and everyone complains it's ruining the sound quality, creating interference, etc. Maybe some heat pipe designs should be worked out...or some system of quietly moving air through the system rather than hoping for passive convection cooling in a big aluminum box. Those days are done. Some of those hot ICs don't even have a heat spreader or sink on them.

Personally I'd take quality over features any day so long as it does what I need. When was the last time you used the exciting Jazz Hall mode? :P

You have hit a lot of nails on the head. I agree HDMI leaves a lot to be desired, but too many vested interests have a stake in it, so for the foreseeable future we are stuck. I agree the connector design is awful.

I asked my son about the failure rate of receiver chips versus computer ones.

He says in many ways chips for a specific task and are to an extent more complex, and they don't have the huge production runs of an Intel processor.

AV units have lots of chips with hard wired functions. The advantage is speed of processing, so the wait between function changes is less.

I would not be opposed to everything in AV processing going computer based, if it were not for one thing. The situation regarding DRM and HTPC is far worse then HDMI and a hard climb for most right now.

Hollywood does not seem to really want people to use computers for high def video and audio.

[sholling]

Speaking of computers one thing to keep in mind is that receivers are becoming computers with built in amplifiers. People expect their receivers to connect to their home network and the internet for content. People expect various audio and video processing options. If electronics follow the computer/MP3 player business model then more such features will be added (like 3D support), prices will keep dropping, and equipment will become a disposable commodity. Manufacturers have learned that it's cheaper to do quality checks via statistical process control and accept a given precentage of returns than it is to build in bulletproof quality and do 100% inspection. Bottom line you can sell a million $500 full featured 100w receivers with a 1% return rate and make a lot more money than someone selling one thousand $1500 nearly full featured 100w receivers with a .5% return rate.

[Award]

You have hit a lot of nails on the head. I agree HDMI leaves a lot to be desired, but too many vested interests have a stake in it, so for the foreseeable future we are stuck. I agree the connector design is awful.

I could even live with some of the versioning issues if the connector wasn't a painful attempt to clone USB connectors tethered to ten pounds of cable. I think the vested interests are the core of the problem. HDMI is "Design by committee"...every party wanted "their" feature included, and nobody bothered figuring out of all the features meshed well. Too many egos, not enough engineers

I asked my son about the failure rate of receiver chips versus computer ones.

He says in many ways chips for a specific task and are to an extent more complex, and they don't have the huge production runs of an Intel processor.

AV units have lots of chips with hard wired functions. The advantage is speed of processing, so the wait between function changes is less.

True enough, but PCs have lots of specialized chips as well. NIC controllers, bus controllers, at the very high end, hardware RAID controllers, onboard audio (often made by companies like Analog Devices, etc, that makes a lot of chips for AVRs too), video handling (at the I/O level), let alone the dozens of smaller tasked processes that are all specific tasks. I don't see them burning through on all but e-machines class budget PCs. We're not just talking about CPUs and large batch chips.

I would not be opposed to everything in AV processing going computer based, if it were not for one thing. The situation regarding DRM and HTPC is far worse then HDMI and a hard climb for most right now.

There's still no reason that an AVR can't be "software based" internally. EQs, DSP, video processing, video switching....all of it is done at least equally well in software or software/hardware-accelerated....he advantage of the AVR of course is doing it on less power. Cooling however, would still be problematic. Still, I'd miss the charm of real AVRs...they just need to stop under-building them. [/QUOTE.

Hollywood does not seem to really want people to use computers for high def video and audio.

I tend to prefer stand-alone hardware for my AV tasks anyway, since it all must go to the speakers somehow anyway....but I'm still baffled by Hollywood's insistence against computer usage for AV. If they have the genuine belief that bootlegs would become any more common than they already are if people had a simple software Blu-Ray player that worked right, they're living in a worse dream-land than I thought They're cutting out a huge part of their market, and in the process holding back an explosion of BD as a commodity for data discs and games. The effect will be the PC industry coming up with an alternate bulk storage system for such tasks and end up carving away BD's market. Then again...Sony has a lovely history of sabotaging their own protocols, even wen they dominate a market.

The DeCSS debacle is still just as true as it was a decade ago....it was their insistence against non-controlled playback of DVDs that made "DVD encryption" a household term. A protection system that mostly involves not knowing how it works as it's main protection is almost completely useless.

[Award]

[QUOTE=sholling;709658]Speaking of computers one thing to keep in mind is that receivers are becoming computers with built in amplifiers. People expect their receivers to connect to their home network and the internet for content.[/QUOTE.

I'm still amused that AV manufacturers have resorted to DNLA, Home Server, SqueezServer, etc for their back-end though. Kind of defeats half of the reason to get a network receiver. Network is not at all an attractive feature to me as a result. I don't really feel like messing with my file server to get some half-baked media server running

People expect various audio and video processing options. If electronics follow the computer/MP3 player business model then more such features will be added (like 3D support), prices will keep dropping, and equipment will become a disposable commodity.

This is very true, however I see the AV market as being extremely similar to the computer market: There's a high end and a low end.

So you're mostly right...the convenience consumers will probably eventually get a TV with a built in 1-bit digital amp that has a mini computer built in the back. The iMac of AV if you will. Heck they'll probably do away with PCs entirely, instead ending up with a "Home/Server & Network TV as terminal" topology. The consumer market is definitely convenience driven.

However, in the computer world while the consumer driven side has become cheap...$400 for a laptop....there's the flip side...the gaming PCs and professional computing (workstations.)

Servers, we'll consider to be the AV equivalent of "pro audio" and "recording equipment" (and "audiophile")...but workstations, and especially gaming PCs are more similar to "high end AV". Despite the mainstream going more mainstream, I think there's no less a market for higher end, and extreme high end then there ever has been. Remember that at one time that $500 full feature receiver was once the consumer boombox or shelf system. Both almost non-existent now.

So in that sense I don't think the OVERALL market will change much at all, though you may see more of a pull to either side from the "midrange" product lines as time goes on.

Manufacturers have learned that it's cheaper to do quality checks via statistical process control and accept a given precentage of returns than it is to build in bulletproof quality and do 100% inspection. Bottom line you can sell a million $500 full featured 100w receivers with a 1% return rate and make a lot more money than someone selling one thousand $1500 nearly full featured 100w receivers with a .5% return rate.

If we're talking about 3x the money for half a percent less failure rate and less features, I think I'm with the companies on that one

So long as they have a good dealer network and don't have insane "pay to send back your $1000 40 pound product on your own and wait 3 weeks while we repair it" policy, the 1% failure rate is really pretty good, even for a pricier product. It's the 20%-50% presumed failure rate of the Marantz 5004/6004, the Xbox 360, etc that is far more troublesome. Offer "express replacement" and a reasonable chance that the replacement won't break too and I'll call it a real warranty! Warranties are almost unusable on most products these days.