[KUBBY]

Part 3 of the Popular Onkyo tx-NR609 owners thread.

Part 2 is HERE


K.

[TeDeV]

kubby you killed me man. i was trying to quote 3-4 messages when you locked the topic.....

anyway...

@Player 1.. Yes to access those settings i am using the HOME button, but even that takes 4-5 seconds to fix everything, having to go up, down, right, left , omg. just give the man an option on the remote! I am using 30% of the buttons that are on the remote, the rest are almost useless to me.

@rinky.. now i understood which reference level you are talking about. that thing is different for each type of music you listen to. i can hardly understand any difference in the sound with that. the guy for audyssey mentions which reference level you must have when you use pop/rock, orchestra, etc. When you watch movies you need to have that set to 0.

So if you only have one source like me (HTPC) for Movies, Games, Music, then you are pretty much f@cked. Because the reference level is not easy to access, you have to go in the menu and press totally i don't know 9-10 buttons? And this is for every time you change from Movies to Music. Oh and let's not forget the Audyssey type to Movie/Music change, and of course we need to close the Dynamic Vol for music, or turn it on for Movies.

God i hope i will be able to fix my harmony working correctly with my Onkyo, because i will go nuts. The whole point is not that i am too lame to change these settings, but i want to sit on my sofa and enjoy my free time. i don't want to spend 2 minutes on the remote, clicking options.

@uncola.. it is pretty easy to bi-amp your speakers. get enough cable, remove the bridges from the back of the speakers, connect the cables on the receiver according to the manual and select you have bi-amp in the audyssey calibration.

[Player 1]

007india

2) I do believe the two choices are either bi amp OR zone 2, not both.

1) Your front L\R speakers are measurably better than your surrounds, drop them from listening to music if it is a stereo source and use pure audio, direct or stereo instead, imo this will make it sound better instantly.
If you are watching music videos then i can understand wanting to use surround, but thats at the expense of sound quality

[KUBBY]

Originally Posted by TeDeV

kubby you killed me man. i was trying to quote 3-4 messages when you locked the topic.....

Sorry.There never is a good time,but this was well overdue.

K.

[rinkydinkydoo]

Reply To Goujam from Part 2:

Hi,
I have not tested with MP3 as I dabbled with the itouch connected when I first got it and haven't bothered since.
The problem with MP3 is always going to be bit rate unless you use a lossless format which should be the same. Some of the hi-def online sources offer better than CD quality but I simply prefer to use CDs.
If I get a few mins I will have a play.
Andy

[goujam]

Originally Posted by rinkydinkydoo

Reply To Goujam from Part 2:

Hi,
I have not tested with MP3 as I dabbled with the itouch connected when I first got it and haven't bothered since.
The problem with MP3 is always going to be bit rate unless you use a lossless format which should be the same. Some of the hi-def online sources offer better than CD quality but I simply prefer to use CDs.
If I get a few mins I will have a play.
Andy

I'll be having a play tonight I just wondered if you had seen an improvement ! Thanks for posting your findings though its much appreciated

[uncola]

I was having issues with a noisy center channel, and I called onkyo and my receiver is part of a recall. They're mailing me a box and prepaid shipping label.

[uncola]

Anyone have experience bi-amping or bi-wiring with the 609? From what I understand bi-wiring is not helpful, but bi-amping is great for when you have huge front left/right speakers that are power hungry. I guess for bi-amping, you would usually use pre-out outputs on the receiver to plug into the amplifier, or preamp. But this receiver doesn't' have preamp outs. In the manual I notice you can bi-wire if you use 5.1 speakers by using the front high speaker outs.. is that what I'd use for a dedicated amplifier? Would I need an adapter cable? I notice most amplifiers only have rca or xlr type inputs

[goujam]

Originally Posted by uncola

Anyone have experience bi-amping or bi-wiring with the 609? From what I understand bi-wiring is not helpful, but bi-amping is great for when you have huge front left/right speakers that are power hungry. I guess for bi-amping, you would usually use pre-out outputs on the receiver to plug into the amplifier, or preamp. But this receiver doesn't' have preamp outs. In the manual I notice you can bi-wire if you use 5.1 speakers by using the front high speaker outs.. is that what I'd use for a dedicated amplifier? Would I need an adapter cable? I notice most amplifiers only have rca or xlr type inputs

The Bi amping used by the 609 as described in the manual is when you use the amplifiers for the rear speakers (in 7.1) to bi amp the front speakers.

[uncola]

isn't that called bi-wiring and something different? I'm curious how I'd use an external amplifier for my front speakers

[goujam]

Originally Posted by uncola

isn't that called bi-wiring and something different? I'm curious how I'd use an external amplifier for my front speakers

Bi wiring is taking two wires from the same output to the speakers hi and low posts. What the ONKYO 609 calls bi amping is when you use 4 of the 7 amplifiers in the onkyo to drive the front two speakers. However this is not proper Bi amping as the ONKYO outputs the same signal on both amplifiers per speaker, so not seperate hi and low frequencies. Also the onkyo uses the same power supply for all 7 amplifiers so the increase in power to the bi amped speakers is not double as Onkyo would have you believe.

What your asking to do is not called bi amping you just want to run a stereo amp from the Onkyo. As far as I am aware you cant do this with the onkyo due to the lack of pre outs. It would be nice if you could use the zone 2 pre outs as front pre outs but i dont think this is possible.

[jimmyboy1975]

So is bi wiring beneficial?

[goujam]

Originally Posted by jimmyboy1975

So is bi wiring beneficial?

Depends who you ask ! To me bi wiring is not beneficial investing in good quality cables is more benifitial, but I'm no expert.

I do bi amp my 609 with my mission e54 and I didn't notice.much change if any but seeing as I went to the effort of trying it I've kept it setup.

[uncola]

What onkyo calls bi-amping I read about on forums but they called it bi-wiring. I guess it doesn't add anything. I found one guy saying this, but it sounds like snake oil: Bi-amp, instead of using one speaker cable you will be running two. The two sets of binding posts basically represent the tweeter/midrange and bass as two seperate halves. Since lower frequencies travel at different speeds, separating the two will reduce distortion and provide deeper and cleaner sound.
edit: so I guess I can't use an amplifier since there are no preouts. I hope my 609 is enough for my kef q900s that will arrive thursday :/

[goujam]

Originally Posted by uncola

What onkyo calls bi-amping I read about on forums but they called it bi-wiring. I guess it doesn't add anything. I found one guy saying this, but it sounds like snake oil: Bi-amp, instead of using one speaker cable you will be running two. The two sets of binding posts basically represent the tweeter/midrange and bass as two seperate halves. Since lower frequencies travel at different speeds, separating the two will reduce distortion and provide deeper and cleaner sound.
edit: so I guess I can't use an amplifier since there are no preouts. I hope my 609 is enough for my kef q900s that will arrive thursday :/

The thing is the onkyo does not seperate the hi and low frequencies. All I can see being achieved is an attampt to increase power to the speakers. But as all the amplifiers run off one power supply I can't see there being much if any power increase.

As I said earlier the onkyo should run the kefs fine they have a high sensitivity value and there 8 ohms making them easy to drive and the specs say 15 to 200 watts.

[007india]

Originally Posted by Player 1

007india

2) I do believe the two choices are either bi amp OR zone 2, not both.

1) Your front L\R speakers are measurably better than your surrounds, drop them from listening to music if it is a stereo source and use pure audio, direct or stereo instead, imo this will make it sound better instantly.
If you are watching music videos then i can understand wanting to use surround, but thats at the expense of sound quality

1) I can realise Stereo & T-D are good for music (2ch source). But I don't like the output from pure audio and Direct. its like mono. But my source is a CD player.

2) If you use Zone1(with bi-amp) then Zone 2+front High will not work. But when Zone2 is live, I will make sure zone1 is idle. This should work, only thing is I have to manually disable the powered zone2 to get bi-amp while playing zone1..

[007india]

Originally Posted by TeDeV

@Player 1.. Yes to access those settings i am using the HOME button, but even that takes 4-5 seconds to fix everything, having to go up, down, right, left , omg. just give the man an option on the remote! I am using 30% of the buttons that are on the remote, the rest are almost useless to me.

I have an OSD issue which the Europe customer care is yet to give a solution. The OSD will freeze under following condition when I try to adjust bass from remote(with HOME button) when sound mode is set to DolbyPL. I can adjust bass from AVR front panel.

Did you came across this issue?

[SamTrainingHARD]

My amps connected to their TV and via optical out and then I saw the avenges trailer on TV so I pushed the TV/CD button to get sound for the TV via amp putting vol to 89 accidentally and was waiting for the amps to switch on all sudden the sound bang REALLY LOUD. Form off to that volume I havant harmed or blown my speakers have I, their all MORDUANT SHORT???

[SamTrainingHARD]

Really paranoid 😰

[SamTrainingHARD]

Originally Posted by SamTrainingHARD

Really paranoid dde30

😰😞really paranoid android

[Player 1]

well ive put mine up full quite a few times and havent harmed my speakers,,, yet,,,, hope yours are OK

[SamTrainingHARD]

Originally Posted by Player 1

well ive put mine up full quite a few times and havent harmed my speakers,,, yet,,,, hope yours are OK

I haven't heard anything different from my speakers I suppose I just needed to get that off my chest and ask the forum just incase I just think I'm paranoid that's all nothing sounds different From the speakers

[rinkydinkydoo]

Originally Posted by goujam

I'll be having a play tonight I just wondered if you had seen an improvement ! Thanks for posting your findings though its much appreciated

Hi,
Just following on from before......

I have found that the 609 (with my setup and configuration definately comes to life with the CD player (connected RCA) at 55+ volume. 60 is optimum (and loud) for my room (6mx4m). The improvement in 'Pure' and 'Direct' is enormous and it can be clealrly heard that the differential between this and 'stereo' is greatly reduced.

This would make sense as Audyssey Dynamic EQ will have less effect in stereo as it approaches refrence level but the striking difference is the way Pure/Direct come alive. Combining this with playing with the Reference Level and altering the sound stage for Dolby PLII has improved music exponentially with respect to gain in volume.

The issue may be exasperated where Intellivolume has been used (I have it set to zero on this input) as it will increase the input and therefore reduce the volume that maybe being used.

Have you had a play with MP3 ?
Andy

[uncola]

So are you saying pure and direct modes are great for music and stereo is terrible? or the other way around? I prefer both direct and stereo to any of the pl2 or dts neo type matrixed modes.. I think matrixed is what you call it when you generate extra channels of sound from a 2 channel source right? I know that direct disables the subwoofer when using a 2 channel source.. so I usually use stereo for music

[rinkydinkydoo]

Originally Posted by uncola

So are you saying pure and direct modes are great for music and stereo is terrible? or the other way around? I prefer both direct and stereo to any of the pl2 or dts neo type matrixed modes.. I think matrixed is what you call it when you generate extra channels of sound from a 2 channel source right? I know that direct disables the subwoofer when using a 2 channel source.. so I usually use stereo for music

Hi,
No, what I meant was that there has been discussion about poor sound quality for music in Pure/Direct modes and that stereo was better.

I use stereo normally as I have a large room, with hard floors and figured that the benfits of Audyssey processing would help. To this end I was happy with the sound.

Users had posted regarding poor music reproduction and I had a re-visit to the manual and discovered a few things I could improve.
ie Reference Level, Dyn Vol off for analogue music..........

However, whilst playing about I found that the issue of Pure (essentially the same as Direct but with display off) sounding flat with very little dynamics negated when I turned up the volume (55+) and sounds as good as Stereo, if not better.

Similarlly, having discovered the soundfield settings under PLIIx, which I had mis-read to think they only applied to 7.1 set ups (I use 5.1) and having a tinker, has produced a very pleasing Dolby PLII result.

I would recommend having a play, the ability to 'widen' the centre sound and move the soundfield forwards and backwards is quite strange as is the way instruments are moved about!

Hope this clarifies what I was trying to get across....badly!
Andy

[uncola]

Hey guys I just received my kef q900s.. and I can't figure out how to remove the red and black plastic inserts in the binding posts.. do you guys know the trick to do it? I don't see anything in the manual about it

[goujam]

Originally Posted by rinkydinkydoo

Hi,
Just following on from before......

I have found that the 609 (with my setup and configuration definately comes to life with the CD player (connected RCA) at 55+ volume. 60 is optimum (and loud) for my room (6mx4m). The improvement in 'Pure' and 'Direct' is enormous and it can be clealrly heard that the differential between this and 'stereo' is greatly reduced.

This would make sense as Audyssey Dynamic EQ will have less effect in stereo as it approaches refrence level but the striking difference is the way Pure/Direct come alive. Combining this with playing with the Reference Level and altering the sound stage for Dolby PLII has improved music exponentially with respect to gain in volume.

The issue may be exasperated where Intellivolume has been used (I have it set to zero on this input) as it will increase the input and therefore reduce the volume that maybe being used.

Have you had a play with MP3 ?
Andy

Yeah I have changed my settings I've changed the reference level to 15db and its definitely removed some boom ! I already had my plii setting changed to widen the front stage, I have it so the left and right speakers are slightly louder than the centre. Then I have it moved slightly to the back, its like stereo but with some instruments coming from behind.

The problem I have is I can't get away with high volumes dam semi detached ( hopefully moving end of year) so if I turn off dynamic volume although it uses less compression I get less depth to some of the sounds! So I've left the dynamic volume on, but I did try without and turned the volume up and it sounds better.

I have now programmed my harmony one to have the music optimizer on off controls and with MP3 it definitely helps. I've also got the auydessey movie and music curves programmed onto my remote and found it does what its supposed to.

So overall I'm happy with settings now (i was happy before to) and with my mission e5 and e8 speakers I'd say music is on par with my old marantz 6004 which broke ( now repaired and at my brother's house)

[dspit1664]

Hi know this is 609 thread but a general q about Onkyo's. I heard they run hot ( or warmer than some other AVR's ) an may be susceptible to cut out if not given enough space around it. Is that true and is this any different to other vendors like Denon' ( 1910 / 1912 ) ?

Not an Onkyo owner or Denon just yet just seeking a little advice on 606/608/609 Onkyo's

Ta

[goujam]

Originally Posted by dspit1664

Hi know this is 609 thread but a general q about Onkyo's. I heard they run hot ( or warmer than some other AVR's ) an may be susceptible to cut out if not given enough space around it. Is that true and is this any different to other vendors like Denon' ( 1910 / 1912 ) ?

Not an Onkyo owner or Denon just yet just seeking a little advice on 606/608/609 Onkyo's

Ta

I have my 609 in a stand that's open front and back but I only have 1 inch gap above it. I never experienced any problems with getting to hot, I think onkyo do get hotter than others but its not a fault its part of the design!

As a precaution I have now fitted a quiet 120mm pc fan with a built in temperature controller to my stand blowing over the top of my amp. It's plugged into a 12v power supply that I have plugged into a ir plug socket. So when I turn my amp on the fan starts up it runs very slow unless it gets warm then it speeds up ( never had this happen) then when I turn the amp off the fan turns off . My amp is now always cool, also the 609 has a fan built into the amp that kicks in if it gets warm!

[Player 1]

Originally Posted by dspit1664

Hi know this is 609 thread but a general q about Onkyo's. I heard they run hot ( or warmer than some other AVR's ) an may be susceptible to cut out if not given enough space around it. Is that true and is this any different to other vendors like Denon' ( 1910 / 1912 ) ?

Not an Onkyo owner or Denon just yet just seeking a little advice on 606/608/609 Onkyo's

Ta

I have mine in a shelving unit with not much space above it and it does get warm, not alarmingly so.
I have it on non stop for approx 6 hours continuesly each day.
I'm lead to believe they are expected to get warm \ hot.
See it here http://www.avforums.com/forums/membe...lbums2175.html