Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-NR696 Home Audio Smart Audio and Video Receiver, Sonos Compatible and Dolby Atmos Enabled, 4K Ultra HD and AirPlay 2, Black : Electronics

Very nice unit for the money. Has plenty of power at 600w to match my existing speakers in my coach. Very nice upgrade to the old one I had.. now we can enjoy quality sound as we watch movies and listening to music. This thing jams and sounds great. Takes a little time to set up but worth it..

I treated myself to this new unit after my two-and-a-half-year-old, refurbished Onkyo started making popping sounds through the speakers and then the audio just quit. Hey, it was great while it lasted, and I sure got my money's worth out of it. (bought it off eBay) This new model does everything I need it to do, and it was very easy for me to setup. Basically, unplugged from the old unit and plugged everything into the new. I did convert the bare speaker wires to banana plugs just to "upgrade" the wiring a bit. Easy. Setup was a cinch, though just a little different from the older unit. During the setup, the built-in WiFi connected to my internet and I upgraded the firmware. Again, easy. I ran the speaker setup with the included microphone and one thing I've noticed since then is that my bass sound is a bit too strong, so I've backed the sub down a few decibels. I didn't have to do that with the other and I'm still tweaking the bass, more to my liking. When I can hear the dishes rattling in the kitchen, I feel like that's too much bass. (thanks Toby speakers) My center speaker is a Klipsch Reference and there's a selection for Klipsch in the Onkyo setup which I went with. I believe Klipsch and Onkyo are now part of the same family (Voxx/Audiovox) hence the offered setting. I'm very happy with this new receiver. I've noticed this unit runs cooler than the other. I had thought about putting in a cooling fan system but will re-think that move. Now if I could just work the bugs out of programming my Logitech Harmony universal remote. The controller codes apparently are different for this receiver. Could anybody suggest another universal remote controller that works well? This Onkyo was a great buy. It shipped from Adorama, which doesn't matter, but I'm familiar with them because I had purchased some video equipment from them in the past. I hope you enjoy yours. Whoa! Too much coffee.

Today's receivers are loaded with tons of features and new format capabilities, and are placed in a package that is reasonably affordable. But at what cost? What typically suffers in this trade off between all the bells and whistles and, what is supposed to matter most on a piece of electronics like this, how the freakin' thing sounds? Well this Onkyo sounds typical of many affordable receivers that are available nowadays. Just decent enough to do the job, but under close scrutiny, it sounds somewhat harsh and grading in the upper midrange and highs. It's somewhat thin when pushed to higher volume levels. Older receivers had some of these same attributes, but not to this degree. In my opinion, cost cutting in AV receivers has hit hardest in the area of overall sound quality and, to some extent, materials used. Some wonder why the home theater market has shrunk to only hardcore hobbyists and wealthy audiophiles. Are average people clamoring to set up Dolby Atmos arrays of speaker set ups in their family room? Or would they just like something that sounds awesome when you crank to volume?

Unbeatable price on Amazon/Adorama on this very capable receiver. I’d recommend this for anyone looking for a capable and flexible AV Receiver. The remote control and the app are a little dated but functional. The description wants you to think that it’s a 210 watts per channel receiver. It’s really rated at 210W/Ch at 10%THD with a single channel driven! With 2 channels driven it’s 100W/Ch at 0.08% THD. Overall, driving 5 or 7 or 9 channels, it may be sufficient but could be under powered in a large room. The receiver is replacing a Sony receiver in a spare room and powering 5.1 system, mainly to add the Network capabilities. I also have a six year old Onkyo TX-NR646 that powers another 5.1 system along with 5 sets of stereo speakers on Zone 2, throughout the house and patio. And it does a great job powering all speakers. Overall, there’s very little difference between this and a six years older receiver. Unfortunately, each receiver uses a different app.

This Onkyo receiver is much better than I anticipated. Physical setup, connecting speakers and other devices, was simple but a little time consuming. That is just the nature of the beast. I was amazed that once all the connections were complete the setup microphone balanced my 5.1 surround speakers perfectly. It has more power than my previous Onkyo AV receiver (which I retired after 14 years) and sounds amazing. The zone 2 feature, along with the Bluetooth connectivity is great for my outdoor patio speakers and phone. And with the Onkyo phone app it's a breeze to manage the system from outside. This was also another feature that attracted me to this device. Once, by accident, I found that I was streaming music from my streaming service indoors and outside my iTunes app was playing, both from the same phone. Some advice about the setup: When following the setup guide and it says that if you want to ONLY use the zone 2 speakers and not the main speakers you need to set the main speakers to standby mode. It took me a while to understand that what they mean is that you select an unused/inactive HDMI port for the main speakers. There is not a "standby" feature/setting. Overall, this device exceeded my expectations and was an exceptionally good price. Last note: While extremely pleased with this AVR I will reserve final judgement until it dies or is retired, whichever comes first.