"Official" Onkyo TX-NR809 Thread - Page 9

Will the 809 let you listen to 7.1 sound with the speaker setup of powered Zone 2 but with zone 2 physically off? Will it convert down to 5.1 when Zone 2 is turned on?

I would like to have my 7.1 (center backs) setup hooked and in use 90% of the time. But during that 10% when i want to fire up the deck speakers, i would like to simply turn on Zone 2 and have the living room go to 5.1 while i use the powered Zone 2.

Will the 809 function in this manner?

Thanks!!

First of all I doubt the 52/53 has a better amp section than the 23. It was/is that good. The heat sink in the Pioneer is like twice the size of the one in the 809. Now the 809 has huge capacitors and fans along with 25 watts more power. I am of the club that believes more power is better. I am happy to say that the 809 is alive and well. Too bad it is too late to run Audyssey. Been stuck watching Palladia with Iron Maiden, Megadeath, Green Day etc. Good news is the unit is rather cool. Fans have not come on yet. I even closed the glass door on the rack. Of course I am nowhere near loud. I will not pass judgement on this AVR until I get several days to a week under the belt with it and play my Godsmack DVD as loud as I can take it. That is my amp test. I also need some time with different signals to fully evaluate. Out of the box with no Audyssey setup it does sound very good and appears to be loafing along which is how it should be, for now.

You can be sure within the next few days I will load the AVR down and see what she has. I did not consider another Pioneer for many reasons. I believe Pioneer units will soon be relegated to entry level but that is just my opinion. That is sad for me but I have to face the trends. I had nothing but Pioneer for years.

Yes you can have all the speakers hooked up. I'm planning the same setup, receiver arrives today. The switch may not be 100% automatic, let you know later (tomorrow at the earliest) If you download the manual from the onkyo website it will explain how to switch between 7.1 and 5.1 + 2

You are correct, it must be the pay account from the press release I read.

Amazon is offering again the 809 for $699. Also, B&H Photo is in the same way!!! In order to see the $699 price displayed @ B&H Photo, you need to put the 809 in the shopping cart.

Guys

Thanks very much for your posts. I missed the Amazon US$699 deal on this AVR a few days ago which I was feeling quite annoyed about over the last few days. I even emailed Amazon Customer Service a couple of days ago to see if they would let me order it for $699 but they politely said no with their usual spills.

When I first read "faumba" post, I thought I was seeing things thinking the post might be old. But a few posts down, I read "mtrot" saying he just placed an order with Amazon. At that stage, I thought perhaps Amazon dropped the price again and quickly looked up the price on Amazon at that moment. Sure enough, the price is $699 which is the price I wanted to pay. I went through the order process in literally 1-2 minutes to ensure it doesn't disappear on me I am a very happy man atm

Now, I should mention that I am in Australia. I believe this AVR is only rated at the US voltage of 120V? Which means, I am going to need a stepdown transformer to convert Australian voltage of 240V to the required US 120V. I should probably ask this question on another thread, but does any of you know of any reliable stepdown transformer, URL etc? On this note, I am guessing a 1.5kW transformer should be sufficient? Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Good news: Just got mine from ABT last night.
Also good news: They double boxed and bubble wrapped that sucker.
Bad news: Won't have time to hook it up until Saturday.

At least it looks nice sitting on my rack. My HK seems a little blue now sitting next to its replacement...

I found one issue that I've never seen before. When I use HTPC and I skip around in a blu ray, it like drops the center channel audio but I can hear the other channels. I think it also messed up audio in some other strange way as well. So well that's not good, never once ever did that with my Onkyo 876.

How ?

Hi kmfd71, with the receiver on follow the sequence using the front panel:

- press and hold down "Display" button
- then press "On/Standby" button
- release both buttons
- then press "Tone" button

I'm interested in purchasing the 809. I currently have AT&T U-Verse, the SD is AWESOME for SD, but the HD could use some improvement. I don't have any speakers yet, I'm looking into Polk TSi. Anyways if I get the receiver and just run my U-Verse through it, would I get a picture quality upgrade?? Is that possible, to run the cable box through the receiver and have the sound still go through the TV?


Thanks

I have a 609, its quite new and up until now has been exceptional.

Turned it on today and there is absolutely no video coming out of the HDMI output.

Checked all cables and they work if going direct to source. Powered down and left for a few hours, still nothing.

I think im going to cry. I found a thread from a few years ago where it said that Onky are renowned for HDMI problems. Is this still the case on the newer models? If so, its still in warranty so should i just take it back to RS?

I couldn't find a relevant thread and farily sure i just need to take it back, just hoping someone might help here just inacse its a setting.

Thanks in advance.

Probably won't improve your HD, unless your monitor/projector are handling the source badly. The limitation is the amount of data coming through, which is compressed. If I give you 2 quarters you can't make $1.00 out of it, but you can make 5 dimes. That is all that is happening, some processors do it better than others. Some monitors like being feed their native resolution. However the AVR's ISF tools will give you more control over the picture, fine tuning color and such.

Yes you are looking for standby pass-through, this will allow sound to reach your tv while your AVR is in Standby mode. Note that the AVR still uses substantial power while doing this (who know why?!).

I would say no. I am pretty sure no receiver will shore up the poor quality in an HD feed from a provider. There are enhancements that you can employ through the receiver and tv that will clean it up a little, but overall it will leave your picture looking odd.

If you are in an area where local channels through OTA HD antenna can be obtained, I would highly recommend that. You will be amazed by the quality. I realize that only locals will come in, but at least you would get your utilize your HD television and receiver to a greater capacity.

Well a funny thing happened on the way to Nirvana, when I went to run Audyssey my right front Polk Monitor 40 failed. I suspected it had issues but my Pioneer let me continue calibration while the Onky refused. I threw a cheapy satelite speaker up to complete the calibration. It really sucks but got her done. Been watching my Godsmack DVD for about 45 minutes now, a lot of it at about 92 on the volume. The fans definitely are on and the unit is warm, hotter towards the back.

So far I am pleased with the unit. I know I need to read the effing Audyssey thread to configure my setup properly. Crap, I hated digging through the MCACC thread but what can one do? I know I need to tweak my settings and have Polk send me a replacement 40, but initial observations are as follows:

1. I need to RTFM some more.
2. It surprised me how bright it sounds after just running Audyssey and changing nothing. I thought my Pioneer was a bit bright.
3. The LFE is very good. I like the setup for that and it is sounding very good. No bottoming out and I did turn up all three subs after calibration. I like it like that.
4. I am going to have to probably cut short my planned torture test as the cheapy satelite speaker is about as hot as the AVR. What a POS.
5. I may have suffered some hearing damage.

Oh, and I did enable HDMI standby pass through this morning and the unit does put out some heat so I know it is using a bit of juice. I have nothing to test how much. Something I am prepared to live with. I will post back with questions and observations as I play with it some more. BTW, I use the Godsmack DVD for working an AVR because it is the best thing I have that forces a AVR to work to power 5 channels at once and puts a decent load on an amp section. It is only DTS 5.1 but I can probably force 7.1 if I wanted to, not sure with the Onky yet. Still playing with it. So far so good. Gonna try that temp readout thing here at 92 volume.

EDIT: OK, JChin is correct, that procedure displays a T=about 68*-70*C temp at volume 92. I have turned it down to a more reasonable 70 and after several minutes it has gone down to only 65*. So my initial impression is that this unit runs hotter than my Elite and it has zero fans. Of course this may all be because of the POS satellite speaker I have which is still trying to be a toaster even at the lower volume so this is not exactly comparing apples to apples. Now for JChin, what is the V reading above the Temp telling me? It sems to change as the sound track rolls along both the number and the letters. Thanks.

Just unpacked my unit which arrived today and I drew the short straw in regards to the printed manual - just the quick start guides and the cd in the box. Not the end of the world, but having a printed manual on hand for reference is incredibly useful IMO. It's not a welcome development by any means, especially considering it's a high end receiver.

Oh well, I'll get by methinks. Updating the firmware now and I'll hook it up proper tomorrow.

Awesome! I cant wait to hear back your results on this test.

'at about 92 on the volume" Mike I laughed clearly you own a house.

What's your idle temps people are getting? top shelf open air 39c. I'll check some time when I watch a lossless blu ray at 70db temp check then.

I did say I was going to put the unit through the paces. I have not swapped out the volume display but I am sure 92 is above reference level of the unit, though I would not swear until I check. Now all the family is home (yes house and my man cave in the basement) so I am done for the night except running the AVR at low volume. It is currently on volume 60 on SCIHD cable and the temp is 41*C. Feels kinda warm but not bad. 75*F in the man cave and the unit is in a cabinet type rack with little ventilation, glass door open. I do not feel like converting the F to C temp now as I am getting tired.

Edit: I also need to get back to testing out my Epson 8350 Projector. I need to make sure that is a keeper along with the 809. Man time gets short in a hurry. Going to fire up the PJ here shortly.

Thanks

Hi Mikes2cents, I can't be for sure but probably another sensor measurement beside the temp sensors to control the speed of the fans. My theory is "V" represent a reference Voltage signal for how the volume is control. Low volume the potentiometer has a high resistance and the sensor voltage will be low. Turn up the volume the potentometer has low resistance and the sensor voltage will be high.

I'd like to watch tv and listen to music at that same time. Is it possible to do this without adding additional connections? Meaning through the AVR only.

I know I could run a set of lines from my SAT box to my TV, but my TV isn't near my AVR and running another set of lines through the wall would be a PITA.

And I'm not going to do something silly like run a 2nd pair of speakers off the Zone 2 just for this purpose...besides those are earmarked for another use.

Order my unit Sunday from Amazon, got it yesterday, basic setup last night (sub, fronts, center, Sat box, PS3, HDDVD).

It came with a printed manual.

No issues to report. Just watched tv at a low volume and it ran cool, standby pass-though worked correctly.

MUCH less relay clicking (in fact I didn't notice any) than my >10yo Onkyo Tx-DS747.

As you can tell by the age of my previous AVR my state of the art opinions aren't the best, but this unit was light years ahead in user interface. Everything seemed where I'd expect it. To this day, I was still referencing the manual on my old AVR. I was annoyed at first about having to go through 2 hierarchy levels to get to the listening modes...until I discovered the dedicated buttons on the remote.

Hi neworder71, do you mean the tuner? If so select your video source and press "Tuner" on the remote.

Ideally I'd like to listen to CD, ipod or streaming.

I'll try it just to see if I can figure this out, but my tolerance to OTA radio with commercials is somewhere south of zero...thx

Basically you want to mix hdmi video and audio, no you can't do that. You can't select say hdmi 1(cable) for video and hdmi 2 for audio(cd). You'd have to use an optical cable or analog rca then you could.

Can I mix hdmi video with optical audio? If so how? I'm assuming I have to tell video from sat and audio from cd.

I'm fine with more connections at the source it was just the tv run that i couldn't do.

Begin rant...
I getting tried of the locked down nature of HDMI. The AVRs are basically computers now and are able to do whatever you can program, but HDMI forces them to act dumb. Its just bits and wires. Let me let you (studio exec) in on something, piracy is still happening!
...rant complete

Finally got my sub dialed in!!! Reran Audessy and when it asked me to turn down the sub until it registered 75db on screen, I left it on 85db (first time I set it to 75db as requested) Audessy ran and when I looked at the sub level, it had it set -8.0db so I started listening to some music and movies. Raised the sub level via the Home button on the remote and settled on -3.0db and my subwoofer's control knob is at the 9-10 o'clock position. Everything sounds nice and full and the sub isn't bottoming out like before.

I retested the scenes on Battle Los Angeles and GI Joe that was giving the sub some trouble. All is fine and it is perfoming as it should.

UPS just dropped this off, and I just ran the firmware update, which took about an hour. I am going to swap it out with my Yamaha RX-V1800 and set it up exactly the same, which is run on "STRAIGHT" and with no YPAO or anything. I am first going to set up the 809 in a similar manner and compare the audio quality on movies and music. I need to find out if it has a different sound quality out of the box. I am also very interested in how well it decodes DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD, particularly with respect to the center and surround channels, directionality of effects, and clarity of dialog.

Well, if it does not sound any better, I will be returning it. Trying to be very objective with expectations and evaluation.

It's very easy to switch to none hdmi audio there is button on remote for just that, it switches between optical, coaxial or analog. You can assign each input separately so makes it easy.

But I agree I want to listen to music from HTPC while I play xbox, guess what can't because HDMI is BS. Forces me to run a optical or coaxial for digital audio. It's so damn annoying. It also TOTALLY stops me from playing xbox and listening to a dvd-audio or SACD, which REALLY ticks me off.