Great sound. Easy setup with lots of great preset listening modes. An excellent array of input and outputs, including optical and digital for attaching my Digital Media Player (Apple TV in my case).

One bizarre feature of my unit: sometimes when I turn first it on the side speakers don't work until I flip through the list of listening modes. They almost always turn on when I hit the Neo6 setting. I suspect that is my unit though.

No HDMI input/output for HD TV's... which works as a strength if you want to use it as a stereo!

Great product to watch for on the secondary markets for those interested in music more than TV. Since all the receivers and TV on the market these days need HDMI inputs, it's a great time to buy a really nice receiver like this for your stereo at a fraction of the price. My old stereo was a sad old Panasonic, so the new receiver would have been a huge upgrade regardless. I was extremely surprised at how much of an upgrade this unit was though. The setup screens were fairly easy, and the amount of control over the sound was astounding. The ability to control individual speaker levels, size, and location surprised me. Mine didn't come with the setup mic, but it turned out to be no problem with a little manual effort messing with the settings.

The sound is clear, and extremely well balances once it is setup correctly. I have a set of mixed speakers that would probably make any audiophile shake their head, but with this receiver they sound great. A lot of depth, and I suspect very it could be loud, with 100w/channel, but my space is too small to really push the limits.

Too many to mention, see above review.

Not a one.

Just wanted to re-iterate what has already been said about this amazing A/V receiver. Tons of user assignable inputs, THX select certified, component upconversion, aluminum chassis and faceplate, lots of power, 2nd powered zone, great learning, backlit remote, beautiful looks, set up mic with room equalization and I haven't even touched on how great the TX-SR 702 sounds. Way too many features to name. Amazing sound, built to last.

This is one component that will hold its value for a long time to come but you won’t see many on the used market as no one will sell it once they've listened to it.

Similar Products Used:

Too many to list.

-powered zone2
-setup mic
-THX certified
-sound quality
-colour-coded stickers that go round speaker cables and correspond with speaker inputs in back of unit

-The remote is a bit confusing... might have to go back to the manual again
-the radio station setup isn't very intuitive
-Runs hot through top grill

I replaced my Sony STRDE -780 (ES series) with this and the difference is night and day. I've had 2 sony HT systems so far and they have both had problems - the last one had a nasty habit of going into protection mode if the banana plugs in the back and into speakers weren't perfectly inserted.
But enough about inferior sony product. The Onkyo sounded so much better through the same speakers (Mission 74i, floorstanding) especially music cds. The setup mic for speaker placement is an excellent idea and takes all the hassle out of setting up the room. It also has a function called pure audio that will switch off all non-essential electronics to reduce the chance of interference from other components. Not that I've noticed this being a problem in any other listening mode. The main reason I bought the onkyo is because it has powered zone2 so someone can listen to a dvd in one room while another room is playing music from another source e.g. cd or radio. This amp has lots of power, too many functions to mention and is THX certified for those who give a damn.
Unbelievably, onkyo isn't really that well known in New Zealand!
For functionality, relative ease of use, sound quality and competitive price there weren't really any other HT amps that I saw that could match this one.

Similar Products Used:

Sony

Great unit, easy to set up, but you do need to spend some time with the manual and make a dedicated effort to use this unit for what it was made to do. Lots and lots of very useful features that take some time to use. After using this for about a year, the previous reivews are correct. This is a wonderful piece of equipment that you will not need to replace for years. Construction quality is great, looks are very presentable, receptacles on back, clearly marked. However, this is not for the faint of heart. If you play your music/DVD low, you won't like this unit. Until you start getting up on the "loud" side does it really start to come through and you can hear every little noise. I didn't know in the opening sequence of the Pirates of the Carribean that you should be able to hear the water lapping over into the boat, I do now. After you have cranked the THx surround sound opener just once, you will never go back to quiet!

Not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for.

I did a lot of looking for a good home theater foundation. I read quite a few of the reviews here and looked around at what people were using.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic units.

The setup mic is exact. The music is fantastic, and makes movies unbelieveable. I was using two centre rear speakers, two rear surrounds, two fronts, a subwoofer and centre and set it up as the book shows you to and the amp automatically picks it up as a THX setting on the setup mic. The reason why I knew this because the first night I did'nt set the speakers like that and the setup mic did not recognize it as a THX setting. The remote light is also a good feature and the wideband component. I think it is great.

I had to remove my banana plugs from my speaker wires which fitted in my old RX-V750 other than that nothing at all I can see for now.

Before purchasing this product I had a Yamaha RX-V750. I thought that was great, but I wanted to update my amplifier so I can have it better than great. I tested the Yamaha RXV-2500(which is not worth the money), Denon 3805(same) and the Onkyo TX-SR702. I first tested the Yamaha which unfortunatley sounded like my 750( No diffrence at all and playing music still sounded useless TRUST ME!), to me by spending all that money ($2500), I was only going to get THX, slighty more wattage and a great GUI. The only problem was the way it sounded(No diffrence from any other Yamaha,mind you I have not tested the Z9). I then looked at the DENON 3805 and that beat the yamaha by sound and quality. That was a good amp but the remote was no good at all,the design wasn't appealing and the price( Mind you it was the same as the Yamaha, but I would of bought the Denon instead of the two). Then I tested the Onkyo and that was fantastic. We put on Resident Evil 2 and the church scene was fantastic even the music was great as a back drop. We put on some dance mucic and the reciver handled much,much,much better than the other two. This reciever had everything the other two amps had, but a much better price,sound and quality. A friend of mine said "best to test an amp with music than with movies, because if it plays music good it will defenitley sound good with movies". The sales guy at another av shop told me the yamaha is only good with movies not with music and he was right. Also the Onkyo doesn't have all that fancy DSP that the Yamaha has because once you use the setup mic( they all have parametic equaliser) it sets it up for your room, if you decide to use spectacle(only found in Yamaha, I think)your changing the EQ settings which makes the setup mic a waste of time. Basically I have to admit I was blind by thinking at first that the yamaha was great but testing the other brands I found that the Hometheatre world had just gotten better.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha RXV-2500 Denon AVR-3805

Great sound with movies and 2ch stereo. Mic calibration does a great job, works very well. Ample power, for even the most demanding speaker loads. 7.1 with POWERED zone 2 is great.

Are you kidding? at this price, nothing.

Amazing AV receiver for the money! You get component video upconversion, input assignable switching, THX Select, Prologic 11x, great remote and build quality, fantastic sound! This receiver blew me away with its 2ch music quality, as any of you know by now, at this level, all the recievers perform well with movies, but it is rare to find one that performs equally as well with music, this does! I could not beleive how much of a jump this amp was from my old STR DB940, which was a nice amp too. I spent a long time researching before I bought, the Onkyo is definately the king in this price range and even slightly above.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR DB940 Yamaha RXV620

Excellent Sound Easy to Use 7.1 channels Good, backlit remote

Not many... see the review.

I thought I’d take a few minutes to share my reasons for selecting an Onkyo TX-SR702 receiver to power my dedicated home theater. I’m running a 65” Hitachi projection HDTV, Klipsch RF-3 II mains, an RC-3 II center and four RS-35 surrounds. I am also using a Boston Acoustics PV700 sub. Over the past couple of months, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time bringing home and auditioning the following receivers: Onkyo TX-SR602 Yamaha RX-V1500 Denon AVR 3805 Harman Kardon AVR 430 Harman Kardon AVR 630 Pioneer Elite VSX-56TXi Onkyo TX-SR702 I set out with a $500 budget to upgrade from a four year-old Yamaha 5.1 channel AVR and first went to Onkyo since I have had excellent results with their past products. Beginning with the TX-SR602, I immediately noticed an improvement in overall sound as the Onkyo was fuller in the low and mid range while being less “tiring” than the old Yamaha, which has now been relegated to my family room. Since I hadn’t looked at new receivers in some time, I decided to continue my research and went to a local dealer to extensively compare a Yamaha RX-V1500 with the Elite VSX-56TXi and the Denon AVR 3805. All three were located in the same room and the salesman left me alone for over two hours while I ran every type of A/B comparison I could (using essentially the same speakers that I have at home). Realizing that each 7.1 receiver has common home theater, surround sound functions, I decided to focus on music reproduction for these tests and found that the Yamaha and Denon were nearly identical in sound quality. When compared to either Yamaha or Denon, the Elite felt smoother in the low and mid range. Especially when played at lower volumes. However, what the Elite enjoyed in “smoothness” it lacked in “detail”. Since I listen to allot of jazz and vocals… clarity of sound and the subtle nuances of a woodwind or female voice were lacking with the Elite. Out of these three… the Yamaha was the clear winner with its excellent sound definition and expanded home theater functionality. While trying to get the smoothness of the Elite and the detail of the Yamaha, I decided next to spend a considerable amount of time researching and bringing home the Harman Kardon AVR430 and AVR630 receivers. The sound was excellent and clearly exceeded that of the Yamaha. Nice and smooth with great attention to detail and overall response. Both are 6.1 receivers and have now been replaced with the AVR435 and AVR635 respectively. I intended to step-up to the new receivers as soon as they became available… probably going with the AVR435 since it was closest (although still higher) to my original budget. However, I continued to research the Harman Kardon lines (I had owned an HK receiver nearly 30 years ago), and I began to see several postings questioning the “build quality” of these receivers. A number of people had run into problems and returned or exchanged their initial units until they found one that worked. I also began to see how difficult they were to setup and “tweak” to achieve all of the benefits of their advanced technology. Since my home theater is designed to be used by my wife and two children in addition to myself, I began to see how difficult HK would be for them to use when I wasn’t around to set it up for them. In addition, HK’s remote controls are large and unwieldy. Although backlit, the buttons were small and not well labeled for use in the darkness of a home theater application. I’m sure I would have enjoyed tweaking and playing with either of these receivers, however I value my marriage and family and could see where this would quickly become a problem that I wasn’t interested in wrestling with. All of this led me back to my first impressions of the Onkyo TX-SR602 so I decided to take a closer look at the next step up… the TX-SR702. In addition to more inputs, more power and a lighted remote, the TX-SR702 is also a THX Select certified receiver. While not meaning a whole lot… it does give this receiver some credibility that it meets or exceeds all specifications required for THX Select certification. The sound of this receiver met all of my requirements. It was smooth and full yet extremely transparent and detailed at all volume levels. DVD audio is a joy to listen to through this setup and never gets tiring. It provides all of the expected 7.1 surround modes and handles them well for home theater. And, it’s easy to use with a well laid out (although large) backlit remote control. And finally… buying this receiver online for just over $600 (shipped) from onecall.com got me everything I wanted in an upgraded system without exceeding my budget by very much. I’m happy AND my wife is happy. Good stuff! A final word on onecall.com… this was my first experience with them and I’ll go back for future purchases. First, they are an authorized Onkyo dealer. In addition to a well laid out website, the person I spoke with on the phone was friendly and helpful i

Brilliant stereo and home thearter receiver with richable well-regulated 3-D sound. Bass is very good for both low and high volumes. Tremble is very natural.

I did not find yet.

I bought this receiver to upgrade Yamaha-rx-v620 that was good as home theater and had poor quality in stereo - I used BBE sonic maximizer 462 connected between my CD and receiver to improve stereo sound quality, especially for bass boost). Briefly, I have more then 1000-CD collection and a lot DVD music concerts and sound quality is "first thing" for me. I did considerable homework to compare different av receivers at 1000$US price range. My choice fall to popular Denon model 3805 and new model of Onkyo tx-sr702E. First of all, I compared 2-channel sound with professional Sennheizer headphones HD600 and found Onkyo has more richable volumetric sound and tight bass with phenomenal regulation 50Hz > +- 10dB and equalizer set-up 80Hz > +- 12dB per each channel. Interesting feature of 702 was pure audio that converts your av receiver in usual stereo one while shuting down all video and other digital component to reduce noise drastically. Some words about prologic II option for music. It is absolutely fantastic - very pure and natural sound (voice and guitar arrangements) from your center, different effects from surrounds and powerful low-end sound from your front (no needs to use subwoofer!!!!! for bass). I really enjoy overhelming channel separation and often listen my CD-collection and in particularly, DVD-discs recorded in stereo by Pr.II. Returning back to the comparison with Denon 3805 I can say two receivers sound perfectly as home thearter with a lot of surround programs selected but one thing is very crucial - Onkyo 702E is THX certificated and Dennon not. It means this 7+1, receiver is top hi-fi component unit and obtain THX logo on front panel after proceeding hundred rigorous tests. Remote of TX-SR702E is the best I saw (of course it is universal designed in tradional manner); in spite of 3805 remote has up-to-date touch panel I think it is more complex and accordingly different reviews on the Denon, the remote usage is problematic at bright light day + batteries should be replaced each 1.5 mounths ( what about memory settings???) Summary: BUY TX_SR702E - IT IS THE BEST BARGAIN AT MID-RANGE PRICE LEVEL (up to 1300$US may be more)

Similar Products Used:

Denon 3805, Yamaha 1500...