Customer Reviews

Onkyo HT-S9100THX 7.1 Channel Receiver and Speaker Package

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

This is an AWESOME product. I've been using it for about 2 weeks now, and in my opinion it's one of the best HTs I've ever heard. It's much betten than the overrated BOSE systems, and 7.1 THX beats any movie theater.

The con is that speakers are freakishly bulky (specially if you compare to a Bose). You might have some hard time finding a stand that will remain standing with one of those, so it's a good bet to go with the ones from Onkyo itself.

Universal remote works pretty well, although it could be better looking (go with the Philips Prestigo series for a nicer look and good funcionality).

All and all, if you want a top-notch HT in a box system, you cannot go wrong with this. Plenty of digital inputs (both HDMI and Optical, unlike the previous 990 version).

Excellent sound quality for HTIB. Faithfully reproduces everything from music, to movies, to video games. Great surround sound accuracy/immersion. The speakers are well constructed and easy to set up... the Audyssey EQ microphone makes for quick calibration. I love the variety of inputs on the receiver... there's also a great selection of decoders to choose from. Though I don't use it, there is the capability to add a second Speaker group B to the receiver. You can output a different source to speaker group B, or use it for the rear surrounds.

Video upconversion quality is nice (if you are using the HDMI output for your HDTV). The picture from my DVR box seems to have improved since running it through the stereo. There are probably many more PROS that I will find as I use this system over the years. I plan on upgrading the front speakers one day, and I think this receiver can handle them.

WARNING! THe shipping box is HUGE... probably 5'x3'x3'!! FedEx sent over TWO guys to help bring this up the stairs to my apt.

Buy your own speaker wires: Onkyo's included speaker wires are very cheap.

Also, the sound settings need to be tweaked even after running the microphone set-up utility. I had to turn up the subwoofer and the front L-R speakers. I also slightly adjusted the EQ for a fuller low range and a boosted treble. The "THX" setting on the subwoofer is not nearly powerful enough... I have it dialed up about 20% past that level. This could be due to the carpeting on my floors.

The system is not as loud as 1200w implies. You may need to turn up the gain from your sources. Thankfully, the receiver makes that very easy, and you can set different gain levels for each input. I must say though, it is more than loud enough for my 1400sq/ft apt. Even at -20db, I have plenty of volume for movies with LOTS more headroom to go.

For the last 4 years, I've been using a mediocre $400 HTIB and have waited for a good product to upgrade. I chose this setup for numerous reasons: 1) Speaker drivers are large, which is necessary for producing accurate low-mids. It would not have been worth the money to get another HTIB with small 3" speakers. Even the surrounds are bigger than my old mains! 2) The included receiver is loaded with features equivalent to $700 receivers on the market right now. With its 1080i upconversion and TrueHD/DTS-HS decoding capabilities, this investment won't be obsolete for YEARS to come.

Overall, I spent more than $1100 including the ONKYO9100, Belkin 16 gauge speaker cable, Vantage Point SATS05B satellite mounts, and Lovan Affiniti 29" Speaker Stands. Do not go cheap on the accessories... you may as well buy a lesser HTIB if you're going cheap on the other stuff. I am running it with a 52" Philips 1080p LCD, PS3, Blu-Ray, and TWC DVR and couldn't be happier with my home entertainment system.

Onkyo HT-S9100THX 7.1 Channel Receiver and Speaker Package
Onkyo's HT-S9100THX 7.1 Channel Surround Receiver & Speaker package provides a solution for multiple HDMI devices to connect to a single input HDMI television. I have a DVR, HD DVD & 5 Disc DVD player all connected to my TV thru my Onkyo receiver and can control all the devices with the Onkyo remote!
The receiver has 4 HDMI inputs with 1 HDMI output, 2 component inputs with 1 component output, 4 composite inputs with 2 composite outputs, 3 S-Video inputs with 2 combined composite & S-Video outputs, 2 Audio Coax & 2 Audio Optical inputs also.
Onkyo provides an On Screen Display to help considerably ease the component to receiver setup. As well as a 7.1 Channel surround setup with microphone to optimize Audio quality from all speakers located anywhere in your room.
Speakers are venier, particle board box type with beautiful grills labelled THX Onkyo and a Gray radius'd front complementing the Black venier. Onkyo provides color coded 18 guage speaker wire with the package and each speaker has color coded multi-purpose banana screw type connectors which will accept even 10 guage wire.
Sound quality will be much better if you opt to wire your system with 12 or 10 guage wire. High quality banana jacks are a good purchase for at least the receiver end.
The surround is clean, crisp and exciting while watching high quality DVD's or HD DVD's. If you have a good set of high quality stereo speakers the Onkyo receiver provides A & B speaker outputs.
Now for the good part! The Onkyo upconverts poorer HDMI inputs 540P, 720P etc. to 1080I. You can also select to pass the poorer signals if you like. But, I now watch all TV in 1080 with 7.1 channel surround!

I recently added this product to my living room for my Sony 52XBR5 and PS3. I must say, after setting everything up, which did take quite a bit of time, I am stunned at the level of performance. I purchased this product for $750 and there is absolutely nothing I can say that could give this HTIB justice. Runs DTS-MA and TrueHD with ease through the PS3 w/ the use of an HDMI cable. Plenty of connectivity options w/ 4 HDMI-in so my PS3, Xbox Elite, DirecTV, and Wii and easily connected. I will work on getting a few pictures. I did however have to purchase 3 sets of stands (AS240B) for the speakers being that I did not want to wall mount. Sound is clear, crisp, distinguished, and mesmerizing; just as long as you know what you are doing during set-up. Compared to any other 2k-5k surround sound systems, this is clearly the best option.

To sum up my thoughts and experience with the product: Simply Amazing!

I'm not an audiophile but a decent judge of quality and decided after a lot of research to buy this system. The only change I recommend is larger speaker wire and a higer quality sub woofer cable as the ones that come with it are crappy.

The system was everything I had hoped for and gets lots of wows from everyone that experiences it.

One "small" detail is the size of the surround speakers may make it difficult for some on the placement. I have a dedicated room for watching movies/gaming and mounted them on the walls.

Strongly recommended. Don't panic when the box shows up destroyed, just about everyone's does. The interior packaging is pretty robust and I didn't have any damage to the pieces.

As a previous owner of a Yamaha 700 watt receiver with 7.1 Bose speakers, I think this system is superior in many ways. Although this system is louder, it's not as loud as an additional 500 watts would suggest. Still, the sound is enhanced mainly due to THX digital processing. This receiver is actually lighter than my previous unit due to the self-powered subwoofer. Having less power internally is actually a good thing since it keeps the unit much cooler. The fact that this is an integrated system makes setup a much user friendly experience. No need to worry about crossover frequencies and matching speaker size and ohms rating. Also, the audyssey dynamic EQ changes the EQ settings automatically depending on the volume level.

One drawback with the onscreen display is that it only works with HDMI output and only at 480i resolution. The tv has to adjust each time between resolutions. Also, there is no tv display as to what audio mode is currently selected. The unit's built-in screen is much too small to read from 10 feet away. With a little more time, I can memorize which setting is which. On the other hand, you can select in the setup menu, which audio mode to use each time a new audio source is encountered even from the same input.

As far as the remote is concerned, I don't use it. I have a Logitech universal remote. This unit is connected to a 1080i HDTV via an HDMI to DVI cable, a Dish Network HD-DVR, an AppleTV, an Onkyo DVD and a VCR/DVD recorder. All connected via HDMI. I also have a Nintendo Wii connected via Component input. I used 16 AWG wire instead of the ones that came with it on the recommendation of other users and common sense. Although I kept the wire for the subwoofer since it only carries a low voltage pre-amp signal and the subwoofer does all the hard work.

I've had this system for 2 months now and I couldn't be happier. I've always known that having THX certification on any system guaranties that the sound will be of high quality. Until now, all THX components were too expensive. So when I heard of this complete Onkyo system costing less than $1000, I had to upgrade. I sold my old system for the same money as this one cost. The only down side is finding one in stock.

UPDATE 7/02/2010 - After a year and a half, I decided to tweak the settings since I wanted more bass. I turned off Audyssey Dynamic EQ and used the manual EQ instead. I used +3, +2, 0 +3, +4 for each frequency respectively. I also turned up the gain in each speaker in the speaker menu to +10db and +12db for the sub. Turning up the gain for all speakers increases the maximum volume output by the same amount thereby giving you more power output. I can hear and feel the difference. The extra bass comes from all the speakers combined since the sub was already maxed out. The Audyssey system was attenuating the bass at higher levels. I only wished I had done this sooner.

I've been reading reviews by many people complaining about a hum coming from the sub. I had a similar experience when I first installed it but was able to eliminate it completely by turning down the "output level" on the back of the sub. I'm even using the original sub wire.

I must say, I have been very pleased with this unit. It was delivered in a very large box that was beat up a bit. I didn't see any immediate damage when I looked in the box, it wasn't until I had taken out the sub until I noticed one of the 4 footrests had been partially crushed.

However, I haven't had any problems. The Audyssey(SP?) auto EQ feature is very nice. Once you have all everything positioned and the speakers wired, you can go through a somewhat lengthy auto EQ process with a position mic that is supplied. It takes awhile to calibrate, but it appears to be incredibly accurate and gives very high fidelity to the levels. It comes with THX presets to make everything easy.

The HDMI-CEC (or whatever the TV/DVR/BlueRay player calls it) feature is nice! I can control the volume and power with my TV remote, so when I turn my HDMI connected TV or Onkyo on, the other will turn on or off. You can get a programmable remote, but it's nice to be able to pick up any remote and have it "just work."

The A/V receiver does 1080i upscaling, but I set everything to pass through native format. I wish it was 5-to-1 HDMI, but it's only 4-to-1 HDMI 1.3a.

Non-discrete amplifier, but for a moderate sized room it's more than enough and the 192 kHz/24-bit DACs already challenge the limits of human hearing.

It's 7.1 but there are very few sources that come native with 7.1 audio, PS3 being an exception. Few Blue-Rays even support it. This is a good receiver for BlueRay players that don't natively decode Dolby TrueHD and Dolby DTS-HD like the Sony BDP-S350.

The setup menu is also very nice. The level of customization is very detailed. You can adjust the A/V sync offset in 4ms increments, and you can adjust the volume offset on a per-input basis. No more "load satellite receiver, quiet blueray player."

Overall I love this thing. This unit was high return for the money and setup effort. Make sure you turn up the default settings on your satellite receiver/cable box/xbox/ps3/blueray player to the highest they support. This Onkyo supports everything and the best stuff is usually disabled by default.

I recently built a "media room" in my basement, and I have teamed this system up with a Samsung TV and a Panasonic Blu-ray player. All are connected through HDMI.

First, the speakers sound good. Really good. I'm no audophile or fanatic, but I've heard crappy speakers before and these are decent. One thing, though, right off the bat: Get rid of the wires that come with the system. They are plain-Jane "just get it done" wires that are not enough to channel the "power" through to the speakers. I replaced mine immediately with 12 gauge in-wall wires with banana plugs on both ends. That's about as much as you'd need. I also replaced the subwoofer cable, which I recommend you do as well if you buy the system.

With the volume set at "-10" I can hear the sound throughout my ranch style home, and once I crank it past zero and into the positive numbers, I can really hear it clearly wherever I am inside. I would love to know what volume setting is the loudest the system can safely handle for extended periods so I never take a chance on blowing them out, but for my room, I have never turned them past "12" simply due to the fact that it's quite loud enough. If you're sitting ten feet away from the front and center speakers, I've found that even the negative numbers can be loud enough depending on the movie.

Secondly, the speakers are heavy. I don't know how heavy speakers usually are, but for all of the speakers, I purchased mounts that could hold at the very least 25lbs. The two rear speakers I have hanging from the ceiling, but the rest are on little shelves with supports that can handle about 100lbs. You really don't want to get anything weak or flimsy to hold any of these speakers. I put my mounts through wood beams, not through drywall only, due to the weight of the speakers. They are pretty substantial. Don't cheap out.

Thirdly, set up was pretty easy. After mounting all the speakers where I wanted them and aiming them where I had to, I used the included auto-setup feature. You plug in an included microphone and follow the directions that are displayed on the TV (yeah, hook it up first). You have to move the mic a few times and make sure there is very limited or no noise in the room, and after about 10 minutes, you're good to go. From what I understand, it sets up the various volume levels to be projected from each speaker, so the fronts are louder than the backs or sides to match where you will be seated. After setting it up, I haven't had any issues with sound. If you have an HDMI capable TV, definitely use that to make set up easier.

I've watched a little under a dozen movies on the system so far and I'm happy with it. I only use the remote for "on" and "volume" so I can't comment on that.

The other reviews tell you pretty much everything good you need to know about this system. I used to own the Onkyo SKS-HT500 speaker system with a TX-SR600 receiver, and this system outdoes that one by a mile, on sound alone, let alone the new HDMI connectivity, THX rating, and numerous other state-of-the-art features. Great sound and fairly easy setup, especially with the Audyssey calibration system. I'd say this is the best sound you can buy for less than $1,000.

Two caveats:

-- The box is huge and heavy (136 lbs.) and will very likely arrive quite beat up at your door. Mine was so bad it was scary, but Amazon is offering to replace the subwoofer which got damaged. Luckily everything was else okay.

-- Get your own speaker wiring, at least 16 gauge for the surrounds and 14 for the front/mains. The included speaker wires are barely suitable for your bedside alarm clock speaker.

I purchased this system a little over 2 years ago (this is important because it comes with a 2 year warranty) and was thrilled. It looks great, sounds amazing and was exactly what I wanted. I even found another site that had a great deal on it and didn't charge for shipping. Life was good. Fast forward to today and why am I giving it 1 star?

The receiver is dead. It still turns on, lights up and plays some sound but the HDMI picture to the TV does not work at all. I did a web search for Onkyo receiver HDMI problem (you can do it yourself and see how many others have had this problem) and low and behold I find that this is very common. For those lucky enough to have it covered under warranty, they got to spend their time talking to Onkyo customer service, which was nearly universally panned. Then they got to ship it somewhere and find out that parts were on backorder and they weren't getting it back anytime soon. Now that seems like a hassle but it's one I'd gladly take on right now because mine is JUST outside of the warranty and I've got an expensive paperweight. Sure, I can replace the HDMI daughter board for $300-400 but why sink that kind of money in to a receiver with little to no guarantee that it won't do it again in a few months?

So, in passing, the great reviews on here are from people who haven't had the system too long and are still in the honeymoon phase. I was one of them! I loved this. Now the love is gone and my receiver and I might have irreconcilable differences. I think it's time for a divorce. So sad...but you still have time to avoid this mistake. Good luck!