Customer Reviews

Onkyo TX-SR706 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I am an audio/videophile. I know about almost every piece of audio system, TV, IPod, gaming, speakers, cars, etc. on the market. I have followed the advancement of electronic technology for the past 25 years. This is not to impress you, but so you know Bozo the Clown is not writing this review.

OK- I was a Denon fan. I was a Marantz fan. Yamaha makes great stuff and you will most likely be happy with any "new toy" you buy ....but after extensive research I chose the Onkyo.

1. Why did I not go for a Denon? Denon's are great. However, over the past few years their overall quality and feel has declined. Simply put, the premium on their name no longer justifies their price. I own three Denon receivers so I am not slamming them. If your heart is set on a Denon look at the 1909.

2. Why did I not get a Marantz? My new Onkyo replaced my Marantz 5200. Marantz, back in the day made the best stuff (in my opinion). Then they went down hill and resurfaced strong about ten years ago...right about the time Dolby "Digital" technology hit the market. I believe you do not get your bank for your buck until you go over $1000 with Marantz. Marantz just does not have the switching, high quality video AND audio, or inputs at sub $1000.

3. Why did I not buy a Yamaha? Yamaha is a tough competitor to the Onkyo. Yamaha has always made incredible a/v equipment. Sound, video and build quality are amazing. The AVR-663 is awesome, but at a higher price than the Onkyo 706 and two less HDMI inputs it was eliminated day one for me. However, if you must buy a Yamaha- under $1000 the AVR-683 is fantastic. The price is $100's more than the Onkyo...for what? A name? Not enough in my book when your a/v receiver is the least important component in your system (I'll explain more later on that topic).

4. Why the Onkyo?
a. Onkyo has a fantastic name and reputation
b. Build quality and design are terrific.
c. 4 HDMI's!!! This IS huge and WILL BE even more important in the future.
d. 1080p upscaling. This not really important now, but in the next few years, if you have a 1080p TV, you will regret not having this ability. This is the sole reason NOT to get the Onkyo 606. However, if this is not important to you -get the 606 and save your money.

Sound: All I can say is crisp and brilliant. Again, any new receiver you buy will sound great. My ears prefer the Onkyo.

Lastly, for those of you who are not educated on this stuff, here are a few KEY points to remember when you build your system:
1. Speakers are the most important part of your system...PERIOD. Who cares about HDMI, 1080p, watts, etc. if the "ears" of your system sound like crap. Put your money into speakers first.
2. Your TV. DLP will be gone in the next few years. Plasma's are very bright (a good thing), but have glare (they have a piece of glass over the screen). If you have a dark(er) room plasma's are great. LCD's are the best bang for your dollar. Samsung's are the best brand right now. LCD's have more pixels than Plasma's and to most people LCD's look the best.
3. Your receiver. Yes, your a/v receiver is important, BUT it should be the last thing you choose. Again, in my humble opinion, spend those extra dollars on speakers.

In conclusion, if you are in the market to spend less than $1000, the Onkyo TX-SR706 is an easy choice. Everyone has a favorite and this is mine. I love it!!! Happy hunting!

It is hard to rate products like this. It is a super duper feature packed product. You get a lot of bells and whistles. Integrated amp has three main parts,

1) Power supply
2) Pre-amp, processor
3) AMP

1) Power Supply: 4/5 stars
It is quite noisy and doesn't have very good isolation. There is no easy way to connect a external ground. Also the power rating for the entire unit is very deceiving. 100+ W while driving only the main two. In 7.1 it is probably 20 W per channel. 80x and 90x have far better power supply than this puppy. That is the main reason they are so heavy. There is also no easy way to replace the fuse to a noise free one.

2) Pre-amp, processor: 5/5 stars
Number of input connections, hdmi control, all the DSP and format support. Wow Wow... there is no other receiver in this price range that handle it all. Dolby True HD, DTS, LPCM, TOS Link any thing you ever want is available here.

One minor complaint is input impedance. It is quite low for a active pre-amp. It will require a nice sturdy analog source to provide the full punch. Phono inputs are OK at best.

If you are looking for 4 HDMI inputs, DSD processing, 1080 up-scaling you wont find another one in the ~500 range. This one is feature packed.

3) Amplifier: 3/5 stars

Amp gain relies of a big negative feedback circuit. The dynamic slam is very meager with fast music. Especially when you play SACD driving all the 5 channels. It does fare well when i connect only my two fronts. To get the best power, i just connect my two fronts in bi-amp mode. The bass seems lot clear and music flows more naturally. It is easy to hear the difference in clarity when you just hook only the front two, rather than all 7 channels. 706 is strictly for speakers with 8 ohm+ rating. If you have speakers with odd phase shifts, every thing will sound mushy.

Similar to the pre-amp, the amp is not linear. There is a lot of coloration going on. The sound is not natural. I use my creek audio and neutral NAD as comparison, sounds come very different with Onkyo. It is pleasant but you do hear other artifacts that the Amp has introduced.

Also the bass seems to vary a lot. For movies I have to turn the bass down. For music I have to increase it. I never had this problem with NAD integrated and other amps. The sound is very rounded, you lose some of the low and high end. It probably has a 60-16K range.

Negative feedback loop also affects the bass extension. On a large explosion that lasts for few seconds the feedback just builds upon itself and makes it too loud. In music bass is fast and tight, feedback is not fast enough to provide the punch.

Another big complaint is the channel isolation. It is less than 20 db. So stereo image seems to float. Sound transition from speaker to speaker is never crisp and clear. Sound always seems to leak to rest of the speakers in the system. It is not ideal for SACD or DVD-Audio.

Over all rating for the entire unit: 4.5/5 stars

For this price, you cant ask for more. It is a good unit, you are getting lot more than you pay. This amp is clearly meant for HT Movies. Dont try to use it for 2 channel music.

If you have more money to spare, I would suggest getting a 90x with toroidal transformer. It has much more smooth sound. Dont get fooled by numbers. Music is art, not technology. You need a amp that can be fast, responsive and color less. 905/80x also uses draws more power and they run quite hot. They isolate more nose, if you have other noisy sources connected to the main line.

A simple analogy is a automobile, dump truck and corvette both have 500 Hp. Just power rating and numbers are not enough. Dynamic slam, agility are also important for a amplifier. 905/806 is a huge difference in performance. If you are looking for stereo only amp, look at Creek Audio 5350SE. But if you have a strict <600$ budget there is nothing better than 706.

BEWARE...when blu-ray is passed thru the receiver via hdmi there are blue artifacts in the blacks. I confirmed with Onkyo that this is a known defect and they do not have a current fix. I returned my order to Amazon and will look for a different brand.

I purchased this with a Panasonic BD-35 blu-ray player to update my older 5.1 system. I basically wanted to output picture and sound directly from the dvd player to the tv and speakers. While this sounds easy there is a reason why the receiver comes with a 120 page book for setup. I spent some time getting both units to work passing through the sound and picture. Once set up this unit works great. It seems to have enouogh power for our system. The things to watch for when setting up is using "Direct" as the mode for sound as it passes through whatever is coming in. My unit came as "last valid" and it converted it to Neo6 which was not the lossless sound on the dvd. You can use Direct which leaves the display on or "Pure audio" which turns off the display and supposed to give you a pure sound. I would also recommend setting the output resolution to "Through", I did try upscaling to 1080p and it worked good for everything but regular cable channels looked grainy.
The audessy setup worked flawlessly for me, I set it up using the minimum 3 locations, you can use as many as 6.
For someone that is looking for an out of box solution to your home theater system, this is a good unit. It gives you 4 hdmi inputs many have only 2. It decodes all of the current sound formats and is a 7.1 unit.
I have read some of the reviews of people who are using this as a preamp for their high powered systems. All I can say is why are you buying a $500 receiver if you have all this power behind it. Most people buying a receiver want a box that does everything. I am sure there are tradeoffs but for most of us this unit does a great job.
I have played some cd's through this system using the sound processing this unit has that literally surrounds you in the music. I am sure for an audio critic this is not the way they listen to music but for a novice like me it sounds fantastic.
If you are looking for a good upgrade the combo of the Panasonic bd-35 and Onkyo 706 will do a great job.

I recently bought the SR706 receiver from ABT. I wanted to get it from amazon, but I was a bit suspect with the two reviews so far. I had planned to get the 705, but with this new model out and the upgrade to 4 HDMI's in, I couldn't pass it up. I also purchased the KEF 1005.2 speaker set, which is a 5.1 set-up. All I can say is WOW. This receiver is absolutely amazing. The sound is crisp when I listen to music and enveloping when watching a movie. The mic set-up worked flawlessly, although i did not run it for two weeks because my speaker stands were on back order, and I wanted to wait until I had the speakers mounted where I wanted them. The receiver runs a bit warm, but its nothing warmer than my previous denon receiver. Highly recommend.

Sound quality very good. Set up a little confusing, almost too many options. Use of supplied calibration microphone is very useful in solving set up problems. Hooking a new high definition TV and cable box to the SR7006 via HDMI cables is very easy, but there is a strange difference between analog and digital TV channels. The analogue channels require a volume setting of -5 db/m for comfortable listening while the digital channels only require -35 db/m for the same sound level. This difference does not exist when the SR706 is bypassed. Hopefully this will disappear when all TV channels are digital.

Thumbs up on the Audio Section. The Audissey Setup is Simple and the Dynamic EQ is very Effective for listening well below reference level, which is most of the Time for normal use.
(It runs HOT, but with an open rack it is not an issue).
Decoded Lossless audio Tracks ( Dolby True HD & DTS HD) are nothing short of stunning...
Thumbs down on the Video Section- HDMI will not pass Black below Black & White above white ( Checked with DVE pluge & reverse gray ramps). The dynamic range of some material is effectively clipped.
Unfortunately there is no way to get around this issue by connecting the Blue Ray 7.1 Analog OUT to the multichannel inputs of the Receiver and running an HDMI cable directly from the Player to the HDTV without losing all the Audissey capabilities, including Dynamic EQ.

At the End I decided to compromise and run the HDMI video & audio stream trough the Receiver, the loss of the Audissey does not compensate for the loss of the Video dynamic range.

By the way this is an issue with many Onkyo Receivers, I read on Secrets of Home Theater & High Fidelity that the TX-SR806 does have the same issue.

Another fine product from Onkyo. I matched this receiver with the Onkyo 750 speaker set and it's amazing! All audio formats thus far are great. Although regular Dolby Digital sounds best. Only watched 8 movies with different formats so far. All studios do their audio differently, so the jury is still out on Master audio being supreme.
Set up was a breeze with common sense and careful reading.
I got mine in silver and it looks awesome along with the remote. The Audyssey mic. makes set-up a breeze.
Buy it. It's worth it.

I have been planning my new home theater set up for a while and did much reasearch ad nauseum to settle on this receiver.

The 2 things that I questioned were heating issues on earlier models now a thing of the past with open shelving furniture and long term reliability which I found to be above average.

Highly rated, practical, user friendly, and the bells and whistles. Onkyo is either going to push quality standards through the roof for competitors or force them out of business.

Research and you will see why I say this and if you buy one you will tell your friends about it.

I like to listen to my music VERY LOUD. The Onkyo TX-SR706 delivers an oustanding and clear sound at all volume levels. Sound & Vision (check their review) helped me select this item and I couldn't be any happier.