Onkyo HT-S6500 and HT-S7500 HTiB Preview

[admin]

The new HT-S7500 and HT-S6500 Home Theater in a Box offerings from Onkyo have reaffirmed that Onkyo is dedicated to staying at the very top of the HTiB game. These offerings differ little on the feature front and include many features we're only now seeing in receivers from other manufactures. While the Audyssey 2EQ is a bit outdated and we question the logic of adding a Zone 2 to a HTiB solution, you can't argue that 4K upscaling, InstaPrevue, a full suite of streaming features, and 6+ HDMI inputs are very attractive. Add in speakers and a price tag under $900 (under $800 for the 5.1 channel HT-S6500) and color us impressed.

Discuss "Onkyo HT-S6500 and HT-S7500 HTiB Preview" here. Read the article.

 

[uncola]

I have the previous generation 7409 htib and it includes a tx-nr609 with 100wpc. Looks like these have less powerful amplifiers.. or maybe they're measuring more accurately now. Regardless, I'm very happy with my htib and how easy it was to set up the included speakers, it came with nice 18gauge color coded cables of good lenth etc. I did have to mail in my receiver for repair as part of a recall, but other than that it's a good system

 

[bear18]

I have the previous generation 7409 htib and it includes a tx-nr609 with 100wpc. Looks like these have less powerful amplifiers.. or maybe they're measuring more accurately now. Regardless, I'm very happy with my htib and how easy it was to set up the included speakers, it came with nice 18gauge color coded cables of good lenth etc. I did have to mail in my receiver for repair as part of a recall, but other than that it's a good system

Hi guys, i'm new to this site and am just gathering info at the moment. I have a basement mancave, approx 12' X 20' with poker table / darts set ups. have a 40" Sony LCD and sony bluray player, looking to add a HT surround. have it narrowed down to the Onkyo S-5500 and /or Samsung E6730W with both Digital & Tube amps. System will be used more for some movies / sports programs than loud music, tho i still want decent music reproduction. Any thoughts on which system may be better for me at this point? Thanks, Craig

 

[paladinpi]

Amazon saw me searching Onkyo products and sent me a deal I couldn't resist for the S6500. Man am I old. Used to be able to plug in patch cords and you had good music. A bit more complicated these days. Any way I got the system set up and controlled through HMDI cables and ethernet from the router. My expectation is that I would be able to connect to the home network to access my music collection and Pandora as well as other streaming media. Everything set up but there is a problem. Anything on the "net" has buffering problems that seems to be universal according to other forums where owners complain of the same issues. When connecting to the home net work the music will stop after a second or two and go to the next album and continue that way. To conserve bandwith I have closed all internet connections but still the same issue. So I had to load music onto a USB thumb drive and it works well. Radio works well.

There is an app that I downloaded to my Android tablet and phone. This is actually a neat way to go. Works great.

Today though something happened that caused an issue where the system could not connect the menu to the TV or the app. No way to control the system. Great news! Onkyo phone support promptly took the call and walked me through a soft reboot and we reconfigured again. We hoped it wouldn't happen again?!?!?! The tech guy was helpful and friendly which is a departure for many companies.

I still have to play around with some things and like the way the thing sounds, the app and price. I am annoyed about not being able to play Pandora or other net services or get to the music reliably on my home computer. There is a work order in for this and I suspect a firmware update will have to occur before this is fixed.