Digital Trends

Onkyo TX-SR606

June 4th, 2008 | by Chris Chiarella

Testing and Use

I was able to perform all basic setup and tests using just the simple blue LED readout on the face of the unit and the clean, ergonomic remote control. The same information can also be displayed bigger and brighter on the screen of a connected TV. Also here is Audyssey 2EQ, a smart room calibrator that automatically determines the number, size, and crossover settings of the connected speakers, to work best with the subwoofer (if you're using one) and factor in room size and listening position. If you can plug in a cable--the jack is on the front panel, people!--and move the small microphone thrice to different spots on your couch, and press a single button as many times, you can do this. It's pretty empowering to custom-configure your own home theater in less than the ten minutes estimated in the manual. Audyssey 2EQ also plays well with the newly added Audyssey Dynamic EQ algorithm, which provides real-time loudness correction to compensate for a variety of sonic anomalies in your home theater. When it's engaged, you'll probably never know what you're missing, and that's a good thing, as it results in truer, more natural sound.

Stereo music CD's via the TX-SR606 were as clean and lifelike as I've ever heard within my walls, but of course the most revealing performance tests would be done with Blu-ray's Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. Touted as "lossless," these formats can be bit-for-bit identical to the original master recordings created by the studios. The receiver automatically detects whichever sound format we choose on a disc and decodes accordingly.

So much of what I was hearing was what I was not hearing: After more than a decade of DVD watching, my principle complaints remain frequently muffled dialogue and the occasional distortion of high frequencies. Across a slew of demo discs, these problems not only disappeared, but I experienced a revelation akin to my first discrete Dolby Digital 5.1 review: I thought I knew what a great cinematic surround environment was supposed to sound like, but now the effortless reproduction of all channels and their blend into a seamless whole, combined with the abundance of organic detail, brought me closer to the movies than ever before.

Of course it also supports the best that DVD has to offer, including Dolby Digital EX 5.1 and DTS-ES 6.1. While a variety of after-the-fact processing modes is provided (Orchestra, Unplugged, Studio-Mix, etc.), each represents another step away from the creators' original intent, and so they should be used with discretion. The 90 available watts per channel are more than enough to fill a medium-to-large home theater without introducing distortion.

We live in a world of multiple, disparate video sources, and one of the most attractive features of the TX-SR606 is its ability not only to switch between its different inputs and use a single output to the TV (my display ran out of inputs years ago) but what it does with all of those signals. The onboard Faroudja Directional Correlational Deinterlacing (DCDi) chip turns standard 480i video content into smoother, more pleasing 480p. Popping in an old Faroudja/Sage DCDi demonstration disc, I found the effect is most pronounced on "jaggies," those stair-step edges on difficult-to-reproduce diagonal lines, and it can be a real boon here to all of your standard-quality source material, particularly if your DVD player does not offer its own progressive scan output.

Image Courtesy of Onkyo

New for this model is 1080i upscaling on all analog signals, even measly 480i composite. It's not quite the blessing that is sounds like, as it cannot magically turn your standard-def video into perfectly believable HD. It can pull heretofore unseen detail from movies and TV, but it can also introduce new artifacting, a digital haze that some viewers might find unpleasant. This is a feature you will want to experiment with, to see firsthand if the good outweighs the bad, but kudos to Onkyo for including the option.




Conclusion

While the $579 price tag qualifies this product as "mid-range" and not "entry level" in the grand scheme of receivers, such value in an HDMI-switching Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD Master Audio all-in-one is hard, maybe impossible to match. For me, the two extra HDMI outputs alone make this receiver worth the increase from the previous generation's $499. The additional refinements of the Music Optimizer, 1080i upscaling and Audyssey Dynamic EQ loudness compensation are delicious gravy.

So you have your HDTV, your Blu-ray player, and a bunch of speakers: Everything you need to complete the home theater experience is right here. Well-featured, reasonably priced, and high-performance, the Onkyo TX-SR606 AV receiver is a sound investment.


Pros:

• Full support for the latest high-def audio formats
• Ample power, including a powered second zone
• Generous inputs, including four HDMI


Cons:
 
• 1080i video upscaling is good, could look better
• No backlight on the remote