Sherwood R-904N Review - Page 2

That part is relative I suppose; I wouldn't classify a $650 receive as inexpensive, but perhaps to others it is. Thankfully I paid about half of that, which does mitigate my dissatisfaction to a certain degree.

I guess my contention is if you buy a $90 Monoprice subwoofer you can assume less than stellar performance, but if you buy a $500 sub than your expectations should be fulfilled accordingly. Even though the latter might not be a $4000 JL Audio, you still shouldn't have to put up with a horribly designed and implemented $500 subwoofer. The flaws -- if any -- should not be disproportionally larger than the benefits. That's my take on it anyway...



Actually, these 2 flaws would perhaps be some of the easiest issues to fix; use a normal color/intensity for the LED's, and replace the defective Sherwood auto-room EQ with Audyssey. Since Audyssey is such a recognized standard it's logical to assume the interface and implementation details are well established, so it shouldn't be like reinventing the wheel.

True, but the president of Sherwood -- who I was dealing with -- certainly could get modifications done.

There are plenty of people complaining, he's just chosen to turn a deaf ear. More than half the stuff I noted is in virtually every review -- professional or otherwise -- that I can find. The worst howl of protest is for the horrendous blue lights, so Sherwood is definitely aware this thing has problems. If they aren't then the management is more clueless than the engineers.

There actually is a way to dim them, but as soon as the unit gets shut off they're automatically reset back to blinding. If it had the smarts to remember how you set them it wouldn't be such a problem, but it was never endowed with that level of intelligence.

Welcome to my world. Seems like you're now going to have the same problem with their (alleged) customer service and product quality that I have. I can sympathize, and I certainly feel your pain. It's unfortunate their customers have to endure all this BS, but it seems indicative of how Sherwood does business.

Best of luck with your journey - I sincerely hope it ends better than mine did.

I would consider several of those Cons I mentioned to be broken items, but not in the same manner as the broken you're forced to endure. In your case it seems to be non-functional, which is even worse.

I honestly don't know what the guy is like, because he never had the courtesy to even reply to a single email. He was directed by two of his bosses to assist with the situation -- one of those was the president of the company -- but he never thought it worth his time I guess. Must be nice to blatantly ignore your boss and still be employed.

I'll bet that's been your problem all along! You mistakenly got the southern hemisphere model, where heat sinks instead of rises.

Certainly confirms my theory about boneheaded engineering...

After owning this one -- and dealing with their alleged customer service -- I can certainty understand why they aren't selling.



Yea, there doesn't seem to be a lot of us. IIRC, Marantz was the only other company making a "low profile" AVR, so there's not even a lot to choose from. I assume there's a market, so if Sherwood can't move units it speaks loudly (screams?) that something isn't right.

That's a weird one, isn't it? I also thought it must be something I was doing, but realistically what's there to do? Load VuNow and play the MP3's. Not much user intervention. I wonder if that works properly for anyone.



I'm good there; so far, every time I've used VuNow it's connected OK.

Oh no, you have got to be kidding!

That's terrible. What are you going to do now?

I wonder if you should just tell them you aren't going to accept another VuNow board. It might be better to "point" them in the appropriate direction, instead of letting them constantly fumble around like a bunch of blind chimpanzees.

I love the sigh of disgust around 3:15.

Maybe you should send them that link too. Let them see what the problem looks like, as well as make it clear to them the rest of the world is looking at their horrible products now.