Onkyo Receivers: Good or Bad?

[bikdav]

The reason I ask is I just bought a new Onkyo TX-NR656. I went from an old Sony and I was immediately wowed by the hi-res audio and the video looked great. Price was good and features are decent, but I wanted to hear from you fellow geek heads on what you thought about Onkyo receivers.

I have a 656 and so far it has been great. It took care of all of my connection hurdles. I have no problem with how it sounds.

 

[niles300z]

I am in agreement that in general avr reliabilty has gone down. Onkyo pissed me off too so all i can do is try something else next time like yamaha. I like the sound of keeping tighter controls in your own mfg plant. I got an avr-473 to see if their HDMI woes are anything like onkyo. Overall i liked onkyo but reliability is a big deal for me as i rarely buy new or buy extended warranties.
Stellar customer service is worth its weight in gold. If Polk sold AVRs id buy one from them or L.L Bean.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

If Polk sold AVRs id buy one from them or L.L Bean.

Funny you should mention Polks and AVRs... Looks up its owners DEI Holdings and whom they bought two years ago...

 

[lovinthehd]

Funny you should mention Polks and AVRs... Looks up its owners DEI Holdings and whom they bought two years ago...

Or perhaps better known in this case as Sound United...

 

[lovinthehd]

I am in agreement that in general avr reliabilty has gone down. Onkyo pissed me off too so all i can do is try something else next time like yamaha. I like the sound of keeping tighter controls in your own mfg plant. I got an avr-473 to see if their HDMI woes are anything like onkyo. Overall i liked onkyo but reliability is a big deal for me as i rarely buy new or buy extended warranties.
Stellar customer service is worth its weight in gold. If Polk sold AVRs id buy one from them or L.L Bean.

They've just been commoditized at many price points like other consumer electronics (like tvs). You can still get the better units at the flagship end of the lineup....fwiw my Onkyo has been doing great since the extended warranty repair, and I don't read of particular issues in several audio groups/fora like the old days, seems average now.

 

[Dmac43]

I personally would not buy Onkyo or recommend Onkyo to any of my family and friends because of Onkyo's terrible reputation of customer service and failure rate.

Hopefully you will have good luck with your Onkyo.

I have 3 Onkyo receivers, upgrading only due to new features and have never had an issue with any of them... I’d recommend over the Yamaha, and Sony’s that I’ve owned for sure.... IMO the best bang for the buck... Love Denon but priced too high for what I wanted / could afford.

 

[Dmac43]

If your going to add a fan to your system. You must have your AVR in a cabinet? I am on my second Onkyo and I'm researching for my third. Always lover the output. But there is a lot of heat. Mine is in a cabinet so I drilled more air holes in the back. I'm thinking about applying some sort of small fan to draw the heat out of the cabinet.

Amazon has fans designed to sit on top of the unit, and also have inexpensive fans to mount to the cabinet.