Home Theater Forum - View Single Post - Looking for inexpensive receiver recommendations

Brent_S · 05-16-2008, 11:39 PM

Generally, all brands have competing models at a given price point. However, for most of the past year+, the Onkyo 605 has been the budget leader in providing TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding...not to mention Audyssey room processing. Yamaha has just released the 663 that streets regularly at $499, but has been reported at $399 from authorized sellers, making it price competitive with the 605. Of course, Onkyo's just released the 606, so the battle continues. The release of the Yammie 663 creates clearance pricing on the 661, but it gives up lossless audio to the 605/606/663.

H/K and Denon make fine units as well, but your original post sounded price conscious. I was watching the H/K 247 (their lowest prices lossless model, I think) last year, but it was in the $499 range along with the 661. As released, it wouldn't expand 5.1 lossless audio to 7.1, despite the manual indicating it would. A firmware was supposed to be coming to fix this, but I quit following the unit. Seems like it had another functional quirk or two that I didn't like, but I don't recall what they were.

Denon tends to price itself as a premium brand. What I considered Denon's closest feature equivalent to my Onkyo 805 for my needs is the 2808CI. I got the 805 for $699 when the 2808CI was running $1200ish. Closest to your price point, Denon has the 1508. It only does video swtiching via HDMI, no audio processing. For HDMI audio, you need to step all the way to the 1908...currently $599 @ Crutchfield.

-Brent

05-16-2008, 11:39 PM	#6 of 14
Brent_S Member Location: Wilmington, NC Join Date: Oct 2000 Local Time: 05:56 AM Local Date: 10-08-2008 Posts: 370	Re: Looking for inexpensive receiver recommendations Generally, all brands have competing models at a given price point. However, for most of the past year+, the Onkyo 605 has been the budget leader in providing TrueHD/DTS-HD decoding...not to mention Audyssey room processing. Yamaha has just released the 663 that streets regularly at $499, but has been reported at $399 from authorized sellers, making it price competitive with the 605. Of course, Onkyo's just released the 606, so the battle continues. The release of the Yammie 663 creates clearance pricing on the 661, but it gives up lossless audio to the 605/606/663. H/K and Denon make fine units as well, but your original post sounded price conscious. I was watching the H/K 247 (their lowest prices lossless model, I think) last year, but it was in the $499 range along with the 661. As released, it wouldn't expand 5.1 lossless audio to 7.1, despite the manual indicating it would. A firmware was supposed to be coming to fix this, but I quit following the unit. Seems like it had another functional quirk or two that I didn't like, but I don't recall what they were. Denon tends to price itself as a premium brand. What I considered Denon's closest feature equivalent to my Onkyo 805 for my needs is the 2808CI. I got the 805 for $699 when the 2808CI was running $1200ish. Closest to your price point, Denon has the 1508. It only does video swtiching via HDMI, no audio processing. For HDMI audio, you need to step all the way to the 1908...currently $599 @ Crutchfield. -Brent Last edited by Brent_S : 05-16-2008 at 11:41 PM.