onkyo powered speaker question

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>I recently found a set of Onkyo GX-D90 in a store today, and was wondering if anyone had any experience with these.

Mostly this comes out of looking for ways to save space in my room and to possibly sell my surround receiver (which I only used in 2 ch anyways) to someone who could actually use it as intended.

These claim to have independant amps in each speaker, but the d/a converters and pramp are in the right speaker. &nbsp;I'm hoping these are more along the lines of a serious attempt at pc audio, much like the swans m-200 is. &nbsp;The digital inputs on teh Onkyo are also a nice touch.</font>

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>Well, I decided after much googleing, and asking around with no luck to go out and0 review it myself. &nbsp;The speakers are in my trunk, and after this weekend I should have a solid opinion whether good or bad. &nbsp;

I am expecting better than my Yamaha rx-v430 and Teac &quot;bookshelf system&quot; speakers though. &nbsp;I do know those speakers are thet current system's weak point, and any suitable replacement is the same, if not more expensive than these so it's worth a shot.

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[Audioholics]

<font color='#000080'>Let us know what you think.</font>

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>Here's my initial opinions, I will listen to it again over the weekend and give the final judgment. &nbsp;I am doing this in multiple posts so not to trigger the character limit:

Upon opening the box, i was immediately dissapointed, the literature on it made be believe that each speaker had it's own amp in it, but that is not the case, they both are located inside the right speaker. &nbsp;Also the 24ga wire used to hook up the left speaker is unacceptable, even a $40 set of cambridge soundworks has either 16 or 18 ga with it.

On looks, these things look very elegant as far as PC speakers go, with a nice black ash finish looking almost like veneer, to the cloth grilles and aluminum bottom trim on each. &nbsp;The tweeter is a hard dome type, but with a very soft suspension, and actually has a baffle on it,a first in my book for PC speakers. &nbsp;The woofer seems to be some sort of lacquered/laminated paper type that is unusaully stiff, but seems to have a low excursion, at least when you consider that 3.75&quot; woofer has to actually put out bass. &nbsp;I have a 4&quot; in my Teacs that have almost twice the excursion of these woofers, so I fear bass could be an issue.

the cabinets seemed solidly built, although a bit thin, the rap test gave a very hollow sound out of the left speaker, the other however was not so bad. &nbsp;So far we have woofer excursion issues, and possibly experienceing different tonal qualities form these cabinets due to resonance differences, lets see how they do.

Computer is using an Nvidia Soundstorm using the coax digital out. &nbsp;the cable is the same construction as my analog connects (see one of my posts on DIY cables).

The music/audio I used was first MP3s, then CDs, finally my game of choice Everquest just to test its gaming usability.

MP3s were Eminem, PoD, Everlast, Eric Clapton.</font>

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>Initial listen, the final verdict is this sunday

PoD &quot;Youth of the Nation&quot;

bass was nice and deep, stereo separation was very nice, soundstage seemed very wide, but this speaker set has a very definitive sweet spot, as leaning my chair back to listen made the sound change, making the treble stand out more, and filling in the proper frequencies. &nbsp;I do recommend elevating these up to about you ear level, or tilting them (or just get a shorter chair

).

Eric Clapton's &quot;she's gone&quot; was excellent, bass laden, but excellent, the sound seemed to be very in your face, a little too much so for anything clapton. &nbsp;I enjoyed every minute of it thouugh. During listening, I decided to turn the bass knob back to the &quot;g&quot; on the analog switch (you'll understand if you ever see one of these), and this made the bass much more natural sounding.

On Clapton's &quot;Wonderful tongiht&quot; I was shocked to say the least. It sounded very nice and smooth, the mids are still quite a bit forward though, and somewhat distracting as a result. &nbsp;It's like Clapton was 6 feet infront of you, and his band further back, but was still very enjoyable.

I'm going to skip Eminem, since I'm dying to put in some CDs..

I'm starting off with &quot;Kyrie&quot; from the Lacrimosa CD &quot;Echos&quot;
The details caught me right off the bat, the violins had a very realistic sound about them, the drums had a solid rumble to them (i think I may have heard some slight coloration, but I 'll have to listen more to be sure). &nbsp;the vocals also seemsed to be a bit warm as well.

So far this system has impressed me, especally at $130...I'm going to revisit these songs, and a few more over the weekend, give a few whole CDs a try, maybe some music that more will be familiar with.</font>

 

[mustang_steve]

<font color='#000000'>Well, Sunday has rolled around, and my decision is here.

I would wish they had used a woofer with better excursion to avoid the bottoming out on some bass-laden hip-hop tracks. &nbsp;And I wish the speakers weren't so directional, as beaming is noticable so stands should be considered to get the tweeters to about ear level as possible. &nbsp; The amplifier does need some refinement, 10% thd seems a bit high, even the .5% mentioned at half power is a bit much.

and as far as PC sound systems go, this one would have very high wife acceptance factor, since it eats up little more space than the cheapy speakers that come with a Dell PC.

it had plenty of input options (analog, digital coax and optical), and even has a subwoofer out for those desiring more bass. It has a master power switch on back, and you can turn the volume all the way down to go into standby.
Also note you can switch from analog to digital via the front panel, allowing you to use two sources in these.

The sound did tend to be very in your face with these speakers, but still very enjoyable. &nbsp;About every type of music I played sounded resonably good on these.

As far as PC sound goes it's a very viable replacement for a receiver/desktop sized speakers. &nbsp;just note this is not really a hi-fi speaker, but Onkyo sure did make a step in the right direction. &nbsp;I still wonder why anyone needs a tweeter that goes up to 90khz....

here's a Onkyo marketing sheet on these: &nbsp;http://www.onkyomm.com/download/gxd90.pdf</font>