Onkyo TX-NR709... hmmm...
First off in my opinion c/net's audio gear reviews are on just about the same level as Playboy's audio gear reviews - just about useless beyond the pretty pictures.
While I would not go so far as to say C|Net's reviews are quite at the puff-piece/manufacturer's boilerplate level of mass-circulation non-A/V-specific rags like Playboy (and what are you doing reading Playboy at your age, eh?), I've yet to find an online review source that has any fairly unalloyed credibility -- if you know of a good one, please let me know. What I do is try to find as many reviews of a specific product I can: C|Net, OneCall, YouTube, Amazon etc. customer reviews -- the last most definitely a hit or miss affair, with reviews ranging from "It's totly AWSUM! Druv my nabors to cal the polise got bustid for cratin a publik disturbans" to actually thoughtful and informed appraisals by people who have the technical chops to know what they're talking about (unlike me!), and a command of the English language that allows them to express their thoughts effectively. Separating the gold from the dross and iron pyrites in this multifarious mix of the real and unreal is a fairly impossible task, and this applies pretty universally to most any product, service, device, whatever. That's why I think "subject forums" like this can be among the most useful sources of info -- they tend to be, like this one, a group fairly well-distilled down to those truly interested and involved with the subject at hand.
However, even a well-informed and well-intentioned forum like this one is not exactly objective, in several ways, e.g. people's largely subjective opinions of things like speakers: I personally find the output of any sound projection device built on Bose's "direct/reflecting" principles incredibly grating, sounding, to me, like a duck quacking through a tin horn. Others think Bose is the greatest sound on earth: aural beauty is in the ear of the perceiver. There are many other biases in forums like this one, regarding particular brand names, price points, features, and the inevitable "mine is bigger than yours" syndrome. Humans are, by environment and predisposition, a discerning, discriminating, and judgmental species.
Second there are sweet spots in receivers where the features (and build quality) curve crosses the economies scale (numbers sold) curve. The more that they sell of a given model the lower the manufacturer can drive production costs and prices. That price sweet-spot seems to be $500-900 (street prices) new and $400-600 refurbished. Below that build quality and features suffer and above that price point you reach a point of diminishing returns for the dollars spent.
I completely concur, with the qualified exception of "The more that they sell of a given model the lower the manufacturer can drive production costs and prices." I believe it would be more accurate to say "The more that they sell of all models the lower the manufacturer can drive production costs and prices," allowing manufacturers to create volume "loss leaders," and truly overpriced high-end models that prove, to a not-inconsiderable extent, the "mine is bigger than yours" argument. It is an unfortunate, but undeniable, fact of life that some people believe that the more they pay, the more superior their, shall we say, "equipment ." That's the area beyond where the "features (and build quality) curve crosses the economies scale (numbers sold) curve," and your into the tail of the bell curve of diminishing returns.
The Denon AVR-2312 is at a price/features/build-quality sweet-spot and so is the no frills 1912/13.
The 709 ($420 refurbished) that I mentioned is also really sweet for the money because it has all of the really cool features you'll want such as Audyssey MultiEQ XT and uniquely for the price - preouts should you want to add an external amp down the road. The reason that I withdrew my recommendation is a bug in the Roku's Netflix client that causes a color shift if you're watching a Netflix movie with 5.1 sound - weird huh. The workaround is to turn off the receiver's video processing for that HDMI port (just that port). I have high hopes that Roku or Netflix will fix this known problem.
So now I have to admit one of MY purely subjective prejudices: particular name brands. I'm not talking about the infamous COBY (in SONY's typeface, yet!), but of once fairly proud names fallen on hard times (I would think Sherwood falls into this group, but I'm ready to learn otherwise), and I HAD this apparently highly erroneous opinion of Onkyo, a brand I distinctly remember from the the early '70s when Anglo-American, Swedish, and German audio brands like Garrard, Shure, Thorens, Bang & Olufsen, the original Marantz, Fisher, and even Dynaco were fighting a losing battle (as were the American and British carmakers of the time) against the ingeniousness, productivity, and cutting edge onslaught of Japanese heavy industry. I remember one audiophile store in Ithaca, NY (home of Cornell and a hotbed of early hi-fi insanity) whose ads openly made fun of Japanese brand names, suggesting that no true audio believer would stoop to buying equipment with such outlandish names as Yamaha and Onkyo. Indeed, even the Japanese started buying struggling American firms like Sherwood, or adopted very un-Japanese names like Kenwood (Kasuga Radio Co. Ltd./Trio Corp.).
I have, of course, looked at the many Onkyo A/V offerings, but not until I read (just now) the fairly staggering Audioholics review (April 18, 2011) of the TX-NR709, and saw the original MSRP $900 709 available as a refurb for $420, did it finally enter my head that Onkyo might be a much more viable product than I had supposed:
"There are a few things we like to see in a receiver these days and the Onkyo TX-NR709 has almost all of them. There are 7.2 channel outputs for adding amps later. The speaker terminals are all in a line at the bottom which makes it much easier to use a bare-wire connection. There are extra speaker terminals (four extra pairs) so that you can have more than one type of speaker connected at the same time making switching configurations an issue of settings and not manually changing wires. There are 7.1 channel inputs for integrating legacy gear. There is even a phono input for you extreme old-schoolers that just can't let that vinyl go [YAY!]... There is a front panel HDMI input as well a a front-panel USB port for digital link-up of iPods/iPhones.
"...it wouldn't be much of a networked receiver without an Ethernet port and the TX-NR709 has that covered. It is Windows 7 and DLNA compatible, it can stream content from your networked devices as well as Internet radio, Last.fm, Pandora, Rhapsody, Napster, SiriusXM Internet Radio, Slacker, Mediafly, and vTuner. If you absolutely can't get a wired connection to your home theater, the TX-NR709 is compatible with Onkyo's new (optional) UWF-1 Wireless USB Adapter which will provide a wireless connection.
"If DSP and extra speakers are your thing, the Onkyo TX-NR709 has you covered. Audyssey MultEQ XT room correction and automatic setup solution is onboard as are their Dynamic EQ/Dynamic Volume solutions. If you are interested in adding speakers to the front of your room, you can choose between Dolby's ProLogic IIz height channels or Audyssey's DSX with its width or height channels. Of course, if you're just looking for a second zone, you can either use the dedicated pre-outs or the internal amps. Since you can connect so many speakers to the NR709, you can actually run a 7.2 system most of the time and just reassign the back channels to Zone 2 when you have the need. Of course, you can access all this from the GUI overlaid over HDMI whenever you want.
"We're shocked at how much Onkyo is giving you in the sub $900 TX-NR709. We expect 3D and many of the features but not all of them. We can honestly only count less than a handful features that aren't included in this receiver. 3D, ARC, DSX PLIIz, MultEQ XT, Marvell Qdeo, the alphabet soup goes on. Add to that an i-App for control, integral iPod/iPhone support via a front mounted USB, eight HDMI inputs and dual outputs, dual subwoofer outputs, 7.1 channel inputs and 7.2 channel pre-outs plus Zone 2 line outputs, 11 pairs of speaker connections... there is just too much to mention. For this price point, the TX-NR709 looks to be the receiver to beat."
The WRAT amp technology makes sense, and apparently works well. The almost overwhelming plethora of inputs and outputs means I could integrate any of my analog amps and even Rega Planar turntable, perhaps into Zone 2 configuration.
This really looks like a contender for my price range.
I could spend the next several months pondering the range of A/V receivers, even in my lowly price range, but I think it's s**t or get off the pot time. So, if lf anyone knows why this Onkyo TX-NR709 and I should not be married, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.
Sholling (and everyone) -- thanks several figurative tons for your excellent input!
Bart Brown
