Customer Reviews

Onkyo DS-A2X Remote Interactive iPod Dock

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Onkyo DS-A2X Remote Interactive iPod Dock

I recently purchased a Onkyo 605 Receiver. As advertised, it is a superior product. I am very happy with it. I then purchased the IPod Remote and Adapter for the Receiver, figuring there would be advantages of using the Onkyo branded product with their Receiver. Well, Onkyo must have used the A engineers on the Receiver and put their B engineers on the Accessories. The DS-A2X Remote, is disappointing, at best. The interface is something out of the 80's. It is all text, like an old DEC terminal. Not very Ipodish.
I would strongly suggest looking at other products out there first. There are many others (Tuneview, DLO Dock) which offer a more elegant user interface.
This is the first product I have every had to return to Amazon.
If you are taking the time to put together a top-notch system, you will be very dissapointed with this. I cannot understand why Onkyo would have released something like this this when they obviously did not spend the time to create a "best of class" product.

I was pretty geeked when I read about the product and ordered the new Onkyo Receiver (TX-SR605) to go with this. The receiver gets deservedly great reviews, but this product is scrap. Setting it up is easy (3 plugs), but the remote is a step back in time from the ipod remote. On screen display of song lists, titles, etc. looks like it came from an old Commodore home computer. The display takes up maybe 1/4 of the TV screen, so if you have long lists, you really can't scroll through rapidly. With tousands of songs, it's impossible to get to the end of a list. I believe the Mac Ipod A dock supports the scroll-wheel functionality - this has nothing, but a very slow remote.

Where the product is really poor is video. I was excited that I could download movies into itune, load them on the ipod, plug it into the dock and away we go. Unfortunately, it isn't that easy. First off, you have to essentially do the reverse in terms of menu options from displaying song information. Second, you can't view the video and photo menus on the TV screen - so you have to scroll and select on the ipod itself (although you can scroll and select music by looking @ TV screen) using the Onkyo remote. I'm still lost as to that feature/function.

Probably my own missed expectation, but I was really hoping for a good UI to allow me to sit back with remote, thumb through a playlist and play tunes, go bck to main menu and select a video or watch a slide show of photos. For video/photo - the remote is useless since you have to switch it out of the mode that interfaces with TV, for audio, because you can't scroll easily through lists, it's pretty useless as well. But at least I can play tunes and video through my new receiver.

Not great, but it works. If you plan to use this device to watch iPod movies on your TV, don't buy it. I bought this item to listen to my iPod through my stereo speakers, and it sounds great. The OSD (On Screen Display) is pretty bad, but does not really matter to me, I can read it fine and it works. Bottom line, it does what it says it does, not more.

Onkyo DS-A2X Remote Interactive iPod Dock

I recently purchased a Onkyo 605 Receiver. As advertised, it is a superior product. I am very happy with it. I then purchased the IPod Remote and Adapter for the Receiver, figuring there would be advantages of using the Onkyo branded product with their Receiver. Well, Onkyo must have used the A engineers on the Receiver and put their B engineers on the Accessories. The DS-A2X Remote, is disappointing, at best. The interface is something out of the 80's. It is all text, like an old DEC terminal. Not very Ipodish.
I would strongly suggest looking at other products out there first. There are many others (Tuneview, DLO Dock) which offer a more elegant user interface.
This is the first product I have every had to return to Amazon.
Save yourself sometime and check out the others on the market.
I cannot uderstand why Onkyo would release a product that they obviously did not spend time trying to understand what the consumer expects in an elegant, easy to see interface.

The Ipod Dock has been great. I hooked it up to my Onkyo sr605 receiver, and it makes listening to the IPod selection of music easy. Installation was simple, and it works through all of the normal menus, etc. You can choose any input on the receiver, and use as the dock instead. I am distributing through whole home audio as well with no issues. It is also nice bc i can go back and forth b/w multiple ipods and they all drop right in the dock.

I didn't buy this dock to watch movies on my TV. I bought it just to control remotely the music I listen from my ipod to my Onkyo home cinema system. Even for that, this dock is not capable enough to do so.

I chose Onkyo dock because I have an Onkyo receiver and I thought that with this dock the integration would be perfect and it would look cool. I was wrong. Receiver's remote control through RI connection only has stop, play, pause, forward and backward functions for the ipod. For navigation through lists, albums, songs etc., I still need to use the small dock's remote control. So the fact that the brand was common didn't help much. I could use any other brand docking station if I knew that I would have to have one additional remote control on the table of my living room anyway.

On screen display function is terrible. I had read reviews saying that it is not that good but I didn't imagine that it would be that bad. It really looks like an MS-DOS interface with white characters in a total black screen. So, by this means it doesn't look cool at all. Scrolling is also very slow and not convenient at all on the way you see lists. Characters are huge and very few songs appear on the screen at once. Furthermore it does not appear on the TV screen the Greek characters and I guess any other non Latin character too, like the ipod's screen does. So I cannot navigate my Greek music I have on ipod.

Finally I wish it had an HDMI connection too aside the RCA since I have run out of RCA inputs on my TV screen.

The only positive thing I can say about this dock is its minimal design that matches pretty well with my black ipod.

At the end, I don't see much difference from having my ipod connected via the stereo jack. At least I feel somehow better that I bought it from the US and not from Europe where the price is almost double. If I could return it back, I would do it. I am sure there are much better ipod docks out in the market in similar price range.

Physically this is a solid, nice looking dock. It's pretty easy to install and use, although I wish it used HDMI or DVI or something to eliminate the big mass of cables in the back. It will work on a non-Onkyo tuner (although I did test it on one).

But the on-screen interface is as horrible as many of the reviews mention. It's like the display of something you might find from the 1980s. And the remote is poorly laid out and counter intuitive.

I was ready and planning to not use the on-screen interface at all. I really just wanted a simple way to charge the iPod and play music from it through my stereo. But you have to use the on-screen interface because the iPod controls are disabled once you plug it into the dock. You can't even start playing a song on the iPod and then plug it into the dock and let it continue playing - it'll immediately stop as soon as it's plugged into the dock, unlike for example the iPod interface in a MINI Cooper.

So I'm returning it. If it were 1/4 or 1/3rd the price, I may have kept it. But at full price it's not worth it.

Looks nice, decent construction ...fits my Ipod okay once you adjust it. The remote is VERY counter intuitive. Not sure if it is my Onkyo 605 Receiver or the dock itself; but the way you choose your music and show video is both boring and also counter intuitive. What about the instruction manual that came with it you ask ...what manual? I learned nothing from that piece of paper. Don't forget to set the VIDEO SETTINGS on your Ipod to "Ask" or the video will not show through your TV.

I've got an iPod Classic 80. I wanted a BLACK, well-made, good looking dock that has a LINE-OUT to my stereo that bypasses the iPod volume control. I also wanted a small, easy to use remote. Done deal. This dock is the ticket. You have to ignore the other functionality, but for this price that's ok. The Apple a/c adaptor alone would cost you $30. Here you get the whole package for $74. IMPORTANT: this dock's external video will not be compatable with the newest video ipods (since roughly Sept 2007). Also, this dock works fine without any external Onkyo gear, but you don't get the functionality such as timer, volume control of stereo with the dock's remote, etc unless you have Onkyo gear. I'm more of an audiophile and aim higher than Onkyo. BOTTOM LINE: works great as an audio line out dock, and it includes the a/c adaptor, so it's a good deal!!! Caution: the included RCA cables just did not sound good at all. Even inexpensive Monster cables sound MUCH better. I almost returned the dock until I tried some alternative cables.

This product sounds great, is easy to install, looks good. Best of all, it comes with RCA jacks (not a custom bridge plug like the Harman Kardon iPod bridge). So it will work with any receiver, not just a few Onkyo receivers.

I don't have the Onko it syncs with, so I don't know about on screen display that others have complained about. But the remote works great for me, and the sounds is MUCH better than using a mini jack from your iPod.