Onkyo 606, 705 or 706?

You should give it more than 2 hours, people are working

1. Not sure, TV's usually do this well enough.
2. 10w is definitely not worth $170, THX probably isn't either.

I don't have answers for you about the rest. The 606 is a really popular unit and people seem to be very pleased with it.

-Ex

The 706 came out last to price has only just started to drop, where the prices of the others have stabilized, do you see the price of the 606 getting much lower? No. Wait another month or so until the holidays and see what the 706 drops to, probably to $600 or even less then decide between that and the 606. Otherwise, if you have to act now, go with the 705. There are a bunch of thchnical differences between these three beyond what you just stated, do a little homework and see what's important to you, here's a start: Go here http://www.onkyousa.com/download/brochure.cfm and download the 2008-2008 Onkyo catalog to compare the 606 to the 706, it's a PDF and there's a side by side comparison page near the end of all of their receivers. You can also see this year's and last year's models by going here: http://www.onkyousa.com/prod_class.c...Receiver&m=all to compare the 706 and 606 to the 705. Hope that helpes.

As for myself, I am waiting for the 706 to come down in price during the holiday bargan season.

Audyssey wise the 705 & 706 have MultEQ while the 606 only has 2EQ. The 606 and 706 have both Dynamic EQ which the 705 does not have. I guess I'd get either the 606 or wait a little and then get the 706.

I a newbie to HDMI so maybe I'm missing something but having a receiver that can upconvert to 1080p would only seem a "feature" if there was something wrong with your TV's handling of the upconversion internally. For instance, our TH-50PX80U seems to do a fine job on anything I throw at it (even SD cable) so there doesn't seem to be much room for improvement.

For my part, I'd be all about the TX-SR606. Comparing it to the '705 I think "Dynamic EQ" is more useful than "MultiEQ" on the Audessey side. The "2EQ" in our older receiver (TX-SR505) seems to work great but then again our listening area is just basically one linear sofa that seats three. As for the '706 that's way out of my price range...but it sounds like the best reciever on the list!

When you hook up a VCR or old video game system (N64, PS, (S)NES, SEGA Whatever).

I have been wondering the same thing regarding the 1080p upscaling feature. I have a PS3 that I use to watch Blu Ray disks and I do notice an "upconversion" when I play a standard DVD with the PS3. It looks much better - not blu ray quality of course but impressive. I am not sure if it's only my PS3 or if the TV (Samsung 750) is also upconverting.

Since HD television comes thru as either 720p or 1080i - I am wondering if the Onkyo 706 will upconvert this signal to make it noticeably better. I don't expect true blu-ray quality but will it improve? What about the channels that are not HD- what kind of upconversion will the Onkyo receiver have with those?

I have been to 3 major electronic stores to ask the sales reps about this and have found that none of them can explain what the 1080p upscaling does.

I disagree... I have a dvd recorder with a built in HDD connected via. component video to the Onk 705, 705 HDMI to the Sammy tv, it looks much sharper than prior to the 705. Difference from night and day my friend, but again, that is just my opinion.

Unless your TV is ancient or very odd it will accept anything from 480i on up and convert it to whatever its native pixel count might be. Why do so many people ask about video upconversion as an AVR feature, what am I missing?

I can't believe that upconversion-on-a-chip, thrown in as the 39th in a feature list on a $500 AVR, is going to somehow be of magical quality far beyond that built into the television. Sounds to me like a toss-in feature with no practical utility. Certainly no reason to pay twice as much for a receiver.

I know what you are saying, but when I ran the recorder directly via. component to the Sammy 1080i DLP (3 years old) it looked good, but, not noticably as good as running thru the Onk 705. 56" inch TV btw

Audyssey MultEQ XT on the 705 vs. Audyssey MultEQ and Audyssey Dynamic EQ for Loudness Correction on the 705.

THX Select2 on the 705 vs. THX Select2 Plus for the 706 (THX Loudness Plus).

You gain 1080p upconversion on the 706 vs. 720p for the 705.

You get one more HDMI on the 706.

You lose THX Neural Surround on the 706 vs. the 705.

You lose the Optical Digital Out on the 706.

3 DSP's on the 705 vs. 2 DSP's on the 706. (Not sure what this affects if anything).

Not sure what else is different, I'm just wondering if the 706 is worth the extra $68.68 (today's pricing) vs. the 705. I wonder if the 705 is actually the better receiver as long as an extra HDMI or upconversion doesn't matter.

Video upscaling is handy, if You got component sources and hdmi sources. 706 converts all analog and digital inputs up to 1080p hdmi. In theory. In my unit, upscaling chip is overheating and it simply doesn't work, when hot. And my receiver is standing separately, not in between other boxes.

PS

I had problems with component -> HDMI upscaling. HDMI signal blanked out when receiver warmed up. I changed the receiver under the warranty and new one doesn't has this problem. Aso everything else is fine, including Audyssey.