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I can also recommend the Polk TSi line of speakers with this for both Home Theater and Music. I am writing this as many people have complained about how hard this was to setup. This receiver gives you a lot of options for input and output, deciding on what you want and need will take you a bit, but the results are well worth it. This astounds me, I had this setup in the matter of a couple of hours. That might sound like a lot, but I'm running a Wii, a Mac Mini, Technics CD player, bluetooth gateway and HD cable out to my main tv. I've had this for a little over a week and I'm still discovering the full power of this beast. If you have a chance to grab this at a discount price jump for it.
True Digital Dolby and DTS both sound great. This is a fantastic receiver for the going price of $280. I didn't expect it, but this was off when I unpacked the unit. As has been mentioned in the other reviews, unfortunately processing HDMI Audio is not supported by the unit and you need to connect either an optical or coaxial digital audio cable to get Digital Dolby or DTS.
The manual says it will go to a check function afterward. This all works fine with my HDTV and my PS3. The Dolby Pro Logic II, Neural and Neo functions do a reasonable job of converting stereo into multi-channel. Not sure about the negative comments. Hitting the left arrow on the remote, the display then started flashing Calculating. First, there is a small power button next to the much larger Standby/On button.
So, after hooking all the speakers up (The Boston Acoustics Horizon Series MCS100MDNT 5.1-Channel Speaker System (Black) also bought from Amazon on a Hot Deal of $200 and a great speaker system) and the PS3, I plugged in the unit and nothing. But after going thru the admittedly weak manual and looking carefully at the front panel I found the power switch, and everything came to life.During the auto-calbrate, after the measurements of the 6 locations are done, the receiver will hop to the Calculate function.
A minute later it advanced to the check function.The remote is a bit bizarre with the two sided operation (The back side controls are under a flip door), but works fine and can be set independently for each component. Its a generation older, but has the goods.
What it doesn't specifically state is you have to kick off the calculate. Just beware that you will not be able to access some of the newest HD Audio formats as they are only supported across HDMI, but by using a toslink cable, the PS3 will happily pump out DTS or Digital Dolby tracks.Took me about an hour to set up everything, including setting the mic at the optimal 6 listening positions for the audyssey auto-calibration, setting up the assignable optical and coaxial inputs to the selected devices, running the tuner preset function, and setting the remote to work with my other components.
Once setup, the auto-calibrate proved to be very accurate.A couple things to note, and this is what may have led to some of the bad reviews. I sat there for about 10 minutes before I thought something was up.
It now can control my HDTV for instance.All in all I am very happy with this purchase and the BA Speakers.
Finally, it just gave up the ghost, dying completely and just giving a flashing red power light which according to the unhelpful telephone "support" person meant "Something is wrong" with the system and I had to send the unit to a Denon repair facility which was 8 states away. I spent days agonizing over the purchase of this, trying to decide between comparable Sony/Yamaha/Onkyo components. Yes, the manual is poorly written and you have to follow it step by step and not miss a single point. And then it began to forget which component was assigned to what port and was mixing up all the signals so you got TV sound with DVD pictures, etc. This one hardly made it 90 days. Finally after getting it set up, it sounded great.for a week.
Folks, this is junk. Finally purchased it at Circuit City after talking to the staff. To top it off I had to pay shipping, plus it has now been 10 weeks and I still don't have my system back. Then it began to randomly generate horrible screeching noises during movies. Resetting fixed it each time. I had Yamaha amps that lasted YEARS with no problems.
Never, ever buy Denon.
This is not a $40 DVD player, but a complicated piece of audio equipement, and you need to invest the time to get it set up properly. It is all digital, so you just have to get the sound in and you are fine.
This means that if you are connecting your Blu-Ray player to this receiver, the HDMI cable will only carry the video signal. Watch out for one thing: this unit does not accept audio IN over the HDMI cable.
OR, you could just buy a digital coax cable (less than 5 bucks from some place [.].) and have exactly the same sound quality. For the audio signal you need to use a digital coax cable.
Now, this may seem like a drawback, but let's do the math; if you want the HDMI to carry audio, you need to step up to the Denon AVR-788, which is $100 more than this unit (you also get some more wattage with the 788, although this 688 has plenty). People have also complained about the instruction manual--it takes time but it is not written in Greek.
In terms of bang for the buck, this receiver is an amazing deal.
This is not just my opinion but even my wife, who could care less of how it sounds, said she could tell a difference. I did all the automatic speaker calibration which worked very well. Which I agreed until I tried the Denon. I do have not have a vested interest in this article but the difference in sound was worth writing. It was almost like teh Onkyo was playing through curtains. I will be returning the Onkyo this weekend.
Then I decided to look to see what else what out there around the same price and the Yamaha and Onkyo. Remember, I was comparing this unit to my Yamaha. I found the Denon AVR-688, so I tried that out since I knew Denon was pretty reputable. Both places had a 30 day return policy so I new I had 3 1/2 weeks on left on the Onkyo to do the comparison. My 2005 Yamaha 650 series was very good to me until my dog chewed one of the speakers wires and shorted out the receiver, so I decided to try the new Onkyo TX-SR605 model everyone was raving about besides the overheating problem with Onkyo, everything I heard about the receiver was good. Listening to a TV program, the center speaker sounds so much more life like. The Onkyo had a very thin sound compared to the Denon.
This is playing on a $400 center speaker. I wish I could put a picture on here of me with both receivers just to prove that I did the test. I decided to play some music and all I can say is this thing sounds 20% better than my two year old Yamaha and 40% better than the Onkyo. The sound was ok but not very impressed so I tried tweaking with the sound but did not get much better. I had them both out side by side so I could quickly plug up one to compare.
After the lengthy set up with the Denon (took me 4 times longer to set up the Denon than the Onkyo), which is not as hard as people say as long as you go step by step through the instruction. The Onkyo was very good for the money but the sound did not have the depth of the Denon. I also use banana plugs to for the speaker connectors to make the swap even faster.
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