Onkyo HTS894 5.1 Channel Complete Home Theater System w/ Single Disc DVD

by Onkyo

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 90 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000H9AF9A
• Item model number: HTS894
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,156 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Onkyo 5.1 HDMI HTIB w/ Single Disc Dvd HTS894

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, But Not Perfect, October 26, 2006

By 

Shanus Jr. (Sun Valley, ID) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Onkyo HTS894 5.1 Channel Complete Home Theater System w/ Single Disc DVD (Electronics)

I just received my HT-S894 a couple of days ago and have spent quite a bit of time setting it up and reading through the manuals that came with it. The system looks good, sounds great, and comes at a nice price, especially if you shop around (I wish I'd known that refurbished models were available about a week ago... Their price is quite surprising).

Now for the stuff I wish someone had told me... Not that the info would have necessarily stopped me from buying the HT-S894, but I think others will find these details important. If you connect the receiver to your TV with component cables, then anything connected to the receiver through HDMI will not display any picture. This is verified in the manual. Stranger yet, if you hook the receiver to your TV with HDMI, then anything connected through component cables will not show a picture on the TV. On top of that, the receiver's on-screen menu will not display on your TV through the HDMI output. Very irritating, considering HDMI was one of the selling points that convinced me to choose this system. I can't even use it now, because I want to be able to use the setup menu and have more devices that use component outputs than HDMI outputs. It's really a shame that I have to choose between using HDMI or component connections. Some may want to note that the receiver uses HDMI v1.1.

Movies sound great out of the box, and music sounds just as nice with some tweaking. I prefer to turn down most of the channels by about "3" or "4" and crank the LFE (subwoofer) up by "8" to get the punchy sound that I like. With default settings, the sub seemed almost ignored. I've yet to figure out how to save the adjusted channel settings. They keep getting reset when I turn off the unit.

One very pleasant surprise was that the included DVD player handles DivX files. I've tested out quite a few files that all played fine, except for some high-definition movie rips that are over 2GB, meaning they're burned with the UDF file system (if I remember correctly), which is not supported by the player. Otherwise, TV shows and standard-definition rips work nicely.

While it sounds like I'm not extremely happy with this system, I really do like it enough to hold on to it and just ordered two pairs of Sanus EF-SATB speaker stands for the front & rear speakers [...]

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, But Not Perfect, October 26, 2006

By 

Shanus Jr. (Sun Valley, ID) - See all my reviews

I just received my HT-S894 a couple of days ago and have spent quite a bit of time setting it up and reading through the manuals that came with it. The system looks good, sounds great, and comes at a nice price, especially if you shop around (I wish I'd known that refurbished models were available about a week ago... Their price is quite surprising).

Now for the stuff I wish someone had told me... Not that the info would have necessarily stopped me from buying the HT-S894, but I think others will find these details important. If you connect the receiver to your TV with component cables, then anything connected to the receiver through HDMI will not display any picture. This is verified in the manual. Stranger yet, if you hook the receiver to your TV with HDMI, then anything connected through component cables will not show a picture on the TV. On top of that, the receiver's on-screen menu will not display on your TV through the HDMI output. Very irritating, considering HDMI was one of the selling points that convinced me to choose this system. I can't even use it now, because I want to be able to use the setup menu and have more devices that use component outputs than HDMI outputs. It's really a shame that I have to choose between using HDMI or component connections. Some may want to note that the receiver uses HDMI v1.1.

Movies sound great out of the box, and music sounds just as nice with some tweaking. I prefer to turn down most of the channels by about "3" or "4" and crank the LFE (subwoofer) up by "8" to get the punchy sound that I like. With default settings, the sub seemed almost ignored. I've yet to figure out how to save the adjusted channel settings. They keep getting reset when I turn off the unit.

One very pleasant surprise was that the included DVD player handles DivX files. I've tested out quite a few files that all played fine, except for some high-definition movie rips that are over 2GB, meaning they're burned with the UDF file system (if I remember correctly), which is not supported by the player. Otherwise, TV shows and standard-definition rips work nicely.

While it sounds like I'm not extremely happy with this system, I really do like it enough to hold on to it and just ordered two pairs of Sanus EF-SATB speaker stands for the front & rear speakers (they have a very nice price here at Amazon.com). Overall, I'm fairly satisfied after paying a couple hundred less than list price for the system. It's an awful lot of bang for the buck.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really nice system for the price, November 21, 2006

By 

Frederick Eli Nelson "Eli Nelson" (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

I shopped around and finally bought this one when I saw it listed under $700. It is really nice to get a receiver with this kind of connectivity (2 HDMI inputs, one out, and all the other connections you could possibly want). The receiver appears to take whatever you can throw at it, and it was a snap to get my components integrated with it (digital cable and dvd). The bundled DVD player up-converts signals (something I was also looking for, and a nice touch even though you can pick one up separately for a pretty low price), which is nice. The speakers are very nice. The sound quality is crisp, not at all muddy, and works well with both movies and music. I am not an "audiophile" but I know when I hear something that sounds good, and this unit blows away my old Bose based system (which was too bass-heavy and didn't accommodate the mid-range frequencies needed to carry dialogue).

I'm using this as a springboard to get me into the 21s Century and will be getting an HDTV monitor in the next couple of months, so I can't really speak to HDMI connectivity, as another reviewer did. I hooked my system up to an old TV with a composite video/analog out, and did experience the same issue with video signal not coming through from the DVD (which I connected using the included HDMI cable), but I'm hopeful there is a workaround - we got everything to work just fine eventually by deferring the HDMI connection for the time being. I've read about other Onkyo systems having a wonky treatment of HDMI video and audio processing, but nothing that prevents usage altogether.

I would easily give this 5 stars for quality and configurability, but I am docking one because I want to be cautious (but optimistic!!!) about the HDMI connectivity issue. I'll post a follow-up if I learn anything!