Onkyo TX-SR705 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

This a great reciever. Easy to set up and has more than enough options for the average in home user. I have a friend that paid $900 for this same reciever one year ago. I would highly recommend this product.

For the money very good deal. It could use more power but for indoors and watching movies it does ok.

This thing works great, its alittle difficult to set up if you don't know what your doing but Onkyo has 24/7 customer service ready to assist you if you need it. I hooked this up to 7.1 surround sound speakers and now I get movie theater quality sound in my living room. If you hook up your Blue Ray Player and other devices via HDMI make sure you hook up the sound from those devices to the unit with an optical or coaxial sound cable so you get the full sound capabilities of the unit. It makes a huge difference.

The sound quality from this Onkyo is amazing. The room is about 18'x25' and sounds as much like a mini-theater as I could ever imagine. I'm going to do a pro/con list as far as my experience has gone:

Pro:
1. Wiring was really easy to hook up. I use very low gauge speaker wire (which means its thick and well shielded) and the "screw knob" connections on this receiver accepted them without a problem. My former Sony had the little clamp-type connections and those were a pain.
2. The remote is truly universal. While it's not the most attractive or well designed piece of plastic, it was very easy to configure it to all my devices (Sony Blu-ray, Time Warner cable, Sony DVR, Sony 5 disc DVD changer and 47" Toshiba Regza HDTV). I was finally able to put away all those remotes whose functions could not be 100% mapped to a universal remote.
3. Once it was completely configured, the first bit of sound was deafening. This receiver can pump out some sound. And it's very high quality, crisp, clean sound. You definitely don't want to start at "+0 dB" when you turn on something loud.
4. Overall, a good looking product, great price and amazing functionality.

Cons:
1. Other people have said it, and hence the title of this post - the instructions are horrid. I hope you like messing with gadgets, because it's easier to set it up without the manual. If you insist on using the manual, skip the first two pages of the setup dealing with audio and go straight to video. Decide which output type for the TV. That'll get the setup menu ON the TV (which the manual assumes before it tells you how to do it) and then follow the manual. Don't expect explanations of any of the stuff - it just tells you how to set it.
2. Seems minor but if you're upgrading from a theater in a box type system, be ready to spend some more money. I upgraded from a Sony Bravia theater system and expected to just be able to wire everything and move on. Nope! This thing won't take a passive subwoofer. It has to be a powered subwoofer. So, at 9pm after everything was setup, I had to go back out to Best Buy (thankfully open til 10pm this week) and grab a subwoofer. Admittedly, the subwoofer sounds much better than the passive one, but knowing that ahead of time would have made the experience a little better. Not to mention, powered subs start at $100 and go from there.
3. She's big, she's heavy and she's hot. I moved her from inside my media console to the top of it. The TV is hanging, so the top surface had nothing on it which was a nice, clean look. Now the Onkyo is on top so there's no shelf above it to hold in the heat. I may still need to rethink ventilation for it, once I see how hot it gets in summer.

Overall, my cons are minor except the instructions and subwoofer. For those of you upgrading a real receiver, the sub problem won't apply. But it was enough for me to downgrade my rating to 4 stars. However, for all of you thinking about buying this - go for it. It's performance will not disappoint you at all.

The Onkyo TX-SR705 Receiver at this point is a significant step up from my previous Receiver. I have only had the receiver a short time and that is the only reason for the four star rating. The initial setup was easy and the sound quality is 30% better than the previous receiver. I would recommend this receive to anyone who wants to take the next step in their home theater.