Receivers

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Onkyo TX-DS696 Digital Surround Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted August 6, 2001
Almost 20 years ago matrix-encoded Dolby Surround videotapes and laserdiscs brought surround sound to home theaters. Almost 15 years ago Dolby Pro Logic decoding raised the ante by extracting a center-channel signal from Dolby Surround recordings. And more than half a decade has passed since Dolby Digital brought discrete digital 5.1-channel surround sound home.

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Denon AVR-5800 Digital Surround Receiver

(Originally published in: Sound & Vision, Dec. 2000)
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted June 6, 2001
At some future date, someone, somewhere, will come up with a bigger, heavier, more powerful, and more fully featured A/V receiver than the one reviewed here. But until then we'll just have to make do with Denon's AVR-5800 - all 62 pounds, 1,190 watts, and seven THX Ultra-certified channels of it.

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Test Bench: Denon AVR-4308CI A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted February 3, 1989
Denon's AVR-4308CI impressed, with very good power results, and virtually perfect noise and linearity performance. Power with stereo channels driven handily bettered Denon's 140 watts spec, and performance with 5 channels driven was only a scant half-dB shy of that mark, at 126 watts.

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Test Bench: Pioneer VSX-94TXH A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted January 1, 1989
Pioneer's latest A/V receiver produced uniformly excellent bench results: linearity and S/N were close to perfect on both PCM and Dolby Digital signals, while distortion and frequency response were nearly as good (the latter, in particular, on 96/24 PCM).

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Test Bench: Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted December 6, 1988
As seems usual for Onkyo, the TX-SR605 showed just how technically accomplished mass-produced electronics can be today, with perfectly flat frequency response and perfect D/A linearity to -90 dB (and beyond). Both are as good results as I've measured, and while my memory isn't infallible, I believe this to be the first time these two particular aces have been drawn by the same unit.

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Test Bench: Yamaha RX-V1800 A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted December 4, 1988
Yamaha's RX-V1800 yielded the fine technical performance usual from the firm's A/V receivers. Power exceeded its specs by a good margin and bettered 100 watts all around, even with 5 channels driven.

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Test Bench: Meridian G95 DVD Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted December 3, 1988
Meridian's G95 measured excellently in every test. Power was just about spot on its 100-watt spec, though the unit fell a bare 0.8 dB short of this level with all 5 channels driven. True to its high-efficiency Class D nature, the G95 remained at virtually the same temperature (warm, but not hot) whether it was left idling all day, or driven to the verge of clipping for long periods.

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Test Bench: AudioControl Maestro M2e Preamp/Processor & Savoy Power Amp
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted October 3, 1988
AudioControl's Maestro M2e/Savoy duo produced very impressive power in all tests, with the Savoy generating more watts than expected from such a relatively compact and light amplifier. It met its 150 watts-per-channel spec even with all seven channels driven simultaneously and surpassed it by wide margins in our stereo and five-channel trials.

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Test Bench: Onkyo TX-SR875 A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted September 5, 1988
I've come to expect stellar bench results from high-echelon Onkyos (and lower-echelon ones, too, usually), and I got them. Noise and distortion measurements were uniformly state of the art. Frequency response was excellent as well, though the TX-SR875 exhibited a very small rolloff, of about 0.5 dB per octave, above about 10 kHz in all playback modes.

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Test Bench: Arcam Solo Movie 5.1 DVD Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted September 2, 1988
DOLBY DIGITAL PERFORMANCE

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Test Bench: Sony STR-DG910 A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted July 5, 1988
DOLBY DIGITAL PERFORMANCE

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Test Bench: Cambridge Audio Azur 640R A/V Receiver
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted May 4, 1988
The Cambridge Audio Azur 640R was a pleasure to measure, as it consistently delivered expected behavior and declined to snap fuses, smoke circuit boards, or require resetting, despite the usual abuse.

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