Don't get me started on Philips. Their low -to- medium end equipment is made
as junky as possible by children and political prisoners. The physical
construction is shoddy and unusual. Parts are over priced, then not
available when you need them. Crummy phone service, and they have a
well-deserved reputation for not honoring consumer rebates. Even their
higher-end product gets crappy support. I could go on but the guys on this
groups are probably tired of hearing it.
Mark Z.
"News" wrote in message
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"Mark D. Zacharias" wrote in message
...
"News" wrote in message
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I don't favor Harman Kardon, mainly because they don't seem like quite a
"legitimate" manufacturer. They haven't built their own stuff for
DECADES.
Their recent year receiver are sourced from Hu-Nos-Hu (probably Philips)
in
China, except one model I saw was based on the Marantz SR-7000. Their DVD
players are Philips-based, made in China and are the most unserviceable
I've
ever seen, and not even very reliable. I should be honest and mention
that
I
have a simple prejudice against anything Philips.
Thanks for the heads up on that. This will probably rule them out as the
price was holding me back anyway. What's the problem(s?) with Philips?
Upconverting composite to S-Video is neat - not many do that. So far as I
know, the whole point of multi-room operation is to play a second source
remotely - I think they pretty much all do that. A digital input on the
front is nice. I'd probably never use it, but lots of others would.
Friends
bringing other stuff over, etc.
On the 601, you can play a different audio source to the 2nd zone (or even
a
line out). For example, I can have a movie playing in one room from the
DVD
input, but have a CD playing in the other room on speaker pair B (or run
the
line out to the amp/reciever in the other room). All the others mentioned
here have A/B speaker setups for a single audio source playing in both
rooms. The digital input may be rarely used, but when it finally happens,
it
would be very convenient. The TX-SR501 has plenty of potentially rarely
used
features, but they will be eventually, and maybe worth the $55 now.
Gotta admit the 502 looks like the better deal. Amp power is within 10
watts/channel, and has the newer features. Be a good idea to check
whether
any of these are "B" stock units. More chances of problems - though the
warranties should take care of this if it happens.
Both the 502 and 601 are refurbished, which is what gets the price down
and
why I looked into extended warranties. Apparently I just missed a sale on
a
brand new 602 for $300 delivered. Out of the price range, but might have
been worth it.
A couple of things you might want to check are the remote controls - how
easy they are to read and use, for example, and the on-screen stuff
(setups
and so forth). Some receivers are more complicated to set up. See if they
have a "quick set-up" function.
As far as I can tell, only the Onkyo 601 has OSD. As far as remotes go,
I'm
looking into a universal LCD learning remote like a Pronto. I have too
many
as it is 
I've never really used the video functions of these - in fact I mostly
only
use the various surround modes, soundfields, on-screen, etc when I have
one
on the bench with a particular problem. However, I do think Yamaha
probably
has the edge in DSP performance - they design and build their own
processor
IC's etc, Denon and Onkyo buy theirs from whoever.
Yamaha has better technical support, too.
If there's one thing that I've seen it's that reviewers praise the Yamaha
DSPs while being lukewarm on just about everyone elses. While my
experience
is limited, I have heard several usable Yamaha DSP settings while maybe 1
at
best on other brands. Definitely something to take into consideration.
I used to like Technics (Panasonic) but that was decades ago. Stay away.
Sherwood has been putting out some high end stuff lately which is
probably
pretty nice, but their lower - mid priced stuff has been pretty junky for
years. Stay away for now at least.
Thanks again. It was just interesting to see how well received the
Panasonic
and Sherwood units are on the low end of things. But again, for less than
$50 more in both cases, it's really toughh to overlook the Onkyo.
Thanks again Mark and Russ, of course, further comments still appreciated