Hello all,
I thought I would share my own review of the Insignia IS-HC040917 6.1 Stereo Receiver that is the Best Buy house brand.
I purchased this receiver just a few days ago at Best Buy. My original intention was to simply get two new bookshelf speakers for my rear surround. Well, in the process, I found an open box Insignia 600 Watt receiver that was marked for $119.99 with a $30 gift card - so I was able to use the gift card on the speakers.
Anyhow, lets get to some of the things that I have noticed about the receiver.
First of all, I originally had an old Sony Receiver that the amp to the rear speakers went out; it was a system that only provided simulated surround sound but did have Pro Logic. This is why I had to upgrade to something else.
The Insignia receiver was just something that was fine for me. In all essence, this definitely was an upgrade from my old receiver so I wasn't too concerned about too much.
The Insignia has a sub-out that allows the receiver to adjust the output to the subwoofer to increase the loudness of the subwoofer when the volume is turned up - which the Sony did not have since it was an older unit. The Insignia allows you to also setup each speaker - from settings like Large, Small, or None. This way, Large will send bass to the speakers whereas choosing Small does not. Of course, None means that no speaker is available for that channel.
The Insignia has many inputs; TV, Video, DVD - in addition to CD and a few others. The Insignia has one optical input and two digital coaxial inputs that you can use a regular RCA cable to connect to.
I plugged in my S/PDIF-out port on my PC to the COAX1 port and then hooked up my video card to the CD video input (COAX1 is for audio input and is tied with the CD video input). In addition, my DVD player was hooked to COAX2 (my dvd player didn't have an optical output) and the video was hooked up to TV.
When you hook up your audio connections to the digital coax/optical items, it allows this receiver to automatically detect the incoming audio stream and choose the correct decoding technology to use, Dolby D, Dolby EX, Dolby Pro Logic, and DTS is available on this receiver. I put in a DVD and the receiver automatically detected it was Dolby D and hence selected the speaker output automatically. With my PC, it only outputs a standard PCM stream and then I always select 6-channel stereo. This fills the room with sound using all the speakers instead of using the 2-channel speaker which only use the left front and right front speakers.
I want to point out here that some other individuals said that this receiver never did select the right audio input. This is because the receiver does not detect anything on the analog inputs, in order for the receiver to automatically detect the best audio decoder/sound stage to use, it must be plugged into one of the COAX inputs or the optical input.
The Insignia has several different DSP options as well - Live, Hall, Disco, Rock and a I believe two others that escape me at the moment. Each of these offer a different type of experience to the same music. But, if you have even five speakers hooked up, you'll want to run all of the music in 6-channel stereo.
Continuing on - I though the overall sound quality was clean, crisp, and clear - and I would actually say that it sounded better than my old Sony receiver. But again, this may be attributed to the fact that I was using digital inputs for the audio instead of the older analog inputs on the old receiver. When it comes to the audio input from the TV or the DVD player, the sound has to be jacked up to about 60 db in order to be about the same level as the radio tuner or the input from my computer which I have set around 30 db. I know in another review, the reviewer said that the protect would come on after a certain point - but I have ran this thing at 60 db on the TV and a few DVD movies without any problems thus far.
The remote is very slim and straight-forward to use. My old Sony remote was huge and cumbersome, and the Insignia remote is very user friend. It has the decoder-type of audio method buttons on the bottom; 2-channel/6-channel stereo, Dobly EX, DTS Nero, and Pro-Logic. It also has a DSP button in the middle of four arrows East/West/South/North which are used to change speaker setup, boost speakers, turn off the subwoofer, and set surround sound delay. Of course, then there is the full 0-9 keypad, volume control, and the input selections at the top of the remote.
The panel on the front of the unit is also quite easy to use. One thing that was sort of a downgrade from the Sony to the Insignia is that the Treble and Bass controls are knobs on the unit - which have to be set manually on the front panel as opposed to this being a feature that could be easily changed on the remote. But otherwise, the typical volume control, adjustment knobs, and buttons for DSP, input selection, and 0-9 for the tuner.
Now about the radio - the radio allows for many preset radio stations - but you'll never use them. I believe there is an A/B/C/D selection and you can program 9 radio stations for each of these - which gives you a total of 36 preset stations. This was one feature that was also a huge downgrade from my Sony. I setup my bunny ears on the coax-in for the FM just like I did with the old receiver, but yet I can only get in three stations - all local stations within the city. So, for those folks that live in the country or in a town where a radio station isn't local, you may not get in any radio stations. I am not sure why the sensitivity on the radio is - well, piss-poor, but this sort of depressed me to see this. My cheapo $30 portable CD/Radio player gets in a lot more stations than the Insignia receiver obtains.
Overall, this receiver receives a very high score in my book - mostly because this proved to be a cheap upgrade from my previous Sony receiver and I picked up several new features and enhancements. The digital inputs, the subwoofer control through the receiver, and 6.1 stereo with several decoding capabilities. The two places I believe were cons is definitely in the radio tuner and the idea that the treble and bass controls are on the front panel - although the previous con isn't so much one since I set it and never play with it.
For $119 (well, $98 after taxes with the $30 gift card applied towards the speakers I received), this is one starter unit that will appease the general population with features, sound quality, and ease of use.
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Brian Spraker
BsnTech Networks
http://www.bsntech.com