The "Official" Onkyo TX-NR905 Thread - Page 145

I have read through most of this thread as well as most of the related threads (Integra 8.8, 9.8, Onkyo 885, etc.). This has left me a bit confused and I hope the 905 owners here can help.

On paper, the 905 looks like a great center piece for my HT set up.

I have the JVC RS-1 projector and the Sony 46XBR4 in the same room and would like to have the ability to send programming to each of them from a single audio/switching device. For sources, I have a Sony PS3 and a Tosh XA2. I don't get cable or sat, and probably won't for at least a year or 2. My HT room is fairly small and has a collection of speakers ranging from a pair of old but very nice KEF 104/2s (front left and right), a Boston Acoustics VRC center, a pair of Boston Acoustics VR3s (rear left and right) and a cheap pair of JBL bookshelf speakers (surround rear left and right).

I really like the power, switching capabilities and features of the 905 as well as the very reasonable price compared to other competing products.

My concern is the various problems I see reported in this and related threads. From what I have seen, the biggest problems are the lip-sync issue and the lengthy sound drop out when switching audio modes. I am willing to be patient if these problems can be resolved with new firmware. However, I don't want to buy something that will never really operate properly.

What advice can you owners and potetial owners offer?

Thanks,
Ira

Search out some of "thrang"'s posts over the past week. Very informative. As owners of an Integra 8.8(Onkyo 905) we've been following posts on sound issues with great interest.

Under clearing Puget Sound skies, Gill

ME! My Pioneer Kuro does equal or better scaling than the Reon. I could care less about the Reon processor.

I don't get cable/sat either. I do not have the audio delay or lip sync problem when watching OTA HD. I see a slight delay (1 to 2 sec) when a 5.1 Widescreen program goes to a commercial which is filmed in 4:3 or stereo. The Mits screen seems to click/pop and then change sound and pic quality. After that the sync is fine, untill it changes back to the 5.1, which sometimes takes a second to reset. I have had this problem for 3 years with the Mits. This happens when I am using the TV speakers or sending the audio to the 905 via RCA's. My FW is 1.03. I've watched several bd's via the bd30 (all were flawless) and some SD's on my Kenwood 5900m, no problems.

I am still perplexed as to why mine is working and others are not. My set up is simple with the 905 set to "no delay":
HDMI from the bd30 into the 905 out to the Mits HDMI in.
Component/dig optical from the Kenwood into the 905 out to the MIts HDMI in via the same cable.

I tried connecting the Kenwood (which has the Farudja chip) directly into the Mits via Components and the dig audio into the 905 to allow the Kenwood to do the upconverting. The PQ seemed to get darker and not as sharp. Still no lip sync or audio problems.

IMHO, so far, the 905 is much better for audio then the 2 boat anchors it replaced (Yammy & HK). The Reon chip was just one of several reasons I purchased it. The extra features and the SQ seem to be worth the cost (although, if someone has another unit to reccommend in this price range, I'm open to taking a look at it). I am not convinced the Reon is helping all that much but it doesn't seem to be hurting my picture either.

I guess the question is: would this unit still be worth the cost if it did not have the Reon, since all the future players are designed to do the upconverting anyway. I have 2 more weeks and still thinking about this one.

Bill and others have pointed to the cable/sat handshake. Does anyone see it being limited to a sat/cable problem? I can't test that theory.

I just caliberated my Onkyo 905 unit and I have a little problem. Initial Audessey setting was way "off". All speakers were automatically set to "Large" and subwoofer was set to "off". I went in and manually set the sub to "THX", selected all speakers to 80 Hz.

While playing movies, low frequencies were passing through all speakers. Would like to manually set the speakers to "Small" but can no longer see that option in manual speaker setting.

I do remember that I had the option to select "Small" or "Large" for speaker selection after Audessey ran for the first time. For me to select the speakers to "Small" will I have to re-run Audessey again?

Where did I go wrong? Can anyone help me, please.

i would like to know where you can change the front speaker to small as well

There is no Large and Small setting on Onkyo receivers. If you set any crossover value to anything other than None or Full Band on the Speaker Config screen, that's Small. If you set it to Full Band, that's Large.

The problem I have with Audyssey is that it keeps erasing adjustments I make to it. I wanted to tweak the rears a bit louder and reduce the sub output, but everytime I turn the unit back on later, it is reset to the Audyssey settings.

If you're making the tweaks with the remote and the test tones, those are supposed to be temporary. You have to do it from menu 2-4, Level Calibration, if you want the changes to be permanent.

Kplex, thanks. Are you absolutely there is no option for selecting small or large speaker setting because I remember seeing it after audessey ran it's results after the first run. Since I did the setup a couple of weeks ago I can't remember where I saw this option.

I'm absolutely sure.

So last month I call Alcena at Onkyo and express the concerns about my problems with the 905, all of which are well hashed out on here. Last week I called here again to inform her of new problems that I forgot to mention in the first call. Both times she was polite, but offered no new information other than they will be putting up a notice on their web site concerning available firmware.

In light of the new information from Thang that he posted from Alcena on Tuesday I e-mailed her with specific questions regarding 1.06 and my old DSP3 firmware and I included a copy of her response to Thrang and the "spin" Onkyo put on the issues.

Yesterday I sent her another e-mail politely asking for her acknowledgment of my e-mails and that she will endeavor to get answers. To date I still have not received a single response from her even acknowledging that she has seen my e-mails.

Early next week I will call her on the phone to verify she is in the office and has seen my e-mails. Onkyo customer support is pathetic to say the least. While I don't expect instant answers regarding 1.06 and DSP3, I DO expect a simple acknowledgment of my inquiry.

A friend of my is in the market for a new receiver and I expressly told him to never buy Onkyo given their absolutely horrid customer service. Instead, he's buying a good Yamaha receiver.

Ahhhh. Ok. I've been using the remote.

I have the 905 and the bd30 and am using a SVS PB12 ultra/2 plus. The Audyssey had no problem picking up the sound coming from the sub if you set it as discussed in the 905 manual. Note: The SVS vibrates my concrete foundation, I mean, it really does. Sometimes I lose sleep at night thinking I didn't tighten down the nuts on the steel colums/I beam connections enough. Try manually adjusting your sub. I have all the sub I can handle.

yngdiego,

What other corporation will give you CS? I've been a homebuilder for 25 years and I see very few corps who give a crap about CS now a days, no matter what products we are talking about. Heck, you are lucky if you talk to someone that is in the country (USA) and speaks English (not that that excuses Onkyo, as I would expect more from them). I have a boat anchor Yamaha and HK and their CS wasn't any better. My cousin is wanting to upgrade but I see no other AV receiver from Yamaha or HK that compares to the 905, sound/cost wise (he has a old Onkyo pre that is probably older than most of the guys on this forum and still sounds great). Which unit are you recommending to your frieind? I have 2 more weeks with my 905 and am open to suggestions.

I'm not recommending anything to my friend, and his budget doesn't allow for something in the 905 class. He's considering the Yamaha 1800, which he can get for roughly half the 905 price. This is for an entry level, budget minded system.

yngdiego,

I too am not happy with Onkyo for taking such an ridiculous stance on their 905. I read Thrang's post's and am very disapointed with Onkyo's answers. I will call on Monday and try asking the same questions. If my guess is correct, I will get the same bs. All I can say is that I have not had any issues with the 905. I'm heading down to the TR and will continue to search for the problems. Thanks.

Unrelated: you might want to check this out, http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=933736 It's amazing that even the so called HD TV channels are not really HD. I am still looking into the OTA signals but have come to the realization that the HD format has a long way to go before it is accepted and/or perfect.

Steve at Soundvideo (the vendor of choice for many of us) was just at CES. He mentioned that Onkyo's next fall rev for the 905 will be the ... 906. He only expects small changes, like features to enable ISF calibration.

I wonder if Onkyo will address the issues in the 905 before they release the 906. I wonder if he discussed the issues with the current Onkyos and Integras? I bought my 905 from Steve as well.

Bill

Well, after using my Integra DTR-8.8 for about 5 months, it's started something new. Over the past three weeks, it's very suddenly, and with no operator involvement, randomly gone to standby (off) 3 times while we were watching a TV program!

It's not overheating (to the touch) as it's in a well ventilated space. It's not being driven hard (usually -25db to -40db but I do briefly crank it once in a while to -15db to -10db driving 92 db sensitivity DefTech 7.1 speakers) and it comes right back on when I manually turn it on?? This has happened randomly only during the past 3 weeks and not at all in the previous 4 1/2 months. Nothing is different or changed with the equipment or setup.

The unit runs approximately 8-12 hours per day (we're retired and listen to XM from D* with the 70" XBR2 off when we're not watching TV or DVD).
Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas appreciated. Thanks

Anyway the lipsynch issue is not an "HDMI thing", I've got audio delay always, even if I use and old tv with RCA audio jack connected to 905.

Don't waste time and money changing hdmi cables, etc...it's a firmware issue, and, maybe, they will solve it in the future (I hope!)
anyway it's ridiculous that they sell item so expensive with such a bugs and firmware issue, also a child could turn it on and notice something is wrong...

Does the 8.8 remote have a sleep timer button that could accidentally be getting pressed?

Yes it does and it's located next to and driectly above the volume rocker button! After conferring with wife (not confronting), she conceeds that it's a possibility that it could have been pushed by accident and activated that function. We will be very cognizant of that possibility and consciously avoid the sleep button while monitoring if this happens again.

Thanks for your input.

CES 2008
905 with new Dolby Volume


perhaps the new fw 1.06 or 1.07?

Am I safe to assume this baby and display GUI/Volume over 1080p/24???

I had a 905 and LOVED it, just sold her used because I can get a killed deal on a new one with warranty. What are the differences between the 905 and 875?? I see the 905 has "DTS-HD® High Resolution Audio" and the 875 does not. Is that a next gen codec I will be missing out on if I have a 1.3 blu and HD dvd player?? I am trying to see if cutting a few hundered off the price will not really do much in the way of video/audio quality and just lose a few bells and whistles...

I'm having a problem getting DD on my Onkyo or at least I think I'm not getting it? The Onkyo 905 only shows L, R and Center channels in the front of it even if the source is an HD broadcast. I tried changing from PLX Movie to THX Ultra and then to Direct and still no surround signal being received. Do you think it might be the source? The source is Dish Network and the broadcasts are supposed to be HD or DD. Any suggestions would be appreciated. The picture looks great but I'm not receiving all the discrete channels (5.1).

Dolby Volume? Does it fix the audio delay (talk about beating a dead horse, sorry couldn't resist)? Does anyone have any idea what this is?

Bill

Dolby Volume Press Release.


(Despite stating Q1 2007, the press release is from 8 Jan 2008!)

It probably just adds more delay as the DSPs have to evaluate the volume of the incoming sound in realtime..

This is from my post yesterday:
The CBS and NBC local station engineers were kind enough to respond to my email regarding their signal as follows:

NBC: When 5.1 is coming to us from NBC we pass it, other wise we are just stereo when we are in locally generated programing.

CBS: We are broadcasting in 5.1 with our HD. At times CBS will send HD but with only two channel stereo. Sometimes they will have HD with three channels but your TV will probably think it is 5.1. Some commercials are in HD, but not in 5.1. This can get real confusing at times. So not all HD is in 5.1. We are not doing 7.1 although we have the capability to do so when the networks use it. Quite often, the last two channels may be used for another language.

Not sure but I think any receiver will only pass on what you feed it, even though some may be able to improve the sound via simulation. Since I only have OTA HD I can't help you with Dish. I'm thinking that Dish is receiving the same type signal from the Networks as does their local affiliates. My display shows the same as yours when watching tv.