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- My rating: 0 stars
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3.0 stars
"Okay, bang for the buck deal"
Pros: Price, optical imputs,THX certification, FM tuner, and doesnt run too hot,
Cons: HORRIBLE customer support, thin wires, poor sub performace, a little pitchy, and no adjustable crossover.
Summary: It offers the best performance at the best price that I know of. I could not find another 7.1 system with this performance for the money. If I would have to go back and buy it again, i might not. Home theater in a box systems will never be as good as putting together your own system. They have to make sacrifices in order to sell a system like this to the mass market. One example of how they were able to sell this system so cheap is the sub. Really, its OK for movies, not great but ok, to the average person who knows little about how good sound system sound they will think it sounds great. The subs motor is much too weak for the size cone it is powering. The amp is noting but pathetic, 230 watts peak power. To put this in perspective i bought a SVS PB10 NSD to replace this junk. It is a 10" sub, it offers a much lighter cone and it has MUCH higher efficiency as it has ported design vs a sealed design like this onkyo sub, the SVS is more efficient because it doesnt have to fight the air being compressed or expanded every time the sub moves. The SVS runs at 300watts RMS or continuous, remember thats not peak, it probably puts out more than 500-600 watts peak, and remember its lighter weight, smaller and has much higher efficiency. Needles to say the onkyo sub that comes with this setup is massively under powered. It does not produce accurate precise bass, you can hear it blurr a complicated bass line into a unclear, boomy, noise. I mean its not really that horrible, but to me, it has poor performance. You really notice it when you play music, its ok during big explosions in movies. The cone is made from a heavy paper pulp mix, not high quality, remember they have to save money. The rest of the speakers are not as bad. They are a little pitchy, perhapses this because of a poor quality crossover? In any case the main 7 speakers are great for what they are, im glad they arent made of paper and instead of this cool looking stiff, light weight, cotton weave. The reciver is fairly decent. It is THX certified so it comes with a few goodies like the THX listening modes. If I would have gone back i might have just gotten a good quality 2.1 system from SVS, and upgraded to a 7.1 eventually. But i really needed a sound system badly, so i guess it wasnt such a bad descion. ONKYOs customer support is really trash, i waited for 3 hours during their regular buisness hours and no body even picked up, terrible. Eventually i got my questions answered by someone who didnt speak english all to well and it really seemed that he didnt know what he was doing very well.
So, if your looking to buy this system, ask your self, are you someone who hasnt been around high end sound systems? Can you even tell the diffrence between a 1000$ sub or a 200$ sub? To compile a very good quality 7.1 system made up of SVS subs and speakers with a good reciver it would cost around 1,700$. So you be the judge.
