List Price: $329.00
Sale Price: $299.00
Today's Bonus: 9% Off
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program This is a decent small stereo system. It would be good for a bedroom or other small area. I feel it is overpriced for what you are getting but it does what it says it will do.
The first thing I noticed when I unpacked it was the lack of controls on the front panel. All you will see looking from the front is the display, a USB connector, headphone jack and eject button for the CD. It has a very clean look. On the top, it has Power, Pairing, Input, forward/back skip, play/pause and volume buttons. On the back panel, it has AM/FM antenna antenna inputs, line in for connecting a TV or any other device via RCA cables (not included), a subwoofer out jack, speaker outputs and an AC input receptacle for the power cord. The unit comes supplied with AC cable, speaker wires, AM & FM antennas and a remote. The unit was packed very well by Onkyo with the speakers in the bottom with the receiver unit up top in a double box.
Upon setting it up, a few things stood out. I don't usually like spring mounted speaker wire connections but the spring tension on these was very good. The speaker wires are very short at just over 3 feet but they are good quality wire for a bookshelf system. The speakers are in plastic enclosures so they have a boxy sound to them. Don't expect a lot of bass and the bass you get is boomy. The speakers are of a 2-Way vented design with a 4" woofer, 1" tweeter and a front port. In my opinion, the sound was muffled with the bass and treble set to flat. I got the best sound with the Treble at +3, the Bass at 0 and the Super Bass at 1. For some music the Super Bass sounded better at 2 but only at low volumes. I connected a small subwoofer to the rear output and that made a big difference in the overall sound.
The manual says this receiver is rated at 15W minimum continuous power per channel at 10% distortion. It does not specify RMS power and from what I heard, it doesn't sound like it is RMS power. I have a Yamaha mini receiver that is rated 20W RMS per channel with all the same specs and I compared them side by side with the same speakers and the Yamaha gets much, much louder before it distorts. The difference between 15 & 20 watts should be barely discernible.
One really cool feature of this system is the Bluetooth. You can pair it with your smartphone or tablet and stream music through it. Pairing is really simple. You just press the pairing button on the receiver then search for devices on your phone. My phone found it immediately and paired right up. On the downside, the Bluetooth range is very limited. I paired my HTC Rezound, which has outstanding Bluetooth range with everything else I've paired it to. For example, I can connect a headset and walk all over the house without a single hiccup. When I paired it with the Onkyo receiver however, the range was about 8-10 feet. Go beyond that and the audio starts popping in and out. Still, for a bedroom, that would be okay. You could lay on the bed and play your music if the receiver was close by.
There is also a USB jack in the front that can be used with your phone, tablet or a thumb drive to play music. Accessing it is not straightforward. You must put the receiver in iPod mode and then press the mode button for 3 seconds to switch to USB. The manual tells you how.
The tuner seems to pick up pretty well using the supplied wire antenna. I picked up as many stations as I did on my Yamaha mini receiver. You can store 30 AM and 30 FM stations into the presets and scroll through them using the remote or buttons on top of the receiver. The remote is small and takes a coin battery (included).
The remote is pretty well laid out for its size and the range was good. I could operate the receiver from across the room.
Overall, I think this is a decent system. I was a bit conflicted as to how many stars to rate it. If it cost $150, I would give it 5 stars but for $329, I expect better sound. The speakers are the weak link. If you upgrade the speakers or add a small subwoofer you will get much better sound. Also, the CD tray seems particularly flimsy. The plastic seems much thinner than other CD players I've used. I would give this system 3.5 stars but that was not an option so I gave it 3. I'd have a problem giving it a 4 due to the weak sound for a $300+ system.
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