are certain makes renowned for ease of use?

simonoaks

Prominent Member
Joined
Apr 8, 2007
Messages
1,822
Reaction score
71
Points
373
Location
Dunstable
Hi,

I am going to buy an av amp for an initial 2.0 but want to expand in stages. I was looking at yammy 763, but it only has 2 HDMI inputs. The Onkyo 606 has 4, but it is ugly. The Sonys look ok. Are there any particular brands that tend to be know for their ease of setup/use and any that are renowned for being difficult.

Will be my first amp, and as all the amps in the £400ish range will be more than enough to drive a pair of £350 bookshelfs, a deciding factor will be ease of use.

cheers
 
Once set up correctly I would probably place the Yamaha 763 and 863 as the easiest to operate. The Scene Mode buttons on these two models effectively act as quick shortcut keys to your 4 most commonly used sources and surround modes. You need to spend a little bit of time setting up each of the Scene Modes to your desired settings but once you have you will only ever need to use these four scene buttons, the volume control and the power off button.

In terms of navigating the setup menus the Onkyos are probably the easiest to navigate and configure.

The Sony's are less than straight forward in terms of their operation and their naming of surround modes. Sound quality from then is less than impressive. Best avoided.
 
thanks,

so forgetting looks, would you say the 606 for its price, gives a pretty good solution for a pair of bookshelfs? It seems with this amp you get a whole lot for your money?
 
thanks,

so forgetting looks, would you say the 606 for its price, gives a pretty good solution for a pair of bookshelfs? It seems with this amp you get a whole lot for your money?

Personally, I wouldn't cross Sony off the list because one post condemned Sony. What model were you considering? Perhaps this one?

SONY STRDA2400-BLK at Richer Sounds - HI-FI Separates, Home Cinema, Speakers, MP3 DVD Portables, Plasma LCD, etc.

I haven't done a direct comparison but my own receiver was neither difficult to set up or use, and to me sounds perfectly fine. In fact if I had a similar amount to spend on a Receiver as you now, the above would be my choice, especially at that price.

If they had silver I'd be very tempted as it looks identical to mine and the girlfriend wouldn't even notice the difference.:devil:

If by setup you mean calibration I would be surprised if any mentioned come without a supplied microphone for this purpose and it can be completely automatic or manually done using the onscreen menus. The menu on the 1200ES has a very "Commodore 64" look to it but I believe thats been rectified in subsequent newer models.

Apart from renaming inputs to suit and by choosing AFD I rarely find the need to touch anything apart from the On/Off switch, and on the remote, changing inputs and volume.

Obviously, if several posts appear condeming Sony on both counts I will have to eat humble pie :smashin: and get an Onkyo.
 
Last edited:
so forgetting looks, would you say the 606 for its price, gives a pretty good solution for a pair of bookshelfs? It seems with this amp you get a whole lot for your money?

It would seem that way wouldn't it?

You get a whole lot of other stuff but amplification is not something you get a lot of with the Onkyo.
 
They seem generally well liked, however, what else would you recommend I check out for the £400 mark?
 
They seem generally well liked, however, what else would you recommend I check out for the £400 mark?

If you can stretch your budget a bit, the Marantz SR5003 can still be grabbed for £499, although the list price for it has just gone up to £650 recently.

It is a superb performer in both stereo and multichannel and is very straight forward to setup and operate.
 
seems to tick all the boxes, and it is very cool looking too, just found it for 489, was about to buy it, but site wouldn't let me "add to basket" then noticed it can only be bought in store, and they are too far away. Also isn't this a bit low compared to others? 90 Watts at 8 ohm RMS
 
Last edited:
Also isn't this a bit low compared to others? 90 Watts at 8 ohm RMS

That is actually very good. Bear in mind a lot of other manufacturer measure their power outputs in different ways. The output power from the Onkyo 606 is quoted at 140 watts, but that is not RMS and is only with one channel driven at at one specifica frequency. The actual RMS power output with all channels drive is likely to be in the region of 15-20 watts.

You need to be very careful about how manufacturer's quote their power output figures, there are many ways of making them seem more powerful than they actually are.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom