- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 13 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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4 out of 5 people found this review helpful
3.0 stars
"Good System for Small Spaces"
Pros: Many connections, good quality
Cons: No in-receiver switching or HDMI up-conversion, add your own DVD/VHS, etc...
Summary: We purchased this system from Fry's based on some cursory research and the feature set. (I forgot to come to C-Net first...) I was replacing a Pioneer SX780 from the '70s that had burned out and a SpeakerLab 2.1 system from that same time period. Definitely time to upgrade. Onkyo has always made high-quality equipment.
We got the Onkyo system home and I was very impressed, UNTIL I began trying to get it set up. Don't get me wrong, it's fairly easy to set up, but for a smaller room than ours, perhaps 12x15 max. Our room is 12x20 and has major openings on two sides with windows on the third; solid on only one wall.
Everything in the kit is of high-quality, but none of the speaker wires (nicely color coded) were going to work with our set-up. Plus, with the addition of a front projector as well as a flat-screen, I now faced cabling issues.
The HT-SR800 does NOT pass-through audio via its HDMI OUT jack, which Nor does it do any internal switching. Want to run a signal from the Comcast Moto DVR? You'd need to run seperate video and audio lines for EACH output device. Want to run a signal from the DVD player? More cables. VHS deck? More cables still.
This is a nice sytem for someone with a SINGLE TV, who doesn't need switching and can ghet by without upconversion or crippled HDMI.
Ours is going back to Fry's...
I'll exchange it for the highly rated Onkyo TX-605 AV Receiver, which has internal switching, HDMI video AND audio, plus full upconversion. I'll add a center and surround speakers to my existing SpeakerLab kit. That way everything will run nicely to the LCD flat-screen through the one HDMI OUT. I can run component video to the projector, which doesn't need audio.
Onkyo HT-SR800 (black):
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