Onkyo TX-SR707

Still they come, it seems. The Onkyo TX-SR707 is another AV receiver offering from the lovely people at Onkyo, and hits the shelves at the low middle end. It comes in at the comfortable sub $1000 category, making it fairly affordable for lots of people who want to bring the home cinema experience into their living rooms. We have been asked to road test this latest offering and see what we feel, whether this is money well spent or whether it is another over rated can’t really see the point type product. Grab your coffee and cookie and settle back and have a read.

Onkyo TX-SR707 | More Details

Design

A nice chunky looking unit, the Onkyo TX-SR707 is typical of their design, which we know looks good and would look great as the centerpiece of many entertainment stands. This is one of the more busy front panels on offer. The LED screen runs across the middle and has buttons and knobs all around it. The only things we don’t really like are the connectors on the front of the unit. Being user friendly, it means you can connect jacks without reaching behind the unit. However, once in use they do look rather messy and spoil the front of the box. We have to say we still prefer it when designers leave all connection points at the back. Along the very bottom is a line of credits, where Onkyo acknowledge the supporting technologies they have crammed into this box of tricks, and even before we switch it on we can see that there are several of the best inside, as well as that all important THX certification logo. That means that the Onkyo TX-SR707 has been certified as THX Select2 Plus, and these guys are notoriously hard to please. They really don’t just give this certification out to anyone, and there are a large percentage of AV receivers out there that just don’t make their grade – so this should be a quality piece of kit.

Actual user review:
“This receiver is incredible. It has most of the features of the step up model (808) minus the networking capability and about 1db worth of wattage. It is a great value. Burr brown DACs, 6 HDMI inputs, Audessy! wow! It sounds great too. The audyssey dialed my room in perfectly for me. I have it paired with the Paradigm cinema 110 speaker system and couldnt be happier. Buy it now!” – J.Wanda (WV,USA)

Functionality

The Onkyo TX-SR707 is a standard 7-channel receiver, which is perfect for this category of kit, and each of the channels has a reasonable 100 watts, which make the performance good. The unit is connected up to our test room kit and we are ready to go. First on test is the sound quality, and with a massive Audyssey appearance combined with our old friends Dolby Pro Logic and Dolby Master Audio we are expecting great things, and we really are not disappointed. This AV receiver really does have the wow factor, and we found ourselves checking the price banding, as this really is sound performance from above its category. There are three Audyssey products included here and they really do earn their keep. The MultEQ is one of our favorite bits as it is just so clever, and incase you don’t know what it does, it is responsible for sensing the speaker set up in the room and adjusting and compensating as needed – which means it doesn’t matter what shape of room you have or where you are forced to have your speakers from a logistics point of view. It will sort them and it does the job fantastically.

Dolby we know is good, and the Audyssey Dynamic EQ combines well with it to handle extreme volumes and prevents distortion, retaining the clarity you would want to hear. From a visual point of view we were equally impressed. There was no jagging and the pictures were clear and stable, and of course our favorite movies were also heard in true surround sound – fabulous!

The Onkyo TX-SR707 comes Sirius ready and features a whole host of connectors. We were happy with the layout of the rear of the unit and it has excellent instructions to help you get to grips with how it all works if this is your first foray into the world of AV receivers.

Bottom Line

The only downsides here that we found is that this is a bulky unit, so you will need to make sure you have the shelf space, and it did get warmer than others, but as long as you are not leaving it draped in a sheet it isn’t a dangerous heat. Overall this is an excellent AV receiver for the money and you really are going to struggle to better it in terms of performance. The Onkyo TX-SR707 gets a definite thumbs up from us and we would happily spend the money they are asking to have this piece of kit in our living room.

Average User Rating:

• “Im upgrading from an Onkyo SR606 which i had for 2 years, this receiver is UNBELIEVABLE, I installed 2 height speakers and the new processing modes are really nice, THX Certified, Burr brown Dacs, can’t ask for more ;) I had it for about 2 weeks now and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this receiver.” – I.Meni (USA)
• “Feature packed receiver with very good performance. Upgraded from a three year old Onkyo and the new support for TrueHD, etc., made this a valuable upgrade for my system. I’m using it in a 5.1 speaker configuration and the sound stage and depth on some Blue Ray titles is simply awesome. Try Master and Commander’s first battle scene when you get this receiver installed, it will make you very happy at the value propopostion. Very highly recommended.” – T.Varela (USA)

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