Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Channels Receiver

Onkyo's stellar reputation is upheld by the 606. It offers a lot of features and performance at a reasonable price. Read on to learn why.

Styling of the TX-SR606 is nothing to write home about. It is a big receiver in terms of height -- I typically find this is a good thing as it points to beefier internal components. Fitment for most people shouldn't be a problem if they have any sort of reasonable entertainment center. Do remember to not block the top vents as a lot of heat is expelled through there. The metal has a nice brushed look to it and the front is not cheap plastic.

The buttons all have a nice firm "click" to them, and the volume knob turns with just the right resistance. The display is a tad on the small side, but this was probably done so as not to be distracting while watching your TV. There are very few "status lights" or other annoying indicators on the front, which is nice. Large rubber feet keep the receiver in place. Onkyo of course decided to plaster the front with tons of gimmicky "feature decals" to remind you of all the crazy stuff it can do. Fortunately they're small and near the bottom left corner.

The rest of the construction is standard Onkyo-fare: full metal frame, metal front, and minimal case flex. This doesn't feel cheap when you take it out of the box for the first time.

The amplifier features are also very strong, as I've come to expect from Onkyo. At 90W RMS per channel (for each of the 7 channels), you'll find that even at half-volume the 606 can easily fill even the largest family rooms with sound. If you're one who throws loud parties or you just like losing your hearing, the 606 continues to output clean and powerful sound even as you approach maximum volume. This is another sign of the quality components -- cheaper receivers ($200 and under) will distort badly once turned up. Digital amplifiers even more so. This receiver does throw off a LOT of heat when powered on, so please be certain you give it adequate cooling space or you'll see the "OVERLOAD" feature turn everything off to prevent damage. This happened to me once as my party guests decided to set some purses on the top of the amp.

Feature-wise, the 606 does it all...and for a very modest price, too. There are two big features that really sold me, the first being the capability for Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio. These are the new formats found on HD DVD and Blu-ray; they promise crisper audio through more discrete channels than was possible even with DTS-ES and Dolby Digital EX. Denon, Yamaha, and Sony don't even offer support for this format until you spend $700 or more -- Onkyo does it for under $500.

The other big selling point for me was the Faroudja DCDi 1080i upconversion on analog content. Upconversion in itself is common these days, but for an amp costing under $500 to do it via a Faroudja chipset was insane! This can really help turn older content (DVD, for example) into something more enjoyable on a big TV. Even if you don't have a display that can handle 1080i, the motion processing chip is still good enough to clean up a lot of jagged edges and other digital artifacts.

Other than that, the 606 again is standard Onkyo fare. Lots of soundfields and decodeable formats, plenty of configuration options, and a strong array of choices for speaker setup. The setup menus are very complex and deep here, and really give you some fine-tuning adjustments. I suggest reading through the manual, as even I was overwhelmed at first. A few noteworthy features are the full multi-band equalizer (no more cheesy "bass" and "treble" adjustments), manual override of 6.1 channel upconversion, audio/video sync adjustment, and even the ability to handle bi-amp speakers.

Onkyo has also started including a new Audyssey configuration tool for optimizing the sound quality out-of-the-box. A small microphone is placed in a few locations around the room and takes measurements of reverberation, tone, etc. The receiver will automatically adjust levels, delays, and other settings so that you get pro-level sound quality without hiring a technician or wasting hours in a calibration DVD. I was truly stunned at the job it did -- for the ten minutes it took, I only needed to spend another minute or two fine adjusting things. It automatically dialed in appropriate level adjustments for my room, and even set the rear speaker delay correctly! A truly stunning feature that novices AND pros will appreciate.

Connections available on the 606 are abundant -- all the big video and audio inputs are accounted here, including the aforementioned HDMI (3 input, 1 ouput). You get multiple digital audio inputs that are not tied down to a given video input as well. Speaker connections are banana plug-compatible, but you can also use the old-fashioned method of threading the wire into the post and clamping down. The Zone 2 speaker inputs are smaller and a bit cheaper. I suggest consulting Onkyo's page for a full listing of all the inputs/outputs, but suffice to say that you won't run out of connectors.

The remote control is also typical for Onkyo -- cheesy, and poorly laid out. Buttons are in weird places and are labeled with tiny writing; they're also colored weird. I really suggest using it for setup and then throwing it back in the box. Any standard multi-purpose remote will be far easier to use than this kludgy POS.