Panasonic SA-BX500 Small Light Powerful - Page 21

I am so sad. I was watching the Olympics, shut down the HT system to take the dogs for a walk, came home 45 minutes later and turned it back on and . . . I should say tried to turn it back on. The Panny AVR's front-panel display will only briefly flash, won't power on. I doubt there was a power surge while I was gone, everything else is OK, and it's all plugged into a good surge suppressor. [One other clue. When I turned it off its input was set to cable/DVR. When I came home, its input had somehow changed to my Roku/Netflix box--that's what I'm seeing on my monitor, via the HDMI pass-thru, which is apparently still working.] I've tried unplugging it from the AC to reset, no joy. Anything else I can try? I'm still in my warranty period until June, but will Panasonic actually repair this out-of-production baby for me? Oh man, am I bummed.

I picked this AVR up at Fry's for a 1 day sale almost a year ago for $250. They only had one and I think it was supposed to be a display. Ever since then I have not seen them anywhere. Anybody know why they were discontinued or why they are going for over $500 on ebay?

Beats me. You can get an Onkyo 607 at Newegg or Amazon for around $400. You can also demo or buy at BB.

My 607 works fine with my Panasonic 850 plasma and BD60. I don't rely on the Viera-Link, but I have seen the HDMI-CEC work between the 3 of them.

Seems like if Panasonic was going to announce a 2010 dedicated AVR, they would have by now (along with the new TVs and BDs).

Only Panasonic knows why it was discontinued. Their distribution was strange, to put it mildly. This model could only be bought at Amazon, J&R and a couple of other places I can't remember at the moment. It's a great little receiver as its predecessors were. Because of the scarcity they resell well but the one on ebay may be priced too high.

I have to agree with the sentiment here. I too was interested. I have a couple of the digital amps (55 man room, 57 living room) and wanted the hdmi inputs of the bx500 for the media room.

For the price of what I've found used I can replace my old pio 1014 with a new 1019 in the media room.

ah well. Damn shame they discontinued them. They were/are great units.

So what other digital receivers are available? It has gotten confusing because it seems that companies have started using 'digital' in the names of their receivers with normal amps! I have an XR55 which I really like - but I am thinking of using it for our bedroom (which doubles as a home theatre) and finding something else for our living room...

xnappo

The Pioneer Elites SC-25 and SC-27 but they are in a much higher price class.

Wow - yeah, not in my price range! Massive as well...

xnappo

Well there is the Sherwood R-904N though I don't have any first hand or second hand experience to share:
http://hometheaterreview.com/sherwoo...t-av-receiver/
http://www.sherwoodamerica.com/site/...04.php?mtype=1
http://www.amazon.com/Sherwood-R-904.../dp/B002S4084O

P.S. I am a proud owner of XR55 as well

Thanks - that looks promising...

xnappo

I am looking for one of these SA-BX500. Does anyone have an extra, 'like new' unit to spare?

Few days back I got a Squeezebox Touch. I am feeding it with a modified Elpac Power supply with the LCD display turned off while playing. Absolutely high quality digital output into my SA-BX500. More ambience, more shimmer and body to instruments. IMHO, this goes to prove that this is a high quality receiver and that better quality digital signal you feed it (low jitter) better the output. I have used a Squeezebox 3, Duet and now the Touch. The Touch is the best transport so far and I guess it could beat even a $1000 CD player (just guessing because the output is so good).

I am looking to replace my XR55, which recently gave out, with the SA-BX500. I missed the last deals. Does anyone have a good condition, or better yet a spare new unit, they want to part with? Thank you.

I am in the same boat. You might take a look a the Sherwood Netboxx:
http://www.amazon.com/Sherwood-R-904...4148302&sr=8-1

The only reasonably priced D-class receiver still being made as far as I can tell.

I would buy one, but am still investigating the discrete remote code capabilities as info is sparse and that is something I can't stand not having.

xnappo

Just a quick note that I went the Sherwood route.

Here are my first impressions:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...&postcount=135
xnappo

I actually just got one of these, brand new, guess they had some stashed away somewhere. I got accepted into the Panasonic Customer Improvement program and got a whole suite of electronics. The receiver seems to be working all right, even though it won't process 3D content, so I have my BR Player hooked up with a 1.4 HDMI cable to the VT25 tv, and an optical cable to the Receiver. We tried using the second HDMI port on the BR Player to the Receiver, but somehow the Vieralink interoperability prevented the audio signal from going to the receiver via HDMI.

I have a Panasonic plasma and BD player on the way from Sears. One thing I want to do for the wife is make the remote control simple, so I decided to hunt down a Panasonic AVR, only to find nothing available. I suppose that I will have to keep my eyes open for the SA-BX500. I have a nice little JVC that is doing well, but it does not have HDMI inputs. I am biamplifying a pair of big Klipsch speakers for stereo, with an active crossover and two stereo amplifiers. How do you guys use the SA-BX500 to biamplify?

The SA BX500 is long gone off of the market and it will be hard to find one because most owners with them are probably not inclined to sell it because it was such a bargain when heavily discounted. As to your question about using it to bi-amp, you have to set up the SA BX500 to bi-wire and if the AVR detects only two channels, it will then use the rear most speakers amps to passively bi-amp and does it automatically. I seriously doubt that this will be anything close to what you now have with an active crossover and active bi-amping. You probably need something called a processor that will give the flexibility to maintain your existing hardware and add HDMI.

I will probably just stick with the stereo active biamp setup for the Klipsch. I understand the processor suggestion and may end up going that route, or get a different brand AVR and a good universal remote. We'll see.

The remote is the way to go to simplify things for the wife. A harmony remote for instance has a button -watch tv-. You press it and it turns on the tv, turns on the cable box, turns on the receiver and sets the imput to tv with the one push.
The panasonic biamp mode is nice. You plug the woofer speaker wire into speaker A and the highs into the rear sides amp sections. When you select bi-amp and listen in stereo, it sends two amp sections to each of the bass taps and one amp each to the highs and actively splits the signal up. So it uses 3 amp channels per speaker. I use one on my Klipsch Epic CF3's.

An SA-BX500 up for sale on the Bay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=120623780106

e-bay bidding is up to $355 with less than 2 days left and that's more than I paid for it brand new. I like its performance although I will be replacing it possibly next month. And no, I am not offering it for sale - someone else already wants it and has paid for it, while I wait.

Wow, the auction ended at $605. But it looks like something didn't work out. Someone else put up an auction and the wording looks very similar to the one that just ended. Weird.

I am glad I managed to track one of these down last year!

No, that is just another auction. Ebay provides boilerplate text for items in it's database that have been sold before. Look up listings for iPods, they all virtually read the same...

I know the specs are usually the same and rehashed by Ebay but if you look at both auctions, the description provided by the seller is extremely similar. Two listings with the seller talking about how they want to upgrade to 3D TV and needing HDMI 1.4, and also telling the buyer not to pay until they receive an invoice so they can figure the actual shipping cost.

Two different ebay ID's but both in California, and one showing up immediately after the other when there hasn't been a SA-BX500 on ebay for months. Just strange to me. Who knows, maybe the second guy saw how much money he could get for his and decided the time was right.

I bet you are right about that.

If the going price is $600, I'll put mine up.

Lol

I have a new in box one that I would sell for $600.

Looks like it has reached cult status. $605??