Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V receiver

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By Matthew Moskovciak and Steve Guttenberg, CNET.com
Sep 12, 2007

As they do with TVs, people like to invest in A/V receivers (AVR) for the long term, but for the past couple of years (at least), that's been a hard prospect. A variety of "must-have" upgrades have long been promised as being just around the corner, prompting cautious home theater fans to put off purchases until the next-generation features have become available. Well, we have good news, patient audiophiles: Tomorrow is finally here. The Onkyo TX-SR605 is the first AVR that offers onboard decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, the studio-quality audio formats found on HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. Moreover, the receiver has the potential to pass along the other egghead niceties associated with the HDMI version 1.3, such as xvYCC color.

It also supports analog-to-digital video conversion (so you'll need just a single HDMI cable to your TV). So what's not to like? Well, those long-awaited features--lossless audio decoding, xvYCC color--don't really have any real-world applications with current HD video players. And there are certainly quirks that home theater enthusiasts should be aware of; the video-scaling performance will irk videophiles, for instance. But for the vast majority of users, there's not a better buy than the TX-SR605 in this price range. It's just S$1,019, and it's widely available for less. Dollar for dollar, it's the best buy in the AVR market we've seen so far in 2007.

Editors' note:

This review is based on evaluations conducted by our sister site. Review ratings on similar products may differ due to differences in regional market trends and competing product lineups.

Design

The Onkyo TX-SR605 fills out 435 x 174 x 377mm of space, and it's available in gold or silver. Across the middle of the receiver is the display; a variety of input selectors and other buttons litter the bottom half of the front panel, with two knobs--a small tuner and a larger volume knob--off to the upper right-hand corner. In other words, except for some new compatibility icons along the bottom of the left-hand corner, the TX-SR605 is a pretty standard-looking AVR.

The remote is fine, but power users will want to update to a more powerful universal model.

The remote is similarly typical. It will intimidate the less tech-savvy, but it gets the job done. The navigation pad is centrally located, and the volume button is set off by its relatively light color. The source buttons light up when you hit a command, which is a nice reminder of which component you're controlling at the moment. Of course, we'd prefer true backlighting for the entire remote, but none of the competitors offer that. With the money you saved by getting the TX-SR605, it may be wise to invest in a quality universal remote.

The onscreen display is a slight step up from the usual blocky white text on a completely black background, but not much, and certainly nothing like the snazzy menu on Sony's STR-DA5300ES or Denon's equivalent. The bulk of the display is still essentially white text on a black background, but Onkyo has some blue lines and simple graphics to spice it up a bit. The changes are definitely minor, but we felt it was a welcome upgrade.

Audyssey 2EQ automatic speaker calibration makes setting speaker levels a snap.

The TX-SR605's Audyssey 2EQ automatic speaker-calibration system is smart enough to detect when you've plugged in the supplied measurement microphone, and the receiver will instruct you via the onscreen display to press the Enter button on the remote to initiate the setup procedure. Over the course of the 10-minute routine, the Audyssey 2EQ requires the user to run the setup program from three different microphone positions in the room. After the Audyssey finishes its tasks, the receiver automatically adjusts the speaker size settings, the subwoofer crossover points, the channel volume level, and the time delay settings for each speaker and the subwoofer. We noted the Audyssey 2EQ system was fairly accurate. The system also generates equalization "corrections" for the speakers. We didn't like the effect the EQ produced with our Dynaudio Contour speakers, but we've heard the Audyssey work wonders with other speakers. It's definitely worth a try.

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