Customer Reviews
Awsome Service 
2008-06-09
Got the product delivered in great condition, on-time with excellant packing. I love shopping thru Amazon.
Entertainment System 2008-06-05
I am very happy with this system. I will recommended it to my friend and family.
Great value, takes time to learn all features 2008-06-04
I have had this unit for about 3 weeks, it replaced a Sony Home Theater with DVD player. This has so much more functionality, although the speakers here are monstrously large (not exactly bookshelf!). Only odd thing is that the the sub goes idle (red light) if the volume is below a surprisingly loud level. Some have noted the low quality (and length) of the speaker wires, I replaced the rear only to 18g due to length but do not feel sound is compromised by the stock wires. Still, for the money this unit is a great value. Read the manual, take your time, all will work in the end.
Sounds great 
2008-05-19
There are so many informative reviews on this page. The most important thing to know is that it doesn't decode HDMI audio. I am not clear as to weather or not that problem is solved if your player decodes the signal before sending it to the receiver. That is something you might want to look into. As for the sound, this system sounds really great for the price. I love it.
All the Reviews are True: Spectacular Sournd After a Few Gotchas 2008-04-20
I'm new to home theater and haven't bought a receiver in over 10 years, so I spent a few hours on the Internet researching home theater systems (what everybody calls HTIBs, "home theater in a box"). What convinced me to buy it was the cnet.com editors' video review, but the impression I got from reading about 50 reviews were:
1. Skimpy wires (true, but may not matter)
2. Auto-calibration makes setup easy (true, and is a must-do)
3. More inputs than you need (true)
4. HDMI issues (true, but by design)
5. Awesome sound (true)
6. Unit gets hot (false)
I got my unit from Vann's for $420 (no tax nor shipping), and it arrived in Texas from Montana in about 5 days in the manufacturer's box. I read in one review that the box was the size of a refrigerator, so I expected a monster package, but it turned out to be more the size of dorm refrigerator. However, it was still too bulky and heavy for me to carry by myself or fit in a mid-size car. The box was also crumpled, torn up, and taped back together, but with 2-3 inches of styrofoam on the inside, none of the contents were damaged.
Like a kid that can't wait to try out his new toy, I wanted to set it up without reading any instructions and turn it on as quickly as possible. The speaker wires that come with the unit are pretty skinny, but are nicely color-coded to the inputs on the back of the receiver and on the back of the speakers. This made it easy to keep track of the 15 speaker wires I rushed to hook up to speakers I placed side-by-side.
By the way, for some reason, it didn't occur to me that the unit has a built-in AM/FM tuner, because all the reviews kept mentioning that it doesn't come with a DVD player and is strictly an amplifier. That was a nice surprise.
When I turned it on the first time, no sound came out. After a few seconds of panic, I read from the instructions that you have to push a button to turn on the "A" speaker outputs. (Incidentally, there are also "B" speaker outputs for some different Onkyo product that uses the same receiver. Do not turn on the "B" speakers.) After turning on only the "A" speakers, still no sound. It turned out there are AM and FM antenna wires (included) that you have to plug in. The unit will mute the sound instead of playing radio static. Whew, I finally heard sound, however, it didn't sound so spectacular like everyone said.
Thinking radio quality isn't too good a source, I quickly plugged in my DVD player to the HDMI-in and my muted TV to the HDMI-out. Got a picture, but no sound again. Small panic once more before remembering a review that mentioned the unit only passes HDMI in to out, which I now understand to mean that it doesn't play sound from the HDMI input. I plugged in audio cables from the DVD and was relieved to hear the soundtrack from the receiver. The sound was pretty good, but not spectacular.
There's a setup microphone that you plug into the front of the unit, which automatically activates the auto-measuring. The first time I tried this, the unit displayed an error. My fault once more, because I placed all the speakers side-by-side to "test them out". After positioning them around the listening area, the auto-calibration completed successfully. Note this takes about 10 minutes, because it sends test sounds to each of the 8 speakers 3 times. After this, the sound improved immensely to what I consider awesome, but not spectacular yet.
I proceeded to hook up my HD cable box and DVR with component cables to get video pass through (mine don't have HDMI connections). This time, I get audio, but no video. A little more reading through the manual, and I learned that if you use component inputs, then the video only goes to the component output, not the HDMI output. So it turns out that the HDMI issues aren't really problems with the units being defective, but rather that it's kinda poorly designed for the HDMI connections.
At this point, I've got a jumble of wires and cables coming out the wazoo to get cable, DVD, and DVR sound. After a few minutes of thinking, the solution dawned on me. Unplug all the cables, and just connect the TV audio output to receiver. That way, no matter which source (DVD, DVR, or cable box) is playing on the TV, I only need one set of audio cables to the receiver. This took care of the wire jumble issue, but still not spectacular sound.
A little more reading of the manual, and I discovered that you have to use digital audio optical cables (Toslink) in order to get the most advanced surround sounds for all 7 speakers. Fortunately, I ordered a pair of those cables through Amazon, and now finally the sound is SPECTACULAR!
All in all, if you're new to home theater like I am, save yourself some time and read the setup instructions and operations manual before you start plugging stuff up. You'll save yourself some panic, frustration, and temporary disappointment. I have not noticed any heating issues. My 52" LCD puts out more heat than the receiver. Unless all your components have HDMI connections, the HDMI pass through will not save you any cables to your TV.
Great sound and connectivity 2008-07-01
I bought this system for my home theater and I love it. My media room already had four speakers (two front and two rear) flush mounted in the walls, but I wanted to buy a full Home Theater in a Box (HTiB) to get the other speakers for full surround. I also planned to hook this system up to a PS3 for Blu-Ray playback. Most HTiB systems come with a receiver that has built a built in DVD player. I didn't want to get a wasted DVD that way. Also, those systems have very few input options. What I loved about this box is what you see of the images of the back. This receiver has all kinds input so I had no problem connecting the cable, PS3, and PS2 plus I could connect a few other game boxes if I wanted.
The sound is remarkable. I'm often tempted to play the THX intro on movies over and over again just because it sounds so good across the whole range. High pitches are well produced and you can literally feel the bass. The self-configuring option is simple to do and works really well.
Some people will note the minor drawback that the HDMI audio is only a pass through and you have to use other cables to connect the audio. Yes, this leads to buying two extra optical audio cables and makes the setup a tiny bit harder, but I didn't find it to be all that much of a challenge and the result was well worth it.
As a last note, Onkyo packages this well. The UPS guy literally rolled the box up to my house and the Styrofoam packaging got crushed in some places, but it did its job and protected all the components which were in perfect shape.
eh. 
2008-06-20
Could be a lot better than it leads on. I'd buy a different kit next time.
Great price, great system 2008-06-19
It's everything you could hope for at this price. Good sound, solid receiver, and all wires included. I would recommend upgrading your cables (it comes with very basic stuff), but there should plenty of money left over to do that. The only thing it's missing is audio support through HDMI (it's video passthrough only), but you have to pay as much for a receiver as I did for this whole system to get that. Overall, you can't beat the value.
pressure busts pipes 2008-06-15
i reciently purchased this system at c.c. after doing my homework guess what happened when i applied pressure for 30/45 minutes THE SUB BLEW it smoked besides that its perfect lol.
Excellent 2008-06-12
Excellent sound quality. Only issue I had was set-up. Being new to home theater systems, it took me three days and several trips to Best Buy and Ciruit City to see how the in-store models were connected. Once set up, the system is excellent.
