Old Onkyo 905 and 875 or wait for new product releases?

[admin_exported]

I need two AV amps. One for a cinema room and one for a kitchen/living space with connections for a zone 2 in the conservatory.

The question is whether to buy the Onkyo 905 for the cinema and 875 for the kitchen/conservatory now at the reduced price of £900 and £700 that they are available for at Superfi, or wait for the new models to come out. Just how big an improvement do you think they'll be with their replacements?

 

[Clare Newsome]

Hi Will,

Well, we are seeing an improvement in this years' models - especially as all the other manufacturers out-do themselves trying to address Onkyo's incredible success last year.

However, most of the action seems to be at the budget end - we still haven't seen anything to touch the two big Onks, especially when it comes to their video processing functionality. And at that money....

(FYI - we've got the 876 in, but the 906 still seems a little way off).

 

[Anonymous]

if your going for a big amp surely you must have bluray/hd cable/hd sat

so you wont need to use the scaler, just get something that sounds good mate

i had a yamaha 3800 sound quality wise it blow the onkyo ot the water

 

[professorhat]

Not necessarily true - even though I have a Blu-Ray player, I also have a heck of a lot of old DVDs which all need upscaling, not to mention most TV is also SD so also needs upscaling. The Onkyos will more than likely have a better scaler in than your existing Blu-Ray player / Freeview / Freesat box for these sources.
Have you heard the Onkyos? I haven't heard the Yamaha but I'd be surprised if it was capable of 'blowing my Onkyo 905 out of the water'...

 

[Anonymous]

depends on your system i suppose, ive got V+ and a ps3 on a sony lcd, wont you need to be messing with your options on your kit all the time? i thought u cant scale a progressive signal? my ps3 is set to 1080p and v+ to 720p if i wanted to scale through my amp then i'd have to knock the quality down only to bring it back up again and do that everytime i want to watch something thats SD - seems like a lot of hassle.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Nope, you just set all your kit to output at native/Auto and let the Onkyo's processing do the rest. Easy.

 

[Anonymous]

Clare thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.

I'm not concerned with the looks of the Onkyos. I think they look ok anyway. But the people that will be using them are my good old folks. And they're not what you'd call, technology savvy. Took my Mum 6 months to learn how to use a mouse. I'm glad I didn't inherit that trait. Maybe it's a generational thing.

Anyhow! I suppose what I want to ask is this, will the new Onks be easier to use than the outgoing models. I'm guessing, that at the price you can get them for now, it's probably better to just go ahead and worry about it later. The only other questions is whether there are many differences between the 875 and 905. Would it make their lives easier to buy two of the same, after all at 900 for a 905, they're cheaper than the 875 before. Or stick with the one of each approach and save a few pounds. Does having a network capability mean I could integrate a NAS at a future date with the 905?

That might really blow their technological bobbles off.

 

[Clare Newsome]

I haven't yet had a play with the 876 we've had in, so I have no idea if usability has changed.

The main difference between the 875 and 905 is extra power, the dual HDMI outputs (but doesn't sound like they're going to use a TV plus projector) and the networking capabilities. I've not explored the latter much beyond it's highly entertaining internet radio capabilities - here's a link to the manual, where there's much more detail on networking.

 

[Anonymous]

Had a read and it's very interesting. The 905 can read from a NAS and from PCs with sharing enabled. This could make it a very flexible friend.

The only downside of the 905 seems to be a rather horrific remote control and not the prettiest of menu systems. Doesn't anyone learn from Apple?

 

[Anonymous]

Clare Newsome:
I haven't yet had a play with the 876 we've had in, so I have no idea if usability has changed.

The main difference between the 875 and 905 is extra power, the dual HDMI outputs (but doesn't sound like they're going to use a TV plus projector) and the networking capabilities. I've not explored the latter much beyond it's highly entertaining internet radio capabilities - here's a link to the manual, where there's much more detail on networking.

Hi Clare,

Any details on the 876? How do the specs compare versus the 875? Thanks.

 

[professorhat]

Hi Will, can confirm it can read from a DLNA enabled NAS as I have one - you just need to create a folder called Music on the top level of the NAS and then put all your music in there (this can be further subdivided into folders as well within this Music folder).
I'll admit the remote isn't pretty but it is pretty functional and I do tend to use it rather than my Harmony when doing specific things with the Onkyo.

 

[Anonymous]

Professorhat, if you're using the Onkyo to play music from a NAS, how does it deal with the concept of playlists? Is there any support for that sort of thing, or does it just play from a folder. If so would this mean you'd have to create copies of music in different folders to effectively create playlists? Thanks for the advice!

 

[Sorreltiger]

I wonder, Clare - do you have either of the new Denon receivers yet? ÿI remember you saying a couple of weeks back that either the 2309 or the 2809 might be arriving. ÿI've been following the US forums and the first batch seem to be in the stores.

 

[professorhat]

Hi Will,
I don't actually use the NAS to store music, I generally listen to CDs or play music from my Mac through Airport Express. I did try this out though to answer some questions before, hence my reply and I've had another look this evening. There is a Playlists option on the Network setting, but I can't see any way of adding to it - it just has 'Most Played' and 'Last Played' as defaults. I also tried creating aliases to songs stored in other folders in a folder called 'Playlist' but the Onkyo couldn't see it so this doesn't work as a workaround I'm afraid. There is a section in the manual on getting it working with Windows Media Player though so I'm guessing you could use Playlists through this - might be worth a read - link.
Hope this helps.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Sorreltiger:I wonder, Clare - do you have either of the new Denon receivers yet? I remember you saying a couple of weeks back that either the 2309 or the 2809 might be arriving. I've been following the US forums and the first batch seem to be in the stores.

There's a chance we may get the AVR-2309, but not the AVR-2809, shortly - Denon UK doesn't seem to be on the priority list for stock!

 

[Anonymous]

It seems both Superfi and Richer Sounds are offering the Onkyo 905 for the seemingly bargain price of £900. Does anyone know of any other retails offering a better discount on this item and does anyone suspect the price may get lower as the replacements come through?

 

[Anonymous]

Now, I'm planning to hide away these fella's so does anyone have the lowdown on how to fit an IR repeater, or which is the best one to use to bridge the cupboard door divide!?

Also, anyone know any companies making virtually silent fans that can be fitted into the side of cabinetry to extract the warm air from the amps etc. maybe something with a 12v trigger?

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe try this

And this

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for that. I wonder if the Onkyo's AC output could be used to power a 4 plug adaptor to which items like these fans could be plugged in? Would this AC Output be a switched output, ie. only switched on when the main Onkyo is switched on? If this were the case, then it would alleviate the need to find a 12v triggered fan set-up.

 

[Anonymous]

You'll need to get an AC/DC converter, plug that into the Onk's AC out, then connect your fans to that. You can then change the power settings controlling the speed of the fan, but computer fans are pretty quiet nowadays anyway.