If you want to spend less than $500 on an audio-video receiver likely to remain up-to-date technologically for at least five years, Onkyo’s TX-SR605 is the one to buy.
Make that the only one. No other receiver under $500, as these words are written, can do what the TX-SR605 does: speak the language of future HD DVD and Blu-ray high-resolution discs and the upcoming generation of 1080p televisions.
It’s also easy to use, easy to set up with automated speaker calibration and sounds smoother than Tony Bennett.
The TX-SR605 accepts all sorts of home-theater video, even an analog feed from an aging DVD player, and upconverts it digitally via HDMI to HDTV quality onto your big-screen TV. This 7.1-channel receiver, 90 watts per channel, is ready for both XM and Sirius satellite radio service, too, with an optional tuner.
The receiver,which retails for $599, but typically sells for $499, is an investment in the future because most of the marquee features available in its HDMI 1.3 technology are useless now.
Realizing its full potential is a bit of a gamble, since the TX-SR605 (onkyousa.com) can’t do it alone. Luxuriating in the full audio-video spectacle — 1080p video, Deep Color [an exotic HDTV feature that promises to display billions of colors] and maxed-out audio — is a four-part equation. The receiver, television, disc player and the disc itself all must use the latest technology. That may never happen.
As detailed in last week’s column [“Waiting game: Hold off on hi-def disc players,” Sept. 9, 2007], no current HD DVD or Blu-ray player can send a signal that any HDMI 1.3-equipped receiver will decode into Dolby TrueHD [an upgrade from the familiar Dolby Digital that reconstructs the original soundtrack exactly as produced] or DTS-HD Master Audio. Pioneer’s upcoming BDP-95FD, a $1,000 Blu-ray player, will be the first. Instead, current hi-def players repackage the signal into another digital form called PCM [uncompressed, very high-quality digital audio] that, technically, is the same as TrueHD. Even if users figure it out, they’ll run into another brick wall. And the new high-resolution discs have not been using the highest-quality audio available with Dolby TrueHD, but something closer to everyday Dolby Digital surround sound. For most consumers now, it’s not worth the effort, time or cost.
So what can the TX-SR605 do for you now? I hooked up a Toshiba HD-XA2 HD DVD player and the Oppo DV-981HD, an upconverting DVD player, to the TX-SR605’s two HDMI inputs. Then I ran another HDMI cable from the TX-SR605 to a 60-inch Vizio plasma. Video through the HDMI connections was excellent, whether watching “Superman — The Movie” on the hi-def high-def Toshiba or Ken Loach’s Irish epic “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” on the DVD-only Oppo.
To test its upconverting ability through, I replaced the Oppo with an older Toshiba SD3960 and tried both component video and S-video connections. It had a hard time converting film to video, flickering in tests with the Silicon Optix HQV Benchmark DVD. But I was surprised how good “Gladiator” or “Seabiscuit” could look through S-video (480i analog) pumped up to near hi-def (720p) quality through the TX-SR605’s HDMI pipeline.
Sonically, the TX-SR605 was ultra-smooth, particularly with music like jazz saxophonist John Surman’s “The Spaces in Between.” This is as good as it gets with a $500 receiver.
Even without its high-tech features, the TX-SR605 would still rate among the best receivers at its price. It does everything you need for your home theater today and it has everything you might need for the home theater of tomorrow.
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