This is the receiver I got about 3 months ago for my home theater. It’s actually a really nice sounding unit, and I’ve always enjoyed the simplicity of Onkyo equipment. The fact that it is not THX certified really does not hurt it because honestly the only reason it wasn’t certified is because of the minimum 100w per channel requirement for THX certification. The receiver would certify otherwise, as it has all the same stuff that is found in the TXSR804, which does meet the 100w requirement.

About a week ago, I was channel surfing and landed on one of the HD channels. I heard a loud *POP* from my sub, and both my audio and video went out. When I went into my audio closet, I noticed that my receiver had tripped and was turned ‘off’. So… I turned it back on, and there was a loud *HUMMMMMMMMM* coming from my sub. Video came back on, and the rest of the speakers seemed fine… so I unplugged the sub and went on watching TV.

The next day, I contacted Sound Distributors, where I purchased my Premier Acoustic 7.1 speakers. After explaining the situation, Eric agreed to ship me a new amp for my sub. The amp arrived at my door this tuesday afternoon, and it took me about 30 minutes to pull the old amp and replace it with the new one. After everything was plugged back in, I kicked on the sub, and again got the same loud *HUMMMMMMMM*.

So now I’m thinking it is the sub pre-amp out from my receiver.

Ok… no problem… the unit is under warranty, so I’ll call Onkyo and find a repair shop in my area right? Wrong. The closest they have for a repair shop in my area is Knoxville (actually, while I was on the phone with them, they said I would have to ship it to their regional repair in NY, but after getting online I found one in Knoxville) which is about 3.5 hours away. So I’m looking at about $50 shipping for this glorified door-stop, and I don’t have any of the original packaging. What’s more, I will be without my receiver for at least 3 to 4 weeks!

So my lesson here is … the next receiver I buy, I’m going to make sure that the manufacturer has a certified repair shop nearby so that I don’t have to eat the shipping and packaging. That obviously means that I won’t be purchasing Onkyo again.

Take these guys for instance: Mcintosh Labs They have 2 authorized dealers within 50 miles of me, and the way that their warranty works, I could drop off my receiver at one of those dealers, and they would deal with shipping it out for repair. Not only that, but I bet if I asked, they would give me a spare to use in the meantime.

I’m also considering buying a cheap spare 5.1 to have available if / when this sort of thing happens again.