Originally Posted by
eagle2 
I own a Onkyo TX-NR808. Purchased January 2011. Last week, the second week in April 2012, it started to exhibit some of the problems listed in these forums regarding the audio.
Mine showed up in the center channel, it sounded mushy and then the sound was reduced to almost nothing. When I tried to adjust the unit it would shut off.
I tried to contact the Onkyo service department in New Jersey. I tried three different days and was always on hold and never got to speak to anyone. My guess is that my total hold time was something on the order of an hour or so. When I tried to follow their instructions to leave a message so that they could return my call, nothing happened. I punched the star key on my phone, as required, and was never able to reach a recording device.
In the past I have always purchased Yamaha equipment and had been very pleased with it. This goes all the way back into the 1960s. I have their top level amp preamp combination and it has never failed me. But by the time we got to HDMI I thought I would try another device. So I purchased a Denon receiver. I really like the receiver but the remote was terrible. So having read all kinds of good things about Onkyo, and the extra features for less cost, I thought I would give them a try. And I have been relatively satisfied with my 808 until last week as mentioned above. I must say their customer service is pathetic. I found on there web site where the authorized service center for my part of the country was. It is ABL Electronics Service in Michigan. I contacted them and they told me that they were very backed up since there were only two authorized service centers in the United States for Onkyo. But it would probably cost me $40 or $50 to ship the receiver to them(they were right cost $45.00). They told me that it would probably take at least three weeks to service the unit and return it to me.
I will never purchase another Onkyo product.
So I went out and bought another Yamaha receiver, model RX-A710. It sounds great right out of the box!
unfortunately it does not come with a printed users manual. I found out from reading the Yamaha section in the excellent AVS forums that if I would call the Yamaha customer service department I could receive a printed manual for free. So I proceeded to call them. I receive the kind of excellent customer service from Yamaha that I had hoped to receive from Onkyo, and did not.
Onkyo needs to take a lesson from Yamaha. I am back with Yamaha products now and do not intend to stray again!
