I was looking at Yamaha over Onkyo instead based on user reviews. However, I read this review on the Yammy that said it clipped above black and above white. That gave me pause.
UltimateAVmag.com: Yamaha RX-V663 A/V Receiver
This is a review of the Onkyo from the same mag.
UltimateAVmag.com: Onkyo TX-SR606 A/V Receiver
I trust professional reviews first. Then, I go for forum chatter. (Of course, my own ears are the best judge.)
Thanks for the links. The review cleared some things up for me I didn't understand from the manual.
Yes, by no means a perfect AVR, but I was really concerned about heat issues and other reported bugs with the 606. (Not to mention, last weekend I was at Best Buy getting a 32" Sammy for the bedroom, and in order to get their 24 mo. interest free financing, I needed to add more hardware to the order, and BB doesn't carry Onkyo.)
I'm not quite the audiophile the reviewer is, but in my smallish livingroom, the sound quality is a vast improvement over the decent quality Panasonic AVR I had been using.
I do agree that set up was confusing at first and it would be nice for it to callibrate for multiple listening positions. But, again, my living room is small.
I still need to tweak the audio settings a bit, though for the most part I am quite happy with the sound fields, and I was totally blown away by the first DTS-HD MA track I heard on it (via PS3) on an otherwise crappy movie: Suburban Girl. Jumper also sounded great, and I had no issues with PQ.
One bug with the 663 I can confirm, as reported in the
AVS forum thread, is the "handshake" issue for video sources. My glitch occured when I had my Cable TV HD DVR on (connected via component) while using the PS3. When the PS3 went from menu to media (game/movie) or vice versa, the screen went blank or started flashing, and switching to TV input didn't fix the problem. I had to shut everything down and restart. I have since connected the component cables directly to my 34" CRT TV, which gives me a much better picture anyway (For some reason TV PQ (cable/sat) via HDMI has always looked washed out compared to component with this TV, regardless of the source, though PS3 looks fine.) Regardless, I hope Yamaha does provide a patch for this problem.
