Home > Consumer Reviews > Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black)

I purchased this from Amazon last week and finally set it up to my liking. I have the following components input into the receiver: Samsung BD-P1500 blu-ray, DirecTV TiVO (soon to be replaced with HD DVR), and Nintendo Wii. The blu-ray is connected with HDMI. The TiVO is connected with composite (red, white, yellow). The Nintendo Wii is connected by component (red, green, blue). I have an LG 42LB5DC TV (42" LG full HD 1080p) that is connected to the receiver with HDMI. All the components are connected to the receiver and I have 1 HDMI cable going to my TV.

Tip #1: I have 5.1 surround and was looking forward to the Audyssey Speaker Setup. I hooked up my speakers properly, however I connected my rear surrounds to the "Rear Surround Back" area. This receiver does 7.1. I don't have 7.1 so I thought that I would just skip the sides. Unfortunately the Audyssey setup kept giving me errors. I finally connected my REAR surrounds to the SIDE surrounds and the setup went through perfectly. Audyssey did a great job balancing my speakers.

Tip#2: I was looking forward to the 1080i upscaling for analog signals. Since I am upgrading to a DirecTV HD DVR, my only analog component is the Nintendo Wii. When I first connected the Wii and turned everything on the receiver was not detecting my 16:9 widescreen preference. I had to setup the receiver to make all HDMI signals go to "Auto" instead of "Through". "Through" is the default setting. This just means push through any signal without doing anything to it (pass through). Once I selected "Auto" the Wii scaled appropriately.

Upconversion is only OK. But, you're getting a good value. In the future are you really going to need 1080i or 1080p upconversion? Probably not. That being said, analog TV signals upconverted don't look as good as you'd expect them to. However, I am sure the receiver will do a fine job once I upgrade to HD TV programming. The Wii looks fine for now.

I am very happy with the price and the performance of this receiver. It is exactly what I was looking for. Does the job well. Also remember you're probably going to be using all HDMI in the future. This receiver has 4 HDMI inputs. So it is definitely future-proof.

I love this receiver.

I bought it to replace an older receiver that did not have enough video inputs to handle all of the equipment I wanted to connect, so I had to use a 4 into 1 video switch box. Also, for Surround Sound, It could only do Dolby Pro Logic Enhanced. It had no support for anything digital, but it did have 6 discreet analog inputs for a standalone Dolby Digital processor which I don't have, and considered eBay'ing before I decided to just get a real receiver.

The Onkyo receiver has ALMOST enough video inputs for me to connect everything I have to it. I have a DVD player, Dish Network Receiver, a Linux video player, a VCR, a PS2, and a Wii that connects through the TV back to the receiver. That's 6 video sources. The Onkyo surprised me by allowing me to assign one of the Component video inputs to the CD or Tape input! That allowed me to turn an audio only input into a full A/V input. It brings this receiver's actual switchable A/V device count to SEVEN, so long as at least two of those are HD connections.

I've had my Cambridge SoundWorks speaker system for over 10 years. I've had it hooked up to a number of different receivers, and I've gotten used to what it sounds like. I hooked it all up to this Onkyo, and ran the automatic speaker setup routine. When I put in a DVD (into the same DVD player I've been using for months), and listened to it, It literally brought a tear to my eye. I had no idea my speakers were capable of sounding as good as they do now. The Audyssey system configured the level settings and several equalizer points to reshape what my speakers put out and now it's just incredible. I've never noticed my subwoofer before like I do now.

Interestingly, when I first did the setup, I didn't connect the center speaker correctly. When Audyssey couldn't hear it, it assumed I didn't have one and automatically setup my left and right speakers to create a phantom center channel. Wow.

I wanted to mention, since one previous reviewer says "manual controls of the levels would be nice" - you DO have the ability to manually fine tune or adjust the levels in the setup menu. You just can't adjust the equalizer settings without turning off Audyssey.

Another surprise I wasn't expecting is the Zone 2 system! if you're only going to use 5.1 speakers, you should know that this receiver sports a "Zone 2" that allows you to connect an extra set of speakers to use the extra two amplified channels. Sure, my previous receiver had a A and B speaker system, but what surprised me about the Onkyo is that Zone 2 can play a different input source! My wife is listening to her favorite radio station in her office while I watch a movie in 5.1 in the den, all from the same receiver. Amazing!

I will admit, I will miss the environmental DSP sounds like stadium mode and rock concert mode that my old receiver had, but I will also admit I hardly EVER used any of them. That's probably why they aren't a feature on new receivers. Instead, it has "Listening Modes" that are all about trying to squeeze every little bit of surround sound detail out of whatever kind of signal the receiver receives.

Initially, I had a problem with the receiver refusing to use any of its "Listening Modes". It seemed that no matter what source I gave it (except HDMI), it would run in "Direct" mode, playing just stereo. The solution turned out to be simple - go into hardware setup and turn off the audio output to the TV over HDMI. Once I turned that off, the whole system woke up and sang :)

I guess one complaint I have is that for some reason, the on-screen display, which is only displayed on a TV connected via HDMI is not displayed when the source is HDMI. Composite sources show volume and other information on screen, such as when changing listening mode. But my DVD player and Sat receiver seem to override that display, and I don't know why. Perhaps it's another setting I just haven't found yet. I hope so :P

I have no complains about the thing running hot. If it is hot, I haven't noticed. I also have no humming noises to complain about. Amazon got it into my hands rather quickly and I have no complaints about shipping.

All in all, I think my FAVORITE feature is the fact that no matter how I connect a video device to this receiver, it sends the picture to the TV over the HDMI cable. I'm not using the "upscale to 1080i" feature, but it's still very nice to not have to connect a composite, an SVideo, a set of component AND HDMI cables to the TV when it really only needs one link. My other devices make enough of a mess already

For what it is worth, I knew absolutely zero about home theater one month ago.

I recently bought a new TV, Samsung LN46A650, and was tired of the cables hanging off the back of it. I decided to by buy the Onkyo receiver after reading tons of reviews and talking to folks I know who are into the A/V scene. I am very happy with my purchase, and would recommend this product to anyone.

A couple of things I'd like to add:

1: I bought my home theater paycheck to paycheck. This means I bought my TV one week, the A/V receiver 2 weeks later, and my speakers 2 weeks later. While I just had my receiver hooked up, it passed audio from each of my inputs (Cable box, Apple TV, Wii, and PS3) straight through to my television. I had no clue it would do such a thing, and I even called Onkyo customer support to ask if it was possible. They said it was as long as the inputs were HDMI. Well, my Wii isn't HDMI, but it still passed the Component video and audio over the HDMI cable run through the wall to my TV. VERY NICE. Just thought that may be a selling point to anyone who is on a budget and can't afford speakers right away. Hope it made sense.

2: My speakers are in-ceiling Polk Audio RC80i's... The whole set up was easy and configuring on the receiver is not hard at all. I am now a huge fan of Onkyo. Setup was a breeze and now I have a home theater setup that may not be top of the line, but certainly impresses everyone who see's it. TV, speakers, subwoofer, and receiver for around $3k. Thank you Amazon!

Once out of the box and hooked up to speakers, the receiver is easy to set up. Plugging in the setup microphone triggers the automated calibration. The receiver figures out how many speakers you have and calculates the distance of each one from the center of the listening area. I had to tweak the center (dialog) speaker output upwards a little to get clear dialog without cranking the overall volume too much, but this has to be the easiest receiver set-up I've ever done.

I have hooked up a DirecTV HD DVR, PS3 (mainly used as a blu-ray DVD player), Wii (with component video cable) and even an old VCR and all work flawlessly. The Onkyo converts the Wii's 480p component video input into HDMI 1080i very cleanly, and the VCR gets digitized to 480i HDMI. Surround sound on DVR, DVD and blu-ray all sound great. Blu ray discs with 1080p at 24fps ("24p") from the PS3 work as well.

I give this unit 4 stars overall since the remote isn't quite universal enough -- I still need to use the DirecTV HD DVR remote for the 30-second fast-forward function, for example.

For its price, I believe this receiver is the best value out of all AVRs today.

The audyssey feature sets up everything for you and really improves the sound. The Dynamic EQ feature works very well for when you turn the volume down. You can still clearly hear dialog and everything even at low volume levels.

Listening to DTS-MA and TrueHD is also a huge jump over DTS and DD. Everything sounds crisp, clear, and more lifelike.

The 606 has 4 HDMI, does not run too hot, passes BTB/WTW, matrixes 5.1 audio to 7.1, passes 1080p/24, and even upscales and upconverts everything to 1080i. The upscaling is actually pretty decent too. It cleaned up the picture to my Wii quite a bit. It isn't the best upscaler/upconverter in the world, but its not bad either.

The music optimizer seems to be just like Creative's Sound Crystalizer on their X-Fi soundcards. It is supposed to make mp3s sound better, and it does, although it seems more like an advanced EQ setting than anything else.

I can also control all of my HDMI devices through the remote and my TV! Samsung's Anynet feature works very well with the Onkyo, and I can control my TV, cable box, and switch between all my devices with the Onkyo remote.

I am extremely impressed with this AVR, and highly recommend it.