Summary: This unit is great.Plenty of power, many different listening modes, it even has optical audio in on front. easily does 6.1 or 7.1 in all popular formats. I did have to buy an amplified antenna for FM radio, but after that it has been great. Setup, if you take five minutes to look at the maual while you do it, is pretty easy. I had no problems with subwoofer out, works like a charm all of the time. Great sound from all sources that I've run through it.
Strengths: great deal for how much it costs
Weaknesses: Controller is a little cluttered, but has almost everything you need on it. I wish there was a 3rd component in on back, for game consoles. Doesn't automatically detect DVD-audio coming across the multiple- analog in.
Similar Products Used: JVC 6010bk
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Summary: Cheapest receiver I could find with component video switching so I could have my DVD player and High Def settop cable box hooked up at the same time. Overall leasantly surprised with sound and feature quality, much better than I was expecting for a receiver < $300.
Strengths: great sound, 130+ watts per channel. Shakes the room at half volume. Clear and crisp, DSP modes work nice and sound great. Assignable digital inputs are a snap to set up. Quick speaker set up is nice to get going, but requires tweaking unless you're room and speakers are perfectly symetrical.
Weaknesses: Will switch between composite sources, OR between s-video sources, OR between component source, but will not convert between source types, so you still need (in my case anyway) 3 hookups to the TV (1 component for HD/DVD, 1 composite for Playstation and VCR, 1 s-video for Tivo). That caught me offguard, but I guess I should've realized something was amiss when the other receivers I was looking at were all well over $1000. Also front video jacks are behind a door, which in my case is open all the time because that's where the PS/2 is plugged in. Looks a little goofy. Would've preferred leaving the door off. I guess if you don't use these jacks often it's nice to have them hidden.
Similar Products Used: This replaced a Kenwood receiver that was nice but didn't have enough digital inputs for me, and didn't have component video.
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Summary: I've only just purchased this receiver, so won't be able to give a full review. However, I've encountered the setup and have a little bit of listening experience.
My last receiver was the JVC RX-884, which is a similar receiver from the Dolby Digital (not DTS) generation. Compared to that one, this one is a huge step forward in sound quality and features. Unfortunately, it's a step backwards in terms of intuitiveness of setup.
Pros:
It has all the surround modes one would expect from a 6.1 amplifier, including configurable Dolby Pro II and DTS neo:6. It will also drive two rear speakers (it calls this 7.1, though it's lying).
The sound is very clean for an amp claiming 0.8% THD in surround mode. They claim this pushed up to 130W. I'm thinking that if they'd rated this closer to its competition, in the 65W-100W range, it would probably be a much more reasonable THD rating.
It has separate line-ins for all 5.1 channels, so it's compatible with DVD-A and SACD players. It has preouts for 7.1 channels (separate ones for the two rear centers), so you can use it with an outboard amp. It has a digital out for an digital recorder.
It switches component video, and has plenty of svideo and optical inputs.
It has what is a killer feature for me--it saves the volume level per input, so you're not having to constantly bump and lower the master volume as you change sources. Of course, most other parameters are saved per input as well.
Surround/DSP switching is well done. The RX-884 was a simple cycle that took fifteen presses to get from Dolby Pro Logic to None. The RX-8030 has three buttons--one to activate and cycle through surround modes, one to activate and cycle through DSP modes, and one to cancel both surround and DSP for simple stereo. Another button cancels -all- sound modifications, including EQ and speaker balance.
The noise floor is very low. Speaker hiss is unnoticeable unless you put your ear to the grille. Even then, it's faint.
It was 300 freaking dollars.
Cons:
No on-screen display. It's kind of a pain to set things up via the buttons, and as was previously mentioned, several sound parameters aren't settable from remote (and thus from your listening position). The RX-884 had on-screen, as did the previous model of this amp. I have no idea why they took it off.
It saves -too- much per-input. The big offender is that it saves relative speaker volumes per input. Your rears too soft? You'll have to change their volume 12 times, once for each input. This is a huge pain in the butt when you're dialing them in--better get it right first time.
The RX-884 had an equalization mode called SEA mode. It provided a five-band equalizer with named presets. The RX-8030 has a five-band equalizer, but has no named presets. It's also per input, so you'll get to bump 5 bands 12 times, too.
Similarly, some parameters are saved per-DSP/Surround setting, when you probably want them shared. Center Tone, in particular, has to be done once per setting. Luckily, these are shared across inputs.
The test mode is bugged if you've set the equalizer. Any equalizer changes cause the front-satellite speaker tones (and only the fronts) to come out -very- loudly. Cancel the equalizer before balancing speakers, otherwise you'll run your center and rear satellites way hot. Note that the equalizer itself works fine--you can balance the speakers using a test DVD no problem. It's specifically the receiver's test mode.
The remote is cluttered and non-intuitive. Too many functions are shared on buttons and work modally (i.e. push a button to be in Sound mode, which uses your number keys to change speaker levels). Unlike the RX-884, this remote does have an LCD display, so at least you can tell when you're in a mode.
The ratings on the amp aren't too exciting. It's rated at 1kHz, and the THD is high. As mentioned above, I think that's a factor of wanting to claim a very high wattage. At moderate-to-high volume levels, the sound is fine to my ears.
While it autoswitches between types of digital (PCM vs. Dolby Digital vs. DTS), it doesn't autoswitch analog and digital. Using this amp with a satellite decoder that sends analog or digital depending on channel would be a chore.
It runs a bit hot.
In conclusion, my early take on the receiver is that it's a great bargain. It has issues with the setup, but that's a do-once sort of thing. Once you get it going, it sounds great. It's not the equal of my buddy's Marantz, but it's easily the equal of anything I've seen in a consumer store, especially in the price range. Only caveat is that it's JVC--you get a bunch of features and great functionality, but occasionally iffy quality control. Buy it from somewhere where you can take it back if it doesn't pass burn-in.
Similar Products Used: JVC RX-884, various Sony receivers
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Summary: Sorry,but I have to disagree with the above reviewer,this JVC impressed me.
I find the power to be more than great with lots of headroom in the amp. It handles channel seperation very well with a crisp open sound,if not slightly forward. The equalizer works very well once you fine tune the HZ adjustments.
As far as having to go to the reciever to make some adjustments is not a big deal...these adjustments are to be done once,with all the other adjustments that you would want to toy with at the remote. I used my ears to adjust,you don't need to have a visual on a tv screen!
The CC mode is awsome,it really brings out the details in both music or movies.
Well worth your pennys.
Strengths: Great Amp Headroom,lots of power. Easy to adjust once learned.
Weaknesses: Runs a bit hot but no worse than many of the others I have tried.
Similar Products Used: Pioneer,sony,yamaha
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