289FIACobra
Agent
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2012
- Messages
- 26
- Real Name
- Herman Hong
Just signed up and have been lurking about and reviewing systems online as well. Back around 1999, me and my wife bought a Bose Lifestyle 30. By it's 12th year, we lost the LCD display but it still functioned. We also noticed voices in a movie were not projecting like they used to. I messed with the surround and sometimes we just went with the front 3 speakers just so we can hear dialogue. The last straw: asked tp play SuperBowl Sunday through our Bose... um, HDMI wasn't even invented yet in 1999!!! The Panasonic we bought in 2011 only uses either HDMI or fiber optic for output. Strike One: no HDMI interface Strike Two: LCD display is gone Strike Three: no iPad or basically, NO USB at all. It's time to retire this thing. Aside from the Bose, my current setup is: Panasonic Viera TC-P55VT30 Panasonic Blu-Ray DVD Player DMR-ES35V Xbox 360 My next system must have HDMI, USB, and self-calibration. And no, I won't miss the CD-Player. In my place of work, I've consulted with one of our AV Engineers and he says Onkyo are pretty good so I took a look. Now mind your, a 5.1 is more than enough for my needs but I do like systems that have self-calibration features as I find that is something that even mid-range AV's have these days. I first looked into the TX-NR414 (MSRP: $449) and at first, I thought this should work but it does not have Audyssey, however, TX-NR515 does but it is 7.2 channel. Not a deal breaker but it has more than I would use. Fine. It's MSRP is: $549, Amazon price: $289.99 I then looked into one other which is the Pioneer VSX-822-K (5.1 channel.) B&H Video has it for $379.99; $90 more for similar features except it's 5.1 channels and instead of Audyssey, it has MCACC instead. This lead me to look into the Onkyo TX-NR616 which is in the same "price point" at Amazon, with the Pioneer. But the reviews at Amazon seemed to be more bad than good. Overheating and HDMI cutting out... these were all mid 2012 reviews. I'll still be doing more research here. As far as speakers, I stumbled across a very recent review (this month) on Monoprice 9774, which are literally identical to Engery 5.1 speaker system. But at $248, they could well be worth it! I've listened to some Polk Audio's of the same size and type and if they are close or better than those, I think that would be a steal (and I could always upgrade later). And in case you're wondering about "budget", I'm trying for $1,000 or under.