Gotta warn ya, you may be heading for trouble with the 08 Onkyo's!
I'm a proud owner of their 708
, and I'm one of
many Onkyo owners who have had their units sent to their
regional service center for service, and I'm also a contributor to the Onkyo failure thread here at AVSF. This thread is 34 pages and has over 1000 posts. This is not a small inconvienence, this is a major QC fubar for the owners and Onkyo!
Onkyo had a press release regarding the loss of remote and front panel functions (all of them!) with rapid scrolling thru the various surround modes... only way to stop it was to unplug the sucker from the wall outlet. The problem did not show up for most of us till after 4-6 months of use, though a few had problems right out of the box. Onkyo has stated they will correct the problem, even if/when out of warrentee.
The "fix" (and we are all anxiously waiting to see if it is truely fixed) involves replacing an IDE cable and the sockets they plug in to, plus there is some "goo" that wasn't properly removed that "runs" when warmed up (thru use) that may have effected those connections.
Not all units are effected, and it is clear there is no "bad batch", so you cannnot relie on serial numbers to ensure you don't have a bad one. I would go for the 09's if you are sold on only Onkyo. This has effected the 708's, the 808's, the 1008's 3008's and 5008's (as well as their Interga line, but it appears to be to a lesser extent)
Since the problem didn't rear it's ugly head till after several months of use, we are still unsure if the problem is truely solved, and won't be comfortable till there are many hours and months worth of use post repair.
Best of luck with your decision... just thought you should know what you might be getting in to
