Onkyo TX-NR3009 owners thread

RoughRider

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I can't be the first person with one of these but I can't find any other owners' thread. Thought I would share initial experience.

I think it sounds better than my old Yamaha AX-1, and that was a hell of an amplifier, that was a £2k machine over 10 years ago (albeit I paid £1k since it was already an old model when I bought it new). Which is a huge relief :clap: after dropping £2k on this new one. It's not quite as heavy but it's still very heavy. And big, it doesn't fit on the shelves of my not particularly awesome but nice and cheap £99 rack from Richer Sounds because it is too deep, so it sits on top. Where it felt quite toasty anyway so not such a bad thing, just aesthetically I will want to move it onto a shelf at some point.

I haven't finished full set-up or really played with it yet, did a basic 2 minute Audyssey that is all. And I can only really compare it to my old kit. I have from time to time demoed some pretty decent, similarly specced gear and I had never heard anything sufficiently 'better' to induce me to upgrade, I have to say this is coming out tops of what I have ever listened to, but I say that using my subjective and faulty memory of hearing different combinations of amps speakers and so on. So;

The opening screen of Battlefield 3 on the PS3 just sounds much clearer. I spent several hours of last weekend playing it with 2 friends at quite loud volume on my old gear. Last night I turned it up to reference on the Onkyo, that is louder than we had it, but it also sounded much clearer. If you know it, it's quite a dirty and bassy sound anyway. I am very hopeful that dialogue in noisy movies will be easier to hear, and so far I think it will from this small test.

I also listened to a bit of streamed music from my NAS and from Napster (High Flying Birds), the only real thing to report is that the listening modes (that I have never had before e.g. IIx) sound much less intrusive and more worthwhile having than "Church" "Disco" etc. the just seemed to make stereo fill out the room much more nicely. I actually think I will use them, all I had ever used other that "Direct" in the past was adding in a 6th rear. There are also so many combinations/permutations available though (DPLIIx Neo:THX Ultra S Game anyone??) I feel a bit lost trying to pick one. Sound quality was fine but I wasn't "listening" hard enough to give meaningful analysis I'm not super-audiophile anyway tbh.

What else? There is no hard copy manual only a disc. I couldn't guess how to drive a single rear speaker (I ran out of speaker wires to wire both, I had left a single 2 plug to 4 plug connector) so at one point I had leads from both surround back out terminals driving the same speaker - and I think this short circuited it, it switched off and said "check SP wire" when turned on :facepalm: So I undid that particular variation of trying to connect speakers to amp with not enough cables.

In the Audyssey setup I may have had a glitch, I'm not sure what happened but it couldn't find a left surround speaker, then I messed around with connections (specifically I moved my "single" rear speaker from surround back left to surround back right terminals, or the other way around I can't remember) anyway then it all worked. Distances seemed to be very accurate. Tuning begins by calibrating your sub to output 75dB, which mine did, exactl (at only 25% gain on the sub's amp), after calibration the sub level had been set +3dB, which I didn't quite understand, other than that the SPL measurement for the sub is slow/not very responsive and maybe it didn't wait long enough to get to a steady state. Time (on Saturday) will tell.

The video mode function is very easy to use (ISF Day, Night, Custom, Through etc.) because you can actually switch to keep your source image on screen as you cycle through them, so you really know what you are doing to your picture. In terms of actual calibration, don't know yet, but these modes made subtle differences e.g. movie was more muted I could already imagine films looking good (more 'real') on that setting.

The streaming functions are OK. I got into Napster although it failed to login a couple of times initially, the interface offers the most popular categories e.g. top 100's, genre, search, but not all of the options you get in the PC or squeezebox interfaces. Compared to squeezebox interface (especially the one in the iPhone app iPeng) it is clumsy and inflexible - squeezebox can build playlists mix-and-match between napster and my NAS for example. That said you would have a huge amount of fun if you are a Napster virgin, and you get a free trial period, and you can easily play your music from your PC on your stereo easily, so if you haven't had that ability before it will be a revelation. Once you have experienced running your own server/squeezebox or similar combo you wouldn't go back to this though. Setup onto the network was an absolute breeze, all I did was plug it in.

The iPhone remote control app is good too, I suspect (having played with Pio and Denon demo ones) it is actually the best of these three. You can choose you Napster songs right on your iPhone for example.

Overall I am very pleased with (a) the sound and (b) that I think finally some electronic interference to the source (be it Dolby PLxII Music, or Dynamic EQ, or even just the Audyssey) has finally got good enough that I may actually want to switch some of it on
 
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Firmware update over wired ethernet - couldn't be easier. Used app to make sure I was sending bitstream where possible.

I didn't need the update since it is for working with the android app, which I don't have, but I thought it might bring other benefits. I removed some of the HDMI leads since a signal sent over HDMI (the thing where devices control each other via this cable) can cause the update to fail. Then I selected Update, Receiver, via ethernet, and hit go. The machine warned me it will take 60 minutes, and then indicates it is downloading %. After not very long this finishes and VMPU Writing % takes over, then ARM Writing %, finally after I estimate less than 15 minutes, "Completed!" at which point you need to switch it off using the button on the front, then when you switch it back on it works.

I had error messages a couple of times yesterday in the iPhone app for the first time that I didn't see the day before I hope the update didn't cause them, in any case just clicking OK made them go away with no apparent ill effects.

The app was very useful to tell me what signal my PC was sending to the amp, since I didn't know if my graphics card (Nvidia GTX 570) would send bitstream. By using "i" information button for the selected input in the app, I get a screen telling me frequency and type of signal e.g. PCM 192kHz, 2.0, Dolby Digital 5.1 48kHz, etc. So I learned three things (i) my card won't output HD bitstreams and (ii) if you stream DTS 5.1 the app reports it as Dolby Digital 5.1 even though I am 99% sure I was sending DTS since I selected this soundtrack in my Master and Commander DVD. (iii) My receiver can receive and process a 192kHz signal, I didn't even know these existed, and I still don't know how my PC can extract a 192kHz signal from 44 or 48kHz source material (i.e. any DVD). I decided not to send it raw AAC since I heard many amps can't process this and didn't want to risk a digital explosion of speakers until I have looked into it.

I don't actually know how else you can tell what is being sent, I suppose you can inspect tiny lights on the front but then you need the manual to know which is which, which is on a disc, so not very convenient
 
Hi Roughrider,

I have bought a TX-NR3009, along with a Panasonic 3D Plasma and Cambridge Audio 751bd from RS but won't be receiving it until the start of February as I'm moving house at the end of the month and have asked for delivery of all items to my new house. I currently use an Onkyo TX-SR806 which I have been very happy with but in the presence of my new 3009 will find itself relegated to elsewhere in the house. I am particularly looking forward to the Audyssey XT32, the new Neo:X and refinements in sound. How many speakers are you now running from your 3009 and how do you have them set up? I currently only have enough for a 7.1 set up so would be intrigued to know if you've discovered any auditory revelations by way of set up.

What do you think the video upscaling is like for SD DVD?

It's a shame that there is very little information around on this receiver yet but what I have seen has been very positive. I'm certainly looking forward to running it through it's paces in a month and would welcome any more input you have on your experiences with it thus far. Who knows maybe there will be more people that find their way to this thread in the near future. Thanks for posting your initial thoughts on the 3009 and I'll be sure to let you know mine when it finally arrives!! :D
 
I can't find the 3009 on the RS website. Can i ask how much you paid for it ?

PM me if you dont want to say on here ;) Or indeed tell me you dont want to say :D

Thanks
 
DodgeTheViper said:
I can't find the 3009 on the RS website. Can i ask how much you paid for it ?

PM me if you dont want to say on here ;) Or indeed tell me you dont want to say :D

Thanks

Dodge,

Consider yourself PM'd! :)
 

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