Onkyo 494 vs. Denon AVR 1602 (1 Viewer)

[Haywood]

Just seen these new models in the store at the same price. I'm thinking of upgrading soon and would like to get some ideas. Denon 70 x 5 and Onkyo 55 x 5, both are suppose to have a pretty good power supply and both have the main feature I'm looking for Pro Logic II. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Later Haywood

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[Thomas_Berg]

they are both fine receivers, a big selling point for me on Onkyo over Denon (in this price range) was the remote. the Denon's is less that superb and VERY unimpressive. the Onkyo's is standard. i know it's not a big thing for most, but that (and a few other things) was enough to make me buy an Onkyo.
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-Thomas
My HT

 

[Brent Hutto]

I bought an Onkyo 494 and returned it a few days later in exchange for an Onkyo 575x. The 494 has a "simplified" setup menu that does not let you set the characteristics of front, center and rear speakers independently. You pretty much just get to tell it whether you have a subwoofer or not and whether the subwoofer does LFE only or LFE plus bass from the main speakers.
The problem in my case is that you can not set delays for the speakers. Since one of my rear surround speakers is closer to me than the the front and center speakers, I wanted to be able to put a delay on the rears to make sure the sound didn't arrive earlier from the rear than from the front. Probably a minor tweak and I don't think it was causing any problem but I didn't appreciate having to live with that limitation in the interest of "simple setup".
I didn't care about the Pro-Logic II and they had an open-box discontinued 575x that they swapped me even for the 494 I returned. If it had been going to cost me some money I might have lived with the 494.
Brent Hutto

 

[Ryan Schnacke]

Just judging by the pics on crutchfield, I'm not very impressed with the 494's remote. It looks like it does not have learning capability and it only has multi-brand codes for video components. Is it possible that you were thinking of the 595 remote, Thomas?

 

[Haywood]

Thomas, the remote isn't a big deal for me, because I don't plan on using it. I'll be using my radio shack all in one.
Brent, I find it hard to believe that the 494 doesn't let you set the size of the speakers, just sub or no sub. My current receiver(Pioneer D-509) has no DTS but at least you can set speaker size and delays.
Ford, the Denon is looking better right now. I saw them at a local store here in Miami. They have them both for $289 if I remember correctly. But I know I can get them to come down on the price.
Later Haywood

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[Wil_J]

I have the 494 and for it being my first Reciever, it really isn't that bad (once I finnally figured out how it worked). Drawbacks are that you cannot set speaker size individually. And, if you want to set all of the speakers (as I said, you cannot set them individually) to "small" or "Large" you must have a subwoofer connected to your reciever. There aren't any delay settings that I have read about or have seen on the 494 either.
Don't get me wrong, I like my 494. You just won't have some of the typical speaker setup options.
Just my $.02...........Wil
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"The rose petal floats on water,
the kingfisher flashes above the pond.
Life and beauty swirl in the midst of death."
al'Lan Mandragoran,
*******The Wheel of Time

 

[Thomas_Berg]

ryan- yes i was. all the other Onkyo receivers had the same remote as my 595 and i figured the 494 would be similar...my bad. still the Denon's is terrible IMHO. i'd try and pull together a few more $$ to get either a 575x or a 595, as there's a great improvement.
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-Thomas
My HT

 

[Jon_R]

Its the lesser of two evils in my opinion. I really love my denon 1601 but its interface and remote blow. I just use my trust 15-1994 remote. The fact I can't adjust base/treble from the remote blows. But, I got it cheap, its a good amp that does dd5.1 and DTS with little to no hiss. I owned 2 sony str-de445 before and it was all hiss. You get what you pay for.
Once you drop down into lower receivers you find less features. I support the Denon as I have a very similar model and love it. Unfounded as it may be, I was always a bit concerned about Onkyo amps.
YMMV,
Jon

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

Wow... the 494 doesn't even have delay settings? I thought that was required in the Dolby Digital specs.
Well with that and their "easy setup", that makes the 494 pretty much a useless piece of crap. The 595 kicks ass though!