Feel the clean, crisp power - UPDATED 4/22/02
Written: Sep 13 '00 (Updated Apr 22 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots of power, all the necessary features, excellent price and quality (even my refurb!)
Cons: On screen display
The Bottom Line: An excellent receiver with lots of power and performance. The onscreen display is a joke, but you can easily forget about that with all the other great features.
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| Schwinn's Full Review: Onkyo TX-DS676 5.1 Channels Receiver |
This is not just another 5-star rating!
I recently bought this product as a factory refurbished model, and I have to say it's in excellent condition! It looks like new, but cost me about 40% less than a new one from any online source I could find. Where you ask? HTTP://www.Netmarket.com (review at: http://www.epinions.com/content_38134910596 ) Give them a try!
Anyway, back to the Onkyo. I purchased it to replace my old Optimus (Radio Shack, manufactured by Pioneer) Pro-Logic receiver which has served me well. I wanted to enter the world of Dolby Digital, and I wanted a more balanced power from my receiver. You have to remember, back in the day, receivers had Pro-Logic where the power output was not equal among the channels. The Optimus had about 100W on the main speakers, with about 60W on the center and surrounds. This made for some interesting balancing between the 5 un-matched speakers I currently use, which still ended up leaving the center channel a little too low in volume. It was time for a new receiver.
I used to sell Onkyo equipment along with Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer, Pioneer Elite, Sony, and others. Through all those other brands, the Onyko stood out due to its warm, yet crisp sound on almost any speaker. I won't go into the details of this decision here, but needless to say, I was hooked on Onkyos!
So, I began shopping for Onkyo receivers and was left to decide between the TX-DS575X and this TX-DS676 receiver. The major differences (that I was concerned with) between them is that the 676 adds:
- On-screen programming
- Front input jacks
- S-Video jacks
- A little more power
- Intellivolume feature
- Binding posts on all speakers (was not available on the 575, but is on the 575X)
Now, the receiver itself is solid and well built. Installation was not a problem, although I had to drill some new holes in my entertainment center to lower the shelf 1"... this is a tall receiver! All the jacks are easy to understand as they are well labeled... then again, I enjoy this type of stuff!
I don't have any fancy speakers, so I won't be able to tell you if the receiver really makes that big of a difference or not. All I know is that there is a lot more power in this receiver. What's more is that I was very happy to see the volume control is very linear. I was too used to adjusting my old stereo for a low volume between 5 and 10 on the 0-100 scale knob. This receiver scales volume very nicely, even down to the lower levels - it's very linear. With this linear behavior, it's easy to find a comfortable volume that doesn't require a lot of in-movie fiddling - something I had to do with the old receiver.
The 5.1 surround sound is excellent. My old receiver would have a weird buzzing on the surround channels - probably something wrong with it. The Onkyo provides clear sound on all channels, even in Dolby Pro-Logic mode. Just be aware that you must have a separate amplified subwoofer (or a passive in-line unit, which I don't recommend) since there is no amplified subwoofer output. All of the amplified and pre-amplified outputs are level-adjustable, so even if you have mis-matched speakers (like I do) you can get them all to behave the same, volume-wise.
Incidentally, a lot of people used to complain about a buzzing noise from the Onkyo 575 recevier, and I was afraid this one may fall victim to the same problem. I am happy to say this is not an issue on my unit. And, to the other member who reported "no more fan noise", I wanted to clarify that the 676 does not have a fan (anymore?).... though I wish it had a quiet one!
Now, as far as the extra features listed above:
The on-screen display is rather ugly. It's nice that it allows for an overlay, so you can display the volume and other menu functions over your current TV/video program. However, the menu screens are another story since the white text can be hard to read over the TV action. I must admit, I was disappointed in the implementation of this feature, as there isn't much to do in there. For example, you cannot setup AM/FM presets in there - they have to be done on the receiver body itself! In fact, you can't even tune AM/FM manually from the remote?!
Regarding the the remote. A lot of people feel this is an excellent remote. Honestly, I don't see it. Yes, it has a backlight, which is cool. But I still prefer my old remote. Why? Well, I like lots of buttons. My old remote had the ability to have all the major buttons mapped without having to change modes. So, I could change the TV volume and the receiver volume without pressing any mode buttons. To me, THAT is a great remote. Still, this remote is not bad... at least you can manually program any button to any function. I am sure that, after a while, I will have buttons setup as I want them - of course, no one else will understand why the "+10" button goes to the previous channel! Lastly, about the remote, the only other complaint I have on it is that the numbers are at the bottom and it's rather front-heavy. This makes one-handed number-pressing rather annoying.
Ok, the other features. Front jacks/S-Video jacks. I do a lot of work on VCRs and such, so the front jacks are a wonderful feature for me (I have none on my TV). S-Video is there, if you want it. (The original 575 doesn't have S-Video, while the new 575X does.) And Binding posts - it's nice to have a receiver with these instead of the cheap little button-push speaker terminals where the wire always slips out. A nice solid connection is great!
Intellivolume? What is that you say? Its a neat feature that I didn't even know I was getting! It allows each input jack to have a preset level relative to other jacks. For example, let's say you switch from CD to FM and find the volume is way too loud. Normally you would just turn down the volume (maybe after apologizing to the neighbors!) Intellivolume allows you to decrease the FM volume by an "offset" so that the inputs are at relatively similar volumes. Once this is set, switching between CD and FM in our example would not cause large changes in volume. Neat. Though, after some use, I noticed that some my cable channels cause more volume deviation than any of my audio/video units do. Go figure.
In Summary:
So, all in all, this is an excellent receiver. I love it! I probably could have "suffered" with the 575X, since the only real benefits are the increased power and the front video/S-video jacks. As I said, the onscreen display is disappointing - its more of a toy than a necessity. But, I still love it - especially for the price I paid!
UPDATE 4/22/02:
Over a year has gone by now and I love my Onkyo more and more. I have helped a few other friends install home theater systems by Kenwood, Sony, Pioneer, and others. Honestly speaking, the Onkyo is well worth the extra money for many reasons.
One such reason is the power and sound. No matter how hard these friends of mine try, their systems just don't sound as impactful as this Onkyo. And, as I mentioned above, all of this is coming from some "low end" speakers. I can only imagine what they will sound like with a real, matched set of speakers.
The other, most important benefit of this unit is its user-friendliness. This comes to light in two huge ways. First is the auto-selecting of the digital mode for my DVD player. When the DVD puts out a Dolby Digital signal, the Onkyo interprets it and sets itself accordingly. It does this automatically and displays the current mode on its large, text display. As a comparison, my friend's Sony doesn't show anything and all switching is done manually (admittedly this Sony has no built-in 5.1 decoder) and the Pioneer doesn't do anything automatically (even though I told the Pioneer that it was a digital signal, it didn't even switch to digital input automatically, much less set or display the digital mode) The Kenwood was a joke and was hard enough to use normally, much less work the digital features. When you're playing a DVD, it's great to just pop it in, and see what mode you are running without going through the DVD menu or anything. And, all this is done automatically.
The second huge feature benefit is the DSP mode called "5-ch Stereo". At first, I thought this would just be some useless mode, but I have never stopped using it since I first turned it on. In this mode, all 5.1 speakers are running all the time. What's more is that if the input signal (analog, usually) is in Pro-Logic or has some surround effects, the Onkyo, somehow, knows this and seems to put those sounds where they belong. Almost as if it auto-switches into surround mode without doing anything. This sound mode is so nice that I don't even bother switching into ProLogic mode when I watch a TV/VCR movie - 5ch Stereo does it all, and with a better, fuller front soundfield.
So, would I still recommend this receiver? YES! Even more so! Of course, you could go for the smaller 575x or similar updated model - the on screen display is simply terrible...
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
Schwinn
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Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 4 members
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