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caucorean Unregistered guest | What would you do if you had a plasma tv? I got in on the deal for the S770, but I'm not sure if I should return it (before I pick it up). Everyone says that the problem with the S770 is that the speakers are a little large. Now, would that not go well with my plasma? Should I get the much sleaker HT240? Or do I lose too much quality? Obviously, the HT240 are more expensive ($350+tax) and then I will have to get a receiver, but I am willing to spend $100 more for a better fit. I just don't want to pay over $500 total. I have a Panasonic 42" plasma. |
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caucorean Unregistered guest | Also, how come Onkyo doesn't sell the HT240 anymore? I thought it just started selling in April? Thanks. |
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Anonymous | I tried out both - the 240 does seem to be better sounding - but something makes me feel this baby will not be able to shake up a reasonably BIG room. Still thinking - so caucorean - did you find any answers? |
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Anonymous | CNET does have excellent reviews of this system, but they are so small they make me feel they may not be upto it in fuller volumes - and I am talking head-BANGING here - but unable to confirm - perhaps some owner could comment on this. Thanx in advance. |
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Bronze Member Username: Ub4meLouisville, KY Post Number: 17 Registered: Oct-04 | HT240 makes pretty loud sound as HT520 does even though its size is small. You can read my comments on HT240 from the following thread. https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-theater/68286.html |
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Unregistered guest | I had a fun weekend with my Onkyo 770 system. I brought the whole darn thing over to my brother's place. He's got the Infinity Alpha 50 floor stand speakers as well as a pair of Infinity RS Five floor stand speakers. He's running a NAD pre-amp and amp. I don't know exactly which models but I do know the amp pumps 225W per channel and 700+ when you mono bridge it. That was pretty sweet to hear on the Infinity speakers. We didn't try to push that much through the HT520s though. ;-) We compared my Onkyo 770 system (~$500) to his ~$1800 system (mentioned above). We plugged his Denon 1650 single disc player (not included in prices above) into both his system and my system. We tried to match volumes the best we could by ear. To switch between systems, we used the mute buttons on his system and on my system. So, mute the 770 and listen to the NAD/Infinity combo. Then unmute 770 and then mute the NAD/Inifinity combo. This provided a fairly quick switch with no break in music. We compared classical, jazz, pop, hip-hop, techno and rock. Basically everything we could think of in his collection and what I brought over. His system (NAD and Infinity): Again, he has a NAD pre-amp and a NAD amp attached to two Infinity Alpha 50 floor stand speakers. His system did a great job at filling the range of music. The high's were bright and clear and the lows had power. The mids were there and filled the inbetween rather well. His NAD pushes 225W per channel so it has enough power to fill the room with high, mids and lows. This system excelled when we listened to classical and jazz music. During hip-hop and pop/rock listening his system couldn't push the low end frequencies as well as the HT520's subwoofer could. Overall it's a great listening experience if you listen to more classical than anything else, which my brother does. Music that uses mostly highs and mids excells on his system. My system: Onkyo 770 with the HT-R520 receiver and HT520 speakers. I had everything but the rear channel attached to the receiver. I set all my speakers to Large and kept the crossover at 100. I set the rear surround to "none". The surrounds were approximately 13 feet from the listening area. The fronts and center were close to that as well. If I had a longer subwoofer cable at the time I would have placed it in a different location because it was obviously in a non-optimal position (Back corner). It still sounded good but we could tell the bass was coming from the back corner. I have heard complaints about the subwoofer being able to only push "one note bass" but this was not at all true during this listening session we heard many different notes coming from the subwoofer. As for the other speakers, I swapped the 22 AWG cables out and replaced them with some 16 AWG cabkes. The 22 AWG cables that came with it were NOT sufficent to display the full quality of sound that these speakers can produce. So if you are trying to demo the system with an audiophile ear and still have the 22 AWG cables on the speakers, you are wasting your time. (See my post about cables here-> https://www.ecoustics.com/electronics/forum/home-theater/38051.html) Depending on what music I listened I changed the mode that I was using. Classical and jazz music I used direct Orchestra or Stereo. Hip-hop/rap, techno, and rock/pop I used Neo6:Music or the Prologic version. Jazz vocalists sounded like they were in a tube or a hallway when using the prologic or neo mode so switching to the direct mode made it much clearer and allowed the music to sound much more clean as well as reproduce better mids. I was really impressed with what the speakers could output in that mode. When listening to rock/pop with all the channels running through prologic/neo, I liked the sound of the Onkyo system better than my brother's system because it could produce a lower frequency with the subwoofer as well as fill the upper ranges. The 220W going to the 10" subwoofer was enough to shake my brother's house. When we listened to hip-hop, the HT520s took the cake. The Infinity's could not produce low enough sound to vibrate the house like Onkyos could. The Infinity's had a really crisp sound but couldn't fill the range as well as the HT520 setup. We turned it up to a volume of 60 (80 being max) and we took a walk outside and closed the doors to see if we were bugging the neighbors. We could hear the bass from every place in his yard (with the exception of down by the lake, we didn't venture down there but I'm sure it would be heard there too.) The windows were shut for the upcoming winter here in Minnesota so it's not like we had doors and windows open. Back inside it sounded great at this volume. Quite clear and it sounded like it was handling the high volumes incredibly well. Clear and crisp. The full range was represented quite well with the subwoofer and the other speakers. Mids sounded great as well. The lows were boomy and we both we pretty impressed with how much it shook the house. We also compared the FM tuner on the HT-R520 to my brother's Magnum Dynalab's FM tunner ($900). The Magnum Dynalab excelled here but if you compare the price difference, the Onkyo did an outstanding job. We had to attach his extra antenna ($100) to pick up some stations on the Onkyo and the sound was comparable. Mind you that the Magnum Dynalab tuner was much more crisp due to the ability to narrow your bands and because it was built to just do that. So then I joked with my brother, let's see how it does with AM frequencies. hehe. The Mangnum is an FM only tuner. ;-) Obviously, his system sounded great but the 770 was pretty nice and was pretty comparable. It performed much better than I thought it was going to. I had been questioning if I was going to keep this system or return it (I'm still in my 30 days after buying it). This test told me that I want to keep this system. It's a little more playing with the system to make it sound close to a ~$1800 system but hey.. I only spent $500. If you can set up the HT520 speakers in good locations, tweak the distances, set the volumes in each channel and change which mode you are using, (Neo6:Music, prologic, or direct music modes) you can really get a great and full sound out of the HT520s. As for WHERE we did the comparison, my brother's living room is rather large with just a coffee table and couch in it. Wood floor with vaulted ceiling and a rug in the middle. The Onkyo 770 system did a pretty decent job filling the room with quality sound. The surround speakers really helped this but even in direct mode the HT520s did a great job. So, my observation was that the Onkyo system did a great job when compared to a high end system. The receiver and HT520 speakers didn't have problems reproducing high and mids as well as excelling with the lows on the subwoofer. This is definitely a product that I will keep. One thing to keep in mind though is that if you are looking for a system and have an unlimited budget, definitely go all out and get what you can afford...but if your budget is limited like mine was, you can't go wrong spending the $500 for this system. |
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Bronze Member Username: Ub4meLouisville, KY Post Number: 18 Registered: Oct-04 | Very good job on the comparison. I almost bought S770 unless my wife pushed me to buy HT240 speaker system. Anyway, if anybody want to buy S770, go shoponkyo.com. They have refurbished one for $339.95 with sign-up point. It carries one year warranty instead of two years for brand new. But if you want extended warranty, you can always add one more year for $50. I bought TX-SR502S from them, but it was almost brand new except "Refurbished" sticker on the bottom. |
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Unregistered guest | ub4me: I'm thinking about taking mine back and buying a reconditioned version instead. I'll save almost $200 because the taxes on $500. It's almost worth it. My brother has bought demo stuff in the past and he's been happy with it. His ADCOM and Magnum Dynalab AMPs previous to the NAD has been refurbished or demos. It's all good stuff. |
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Bronze Member Username: Ub4meLouisville, KY Post Number: 19 Registered: Oct-04 | That's the way to save some money. If you buy with a platinum master or visa card, I believe, credit card companies will add extra year of warranty when I need a warranty service after one year warranty runs out. |