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60 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best AV Receiver Available, October 3, 2007
I have nothing but good things to say about this unit. I do have a few neutral comments which will follow the positive notes. I am not a very verbose person so please allow me to enumerate the highlights.
1) 4 HDMI inputs. Cable Box, Blu-Ray, Old DVD (more on this later) and one for expansion.
2) Easy to configure. I didn't even need to look at the manual to figure out how to select digital audio and digital video inputs to the various source components.
3) ONE SINGLE CABLE TO THE TV!!!! Only a single HDMI cable was needed to connect the TV to the Onkyo. No component, S-Video or composite. This baby upsamples and digitizes any and all video inputs to HDMI. I used to have to switch my input source on both my Denon AVR and my TV every time I wanted to go from watching a disc to watching cable to watching a VCR movie.
4) PRICE! This AVR is less expensive than the competing products from Denon and Yamaha and has MORE features.
5) Quality. This is every bit as well made as the Denon unit it replaced. In some ways better.
6) Remote control. Easy to program. I succesfully replaced all my remotes except my Sony Blu-Ray player.
7) Audio formats. I am not an expert here, but this thing seems to decode any and every audio source data from my Blu-Ray collection (I have about 20) without any problem.
8) Upsampling. If you feed it 480I or any other non-1080P source data in analog or digital format it seems to be able to upconvert it to 1080P. I have not exhaustively tested every combination (I have heard de-interlacing 1080I can be hard) but what I have tried works well.
Summary: If you want an HDMI-friendly receiver, THIS is the unit for you.
Notes:
a) I still keep an upsampling DVD player Marantz DV 6001 around because although the Blu-Ray player can play DVD's it is darn slow about it.
b) This unit is slightly larger than my old Denon 4800, so it just barely fit in my enclosure.
c) It runs a little warm, so dont stack anything on top of it if you can avoid it.
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost the perfect receiver ..., February 24, 2008
I've owned this received for about a month now and have been using it every day since then, so I'd like to think I'm qualified enough to post a review of the 875 based on my experience with it. Keep in mind that I'm not a professional tester so don't expect any fancy measurements or technical data sheets in this review because I don't have any (you can look at Onkyo's website for that);)
I'll start with the negatives which, after 1 month of use (thankfully) is just one. The only bad thing I can think of at this time, is the amount of heat this receiver puts out when it's running. Now, I was well aware of this issue after having read many reviews from various 875 owners who brought up the fact their receiver ran very hot to the touch.
To be honest with you, I didn't concern myself too much with those complaints since I've owned many receivers over the years, many of which, would run pretty hot after pro-longed use so that was nothing new to me. Heat build-up is totally natural as far as I was concerned. I just figured those complaining about the 875's heat output maybe didn't have all that much experience with A/V receivers and were probably worrying themselves over nothing....
Well, soon after my 875 arrived, I un-boxed it, and then took some time to read through the instruction manual. Afterwards, I connected all my speaker cables and then plugged the 875 in. After first plugging in my
HD-DVD player, I dove into the audio menu to configure the sound options to my liking. I popped in "Bourne Ultimatum" and sat down to take a quick
peak just to see if everything was set up and configured properly before I moved onto hooking up the rest of my components. The picture quality through the HDMI input was perfect, no degradation what so ever and the sound quality was incredible (more on that later) so I stopped playback and got back up to finish connecting my other components.
At that point, the receiver had only been on maybe 10-15 minutes at most and out of curiosity, I placed my hand over the unit to see how hot it had gotten during that time.
To my surprise, after only 15 minutes of use (at moderate volume no less) my 875 felt hot enough to scramble an egg over it. I'm not kidding. Suddenly, all those warnings I'd read about prior to placing my order didn't seem so "exaggerated" after all. This receiver really does run HOT. Hotter than any other piece of A/V equipment I've ever owned. Enough to actually cause concern for the over-all longevity of the unit. I mean, there's no way a receiver should be running that hot after only 15 minutes of use.
We all know that heat is the number one reason for component failure and I was really surprised that Onkyo would release an A/V receiver that runs this hot without adding an internal fan (or three) to help bring temperatures down to safe levels....
It's my opinion that there's no way you can leave an 875 inside an A/V cabinet as the unit would probably fry itself completely after a few month's of daily use as well as possibly causing so much heat build-up within the cabinet itself, it could possibly cause failure in some of your other components as well. (Yes, the 875 really does get that hot!)
Again, this is NOT an A/V receiver you can stuff inside a cabinet or television stand and call it a day. The 875 must be left OUT IN THE OPEN, so unless you have a place for it OUTSIDE your cabinet, I'd suggest you move on and find yourself another receiver or you may end up being stuck with a $1500 door-stop if the 875 ever overheats and breaks down.
I have my 875 sitting on top of my cabinet and there's about 16-18" of clearance between the top of the unit and the ceiling and I've resorted to placing a desktop fan next to the 875 blowing cool air down and into the receiver itself. The fan is not all that quit and can easily be heard from the seating position 10 feet away when the volume level is down, so it can be pretty distracting at times, but it's a temporary fix until I buy a quiter fan, which I WILL be doing since there's no way I'm running this receiver without one.
So be warned people, If you plan on picking up an Onkyo TX-SR875, this thing runs REALLY hot so you're going to want to leave it out in the open to get as much air-flow as possible to allow it to breath and seriously
consider placing a fan over it as well to help cool it down ever further. IT makes a world of difference believe me.
Now, I'm sure many of you are probably already thinking about going with another receiver after reading what I just wrote but please, keep in mind that the issue with heat is the only negative aspect of this receiver I've found and as long as you place it in a spot where there's plenty of air flow and you don't mind using a fan to help cool it down even further, the 875 should last just as long as any other A/V receiver out there today. You just have to take precautions as to where your placing it.
Everything else about the 875 I'm proud to report, is fantastic.
I have an HD-DVD player, a Blu-Ray player, an HD satellight receiver and a HTPC all connected via the 875's HDMI inputs. The video portion of these signals is then being sent back to a 60" LCD HDTV. As I mentioned earlier, there's no signal loss what so ever feeding the video signal through the receiver first than into my HDTV.
Some have noted that the 875 slightly changes the contrast levels of the video signals requiring users to re-calibrate their contrast levels slightly to compensate for the change but I haven't had this problem at all.
The image looks identical being sent through the receiver first as it does being sent straight into my HDTV. Perhaps this was an issue only on the first production run and Onkyo has since upgraded the 875's firmware to resolve it? Whatever the case may be, I never had to re-adjust any of my video settings.
The receivers up-scaling capabilities are nothing short of amazing as well, even better than my Toshiba HD-XA2 when watching standard DVD's.
I've also noticed that when playing older PS1 and PS2 games on my PS3 look better when I select 480p on the console and let the receiver do the upscaling rather than letting the PS3 do the upscaling itself.
Switching between sources takes about 4-5 seconds before you get both the audio and video signals but that's about as much time as it took the HDMI switcher I used to run, so that's not a big deal. I've seen plenty of other receivers take longer than that so I'd say the waiting time from source to source is about average.
The automatic speaker setup (which Onkyo calls Audyssey MultiEQ XT) includes a small microphone which your supposed to set up at each of the listening positions you or others will be sitting in during movie/music playback and it automatically calculates how many speakers are connected, their distance from the seating positions, their cross-over frequencies and even their size and sets everything up for you.
Be warned that the microphone is extremely sensitive to ambient noises around the room/house/apartment so you'll have to be in complete SILENCE when the Onkyo is doing it's measurements or you'll get an error message and have to do it again.
I was amazed at just how accurate the Audyssey was. The speaker distances for each of my speakers was 100% exact so I'd have a hard time recommending you do the set-up manually since the Audyssey system is so accurate but to each his own. (For the record, I tried setting up the cross-over frequencies and all the other parameters manually and couldn't make it sound any better than the Audyssey's settings so I just left them)
One of the coolest features of this receiver is that if you have it connected to your HDTV via the receiver's HDMI output, you get the entire set-up options user interface which gives you complete control to the receivers menu/sound options right on your HDTV. The menus are all clear and easy to read and easily understandable. Very well laid out and easy to navigate. No more having to stare at a receivers small (in comparison) display to set things up properly. You can do that from your television screen. Very nice.
Finally, there's the sound.
Obviously this is the number one reason why anybody would want to upgrade their receiver and I'm happy to say the Onkyo 875 is by far the most impressive sounding receiver I've ever owned. I'll even go as far as to say it's the best sounding receiver I've ever HEARD as well.
The CD's, I've played (both regular and SACD)sound absolutely incredible. We've all heard people claim to have head things with a certain speaker or CD player, receiver etc. etc. that they'd never even knew was there before, and every time I'd read or hear that, I'd always roll my eyes and think to myself "yeah right, this guy's full of it, how can you hear something on a music album with a certain speaker or A/V component that you never even knew was there. There's not THAT big a difference between higher-end A/V equipment and equipment priced more towards the mainstream."
Well, for the first time, I'm actually going to say what I've made fun of others in the past for saying. Listening to music through the Onkyo 875, I'm hearing things I've never heard before with any of my past receivers. The sound quality is so crisp and clear, each CD I listen to, no matter how old, is a totally new experience. It's like I'm listening to that particular album for the first time all over again. Reminds me of how I felt switching from vinyl to tape, then from tape to compact disc. There's a whole new sound to the music when played through the 875. I currently have a 5.1...
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sonc bliss..., November 4, 2007
I've recently replaced my Onkyo TX-NR900 with the new TX-SR875. The only thing I had to give up was the internet connection, but I didn't use it in my old device, since the software is pretty lame and I primarily use a Mac (iTunes).
The sound quality is absolutely phenomenal and really adds dimension to all of my music. Not necessarily leagues beyond the unit it replaces, but i am truly impressed with how well Blu-Ray movies sound when listening to uncompressed audio. The Audyssey speaker setup worked well. I had to make a tone adjustment to add a bit of extra bass, but no other speaker parameters had to be adjusted after letting Audyssey work its magic.
On the downside, be sure to have a solid place to install the equipment with plenty of airflow. The device is about 55-60 pounds and produces plenty of heat when in operation. I also noticed that if I am listening to music over HDMI via my PS3, the sound will stop if I turn off the TV. The TV is also connected to the Onkyo, so I imagine some sort of DRM is causing this behavior. It wouldn't be so bad if you could get the PS3 to show a solid black screen. These minor issues are nothing when compared to the aural enjoyment provided by this well-made receiver.
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