Others say...

"Wow!"
I can't complain. The receiver works great, though I'm still figuring out how to set it up. The sound quality is great, the look is pretty slick, though I don't care much for the front-end flip door - it looks like it can easily be damaged or broken. Throw in a great set of speakers and subwoofer and you will probably never go to a movie theater again!

"you'd be harded pressed to buy a better receiver"
This is one bad dude! The weight along should let the user know they just bought a top quality product. It handles all the current and even the newest audio formants. Set up is a breeze, just plug in the microphone and follow the on-screen instructions. The packaging from JRs was top notch as well. This unit is a little big, so make sure you take some measurement before you order. Also, it runs hot so youll want to make sure it has plenty of room so air can circulate (it has two fans as well) and keeping it away from toddlers is a must too; it could certain burn their skin. This is my first Onkyo, but it will not be my last! Absolutely the BEST bang for the buck out there

"Loud & Clear!"
I've owned this unit for about 6 months now, and I've made a few observations. I hope you find them helpful.

1. The amp drives my 4 KEF iQ9s, an KEF IQ6C, and 2 iQ8DS(s) with authority. Add the ground shaking sub channel coming through an unimposing KEF HTB2 Subwoofer and the sound becomes ridiculously impressive at both low and high volumes for an amp in this price range. Highs sizzle, mids are extremely present and clear, and lows are almost visceral at low volumes and literally visceral at high volumes.

2. You can get hooked up to all your components just about any way you want with this unit. I won't bother listing all the types of inputs & outputs since that info is already available elsewhere on this page, but suffice it to say that this baby leaves very little to be desired in that department. Versatile and nicely complete.

3. The user menus are not very frilly, but I like them that way. Menus aren't part of the entertainment, they should be purely functional and efficient, and these are certainly that. They're also quite versatile, allowing you to tweak your video and audio in quite a few ways. This unit also has automatic room compensation - just plug in a small mic that comes with the amp, run a brief diagnostic during which white noise is played through each speaker, and the amp automatically adjusts equalization and the level of each speaker in the room to provide an optimal listening experience. If you're like me, you'll try that and then reset everything to your own personal preferences, and the menus make that reasonably simple.

4. Being more audiophile than videophile, I don't feel qualified to say much about the video quality, but I will say this: Nothing has ever looked this good on my television screen. Movies I'd watched dozens of times before getting this unit look better than they did (and that wasn't bad to start). Um... yup.

5. As has been noted by many other reviewers, this unit runs very hot, but not unmanageably so. Good ventilation is the key. I situated mine on a round cast iron table with a weave style surface (see my customer images), and although areas of the unit still become quite warm bordering on downright HOT, the unit has never overheated or given me a single problem of any kind.

6. As has also been noted frequently, this piece of equipment is quite heavy. It strikes me as being very well built, very solid and substantial. I actually bought this one to replace my TX-SR 803 that lost the center channel when you listened to multi-channel audio like SACDs or THX audio after I had owned it for a year and a half, so I'm hoping for better longetivity with this one. I've never had an amp go bad on me before, so I was really disappointed about the 803. In all fairness though, I never ran an amp 24/7 like I did that one either. I work from home now, so I have music on all the time.

Conclusion: This is a great sounding, great looking, powerful A/V receiver, especially when you consider the price. You'd expect to pay a good deal more for something with so many features that produces sound of this quality with so much authority. For the money (and they've come down by more than half since they were first introduced), you can't go wrong! Check out those KEF speakers too! Amazon's price is substantially lower than I paid elsewhere (dang it), and those speakers plus this A/V system deliver way more than you think you can get for that kind of money!

"Receiver is Excellent, Onkyo Support is not"
I relearned a lesson with this receiver. Any time you buy electronics, the very first thing you want to do is to perform a factory settings reset if the equipment supports it. This receiver has a factory reset. Don't configure anything, reset, and then start going through the configuration. I had an issue where it had very poor sound quality and the subwoofer out would not work. After hours of troubleshooting and talking to an Onkyo service rep for about five minutes (he obviously had more important things to do than to assist the customer) I was told and convinced that my unit was just a lemon unit and would have to get it serviced. Stumbling on the reset mechanism I gave it a try, and since then the functionality has been superb. I don't know the science behind electronics that sit unpowered or travel distances and why they loose settings or begin to corrupt memory settings, I do know that most products should typically be reset to factory config when you pull them new out of the package. That applies to this receiver and most every other piece of electronic equipment.

With that said, the sound quality rivals those in the same price range from brands like sony, pioneer and jvc, etc... I spent almost a year reading reviews and listening to demo units at the local store before I finally bought this one. The sound is excellent. The upscaling seems to improve the picture some, but the pass through to my plasma at 1080p is what I knew would give me a better picture, and no complaints there. It also comes with a microphone and a feature where it auto configures the speaker settings based on the room it is in, it compensates for distance, echo, interference, I believe it actually figures out how to makes lesser speakers sound better.

The other thing I liked was the units ability to upscale audio. It takes 5.1 signals and upscales them to 7.1, it even takes your non discrete sound options and upscales them to a 5.1 that then upscales to a 7.1

To sum it up, based on audio quality, hdmi upscaling, 1080p throughput, and the thx ultra2 functionality as well as other hi def audio functionality, and the fact that it is very future proof, this is the receiver I would buy again, I truly love the audio performance of this receiver.

"Fantastic Reciever"
This is an upgrade from and old pioneer receiver and this reciever is amazing. I did a lot of research on different recievers like Denon, Yamah, Pioneer, Sony and this was by far the best bang for your buck. It came on time in a perfectly package box that weighed a ton because this is a heavy reciever. I know a little bit about setting up electronics but this was easy. I have HD sat, HD DVD player, PS2, CD player, VCR and 7.1 surround set-up and running under 1.5 hour. The coolest thing is everything connects to the reciever and you just connect the reciever to the TV with one HDMI cable. The only thing you need to assign the HDMI inputs to what you have hooked up to them. This is easy to do with the on screen menu. Another cool feature that is extremely easy to use is the self-calibrating sound for your speakers. All you have to do is plug in the microphone that is given to you and the reciever will walk you through the rest. If you are looking for a reciever this is a must buy.