About
Reviews (1)
06 October 2013
Great 7.2 Receiver at Intro price, Tons of features and power. Unbeatable.
Quick Pros
-Wifi
-Powerful
-AirPlay
-Price
-Great Reviews
Quick Cons
-AirPlay Shaky
-No OnScreen Volume
-Slow Input Switching
I bought this item to replace an Onkyo RC360 that got surged by lightning (even tho it was on a Monster protector). I was happy with the RC360, and originally looked to replace with the exact same receiver, or possibly the new RC460.
One of the big issues with the Onkyo was that I had to buy an external Wifi Adapter. The Onkyo's also only had 1 USB port to put it in. Thus, if I wanted to play music from my iOS devices, I had to remove the Wifi adapter. This was a pain. So I thought, I wonder if there are any receivers that have built-in Wifi?
After doing a little research I came across this receiver as the only one close to my price range, that met all my wants:
-Built-in Wifi
-min. 7.1 speaker setup
~120 Watts, 8imp, with 2 ch. driven.
This one also included AirPlay and built in Wifi! So my next thought was: What's the catch? It has to be glitchy, ugly, too big to fit in my cabinet...something! The reviews looked great, and it was smaller than my previous ONkyo, so it would comfortably fit into my 14"x18"x13" cabinet.
So...getting it at $300 was a no-brainer. When it came in, I already had my speaker wires ready to go, cabinet waiting for it to fit right in. So within an hour I had everything hooked up, very standard back panel that was easy to navigate. The speaker hook ups were nice because I use banana clips, and they were perfect fits. I believe there were 2 AV (yellow, white, red) inputs, and plenty of HDMI inputs. This allowed for my PS3, Wii, Uverse Box, and old school VHS player ( I know right, who still has those?) to hook up with spare HDMI slots.
After hook up, I did the recommend factory reset, and mic calibration. With <5 minutes reading in the manual, I had my receiver powered on, and speakers calibrated. The speaker setup was nice because it has every possible setup ready pre-made, so that you tell it exactly what your setup is, and then it calibrates the speakers. I ran it twice, and checked the levels / placement of the speakers, and it was very close to what I wanted. I easily adjusted a couple settings and g2g.
At this point, I turned on all my devices and switched through inputs to ensure everything was working naturally. One of the only cons on this receiver is that its input switching is quite slow. I would estimate it around 5 seconds before the new video feed comes through. After happy with that, I wanted to test the network capabilities. I went to network settings, and it immediately found my network, and connected first try. So next to try would be the Airplay.
Airplay was a little task, because I had to actually stream something from my PC in order for my iOS device to pickup the receiver's airplay capability. Once it did, I hit the switch, and it started streaming (audio only). However, I noticed that it was only coming out of my 2 front speakers. While trying to fix that issue, the Airplay became intermittent, dropping every couple minutes, for 5-15 seconds. I have updated the software, and still am looking for a solution to this issue! However the Bluetooth worked on first try!
In conclusion, this receiver is a great buy, with tons of features, as well as power. With little disappointment, and such great value, I had to give it 5 stars, no question in my mind. I hope I can steer someone towards this baby, it's AWESOME!