Can Quality Come With A Reasonable Price Tag?
A home theatre receiver takes audio signals from various source components and decodes them to power the home theatre system. It also switches and outputs a video signal to a TV. 3D is touted as the next big thing in home theater receivers. Onkyo, which deals in home theatre receivers, has developed a new range of AV receivers that embrace 3D technology. The Onkyo TX-SR308 Home Theater Receiver is its new model that encompasses this latest technology.
This model comes with a 5.1-channel receiver and includes three HDMI 1.4 inputs that are supposed to support 3D playback and Audio Return Channel (ARC). This new range of home theatre receivers has a simple front layout that is supposed to be easier to use. It has a standby button on the left and a volume control on the right. The digital fluorescent display is faint to avoid distracting the movie watcher in a dark room. The front face also includes inputs for the mic and headphone jack. These are set to ease the interaction with the user.
Connectivity is easier, too, with one HDMI output and three HDMI inputs. There are also 4 sets of composite video inputs and two component inputs, for low-resolution devices. The universal port on the Onkyo TX-SR308 Receiver is included for the iPod or iPhone. A large market uses these devices, and the company wanted to tap into this most valuable resource.
The new home theatre receiver model also comes with support for 3D video, which is supposed to allow a user to simultaneously connect 3 high-definition sources. The most popular video source components that are connected include: a Blue-ray player, a gaming console, and a satellite tuner. It also includes Burr-Brown DACs to optimize analog audio performance. The DACs are supposed to reduce jitter to allow for clearer sound for both audio and video.
The receiver posts on screen set up menus, which overlay the video image, so that the user can adjust settings without having to navigate back and forth from video to blank screen. There’s direct connectivity for front panel audio input, which means those that use MP3 players or iPods can connect quickly to playback through the front panel. It also has music optimizer technology, which allows users to enhance the quality of musical files that have been compressed in portable music players.
The receivers can be used for multiple rooms, optimized so that it’s not only usable in one main room, such as the living room. Music from outside the home can be listened to on this system as well, for enhanced quality sound, possibly brought in via wall speakers or ceiling speakers.
The Onkyo TX-SR308 Receiver raises the bar on the features usually offered by home theater receivers. Because there are so many products of this type flooding the market today, time will tell whether or not this home theater system can deliver what it says it can, and whether or not it will really be the standard in home entertainment.
