Greetings All,

I recently ordered a pair of M22's, a pair of QS8's, and a EP350. I was hoping you guys can help me out. My receiver choices are down to Denon 3808, Onkyo tx sr805, Onkyo tx sr875, and Onkyo tx sr905. I have an Xbox 360 (HDMI) with HD DVD, PS3, Mac Pro (Optical), and a Samsung LN46A650. Any help is welcome and appreciated.

Any of those will drive the speakers you have just great. I run my M22's, VP100, and QS8's with an Onkyo 605 more than sufficiently. They are quite sensitive speakers and can be run on very little power. So any of those will go great.

As has been said before, the real decision should be made before the features on the various receivers, as any of them will drive the speakers wonderfully.

Hi!

All of those receivers work for your rig. I am partial to Denon (had them for years) and own a 3808 & 1905 currently.

The 3808 is an absolute joy. You might also find the 2809 to be an excellent and less expensive unit.

On the other side of the coin, many folks like Onkyo. I read some information about them last Jan/Feb on AVS that indicated some problems, including overheating but I can't be specific because I don't remember much of the detail. The reason I mention it is so you can research over there if you'd like.

Good luck with it!

Tech, welcome. You haven't indicated what factors led you to that group of candidates, but I note that the Onkyos are all of the previous generation. With respect to the key room equalization feature of the Denons and Onkyos, the newer 806, 876 and 906 have the latest Audyssey MultEQ with the DynamicEQ feature that many users have been pleased with. The newest version of the 3808 also includes it, so you should be careful to determine if the 3808 that you're interested in is late production; a $100 upgrade is otherwise necessary.

If the lower prices now on the Onkyo XX5 models were a major factor, you should note that even the XX6s are beginning to come available as factory refurbs at quite good prices. For example, the 806 is now on sale at ShopOnkyo for those who register for "Club Onkyo" and receive a $10 credit and the 10% off sale price, which reduces the delivered price to about $619.

Actually the newer x06 Onkyo's only have MultEQ along with the new Dynamic EQ. The older ones have MultEQ XT, wich is much better for bass. To get the MultEQ XT with the new ones, you have to get the 876 or higher.

As someone who tried out MultEQ (Marantz 8001) and MultEQ XT (Denon 3808), it makes a HUGE difference. The extra filters available on the XT makes a world of difference.

I've been looking at the new Denon and Onkyo models that have the MultEQ XT, Dynamic Volume, and Dynamic EQ. Looks very promissing. I was looking at the new Trinnov as well, but does not appear that receiver has a volume control like the new Dolby Volume or Dynamic Volume.

Hansang, wonder how this would work with multiple subs in a room?

Randy - the improvement in bass is the #1 thing I noticed when re-running Audyssey after the Dynamic EQ update (I have two subs now).

While this term is overused, the bass truly is smoother after the update. I find this particularly to be the case with Dynamic EQ turned on. It makes bass response at lower volumes much more natural sounding without any hint of boominess.

Jason

Did you calibrate each sub individually to match the other speakers, before running the setup?

EP600-2xEP350 Denon

OK, now you're just showing off! I guess you got your answer from Jason. I *wish* I knew how it worked with multiple subs. Since my EP500 delivers enough smooth bass for now, I couldn't even contemplate buying another sub. Kung Fu Panda's "skidoosh" scene nearly blew out my windows!

I'll have to check out that movie.

Yep, though it's suboptimal right now as one sub is not the same caliber as the EP600. The other plays down flat until around ~28 (if I remember right), so they're a bit mismatched, but I did level match them both individually and then put them together (and then ran Audyssey).

I've been reading a lot of the "Audyssey" master thread on AVSforum. Chris from Audyssey mentioned that some of the higher end receivers (Denon 5xxx, for ex) have 3 Sub pre outs (not in parrallel) but seperate from each other. this would be ideal as then he said Audyssey can adjust the delay, phase, FR, etc. and apply filters for each sub seperately.

I don't understand why more receivers don't offer 2-3 Sub preouts. He mentioned if you don't have this feature, try having the subs spaced out the same distance (if possible) on opposite walls following Dr Toole's papers, and calibrate them seperately using the RS meter. They MultEQ XT will do a very good job.

On a side note, it is interesting that people from Dolby, THX (including Tomlinson Holman creator of THX), Audyssey, Trinnov (including the folks at Sherwood Newcastle which Axiom sells), etc. say that it is very important if you can treat a room. However, speaker companies say it is a bunch of smoke/mirrors. I suppose they want to sell more subs, so that is why they call BS.

I think I'll stand on the side of THX and others.

That's interesting about the high-end Denon's Randy. 3 sub outs would be very nice for those of us with multiple subs. It's a darn big premium to pay to get there though!

They should market a multiple sub add-on box that will take any receiver's sub signal and split it along with offering those controls for each sub. I don't know how you could make Audyssey see that, but at least you could do it manually? Is it even feasible?

The BFD equalizer I have allows you to tune two subs independently. Audyssey advises you to EQ your subs first if you are using an external EQ and then to run Audyssey to improve from there. So, yes, it seems feasible.

Jason

Ohhhh yeah, I forgot that existed. I may still look into something like that eventually.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am currently leaning towards the Onkyo 876 since J&R is selling it new for $899. Can the Onkyo drive M80's (I plan on buying those in a month or so)?

Is it necessary to have a center or I am fine with my current 4.1 set up (M22x2, QS8x2, EP350)?

Thanks Again

Before you buy, you should see the other tread re "My M80's" as there is a detailed discussion of Onkyo's with the M80s by some knowledgeable folks. This hyperlink might get you there. http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=234128#Post234128
Look for the comments from Alan Lofft, Axiom Resident Expert

I could be wrong on this one, but I'm pretty sure you're going to lose all of the dialog and other things if you try to listen to a movie through 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 formats. You would be able to listen to it through 2.1 dolby digital, but that would make your QS8's useless. I'd think a center would be a pretty high priority.

You don't need a center. A center will help you to adjust levels for dialogs differently and help with general horizontal dispertion, but 4.1 is OK.

Ok, so when you don't connect a center channel then the reciever automatically splits the center channel and sends it to the left and right mains? I wasn't sure if it would do that or not. I installed a 5.1 channel head unit into my car. And before I added a center speaker, movies I'd play on there had no dialog except for a very, very faint echo in the left and right front speakers. When I hooked up the center speaker, I had dialog.

It is not the speakers you connect, but how you configure the receiver. If you tell the receiver you don't have a center, it will act accordingly. You car unit was configured for 5.1 so that is why it wasn't working.

The M22's could be used as a center as well. I don't recall anyone using M22's, but I know many use M2's to great effect.

Tech, $899 is an an excellent buy on the 876, which is a very full-featured(e.g., Audyssey MultEQ XT with Dynamic EQ, Reon video processor, etc.)receiver with plenty of power, including at 4 ohms. It should work very well with your M80s, which are a bit higher than average in sensitivity and require less power than many other speakers.

As to having a separate center speaker, if you're presently satisfied with the phantom center that you're using, then it certainly isn't necessary, but if you can temporarily use some speaker as a center as an experiment you can possibly judge if you like it even better that way. The usual downside of the phantom center is that the image of dialog or other material in the center channel will move to the side of a listener not in the center(but not farther out than the main on that side). Another point is that a separate center speaker can have it's volume level bumped up a bit to help the intelligibility of dialog in certain movies.