The Onkyo DV-BD507 is headed to America, everyone. The AV company went all offical on the player last month with European launch info, but was mum about a US release. Well, it’s here and it looks great – including the price. Read More
Having trouble finding Onkyo products after all the Circuit City stores closed up? Yeah, sometimes we forget that when major retailers go down, some vendors suffer a lot too including Onkyo. Well, soon an underpaid Best Buy Magnolia Home Theater worker will be happy to demo and sell you products from the brand.
The first-gen Onkyo hasn’t exactly made a splash in the HTPC market - do you know anyone that owns one? – but maybe the new models will help the home theater namesake penetrate more markets. By ditching audiophile-grade amplifier along with a DAC, the price has dropped from 200,00 yen ($2,149) to 59,800 ($643) which should spur some sales. Still, the netop is equipped with enough power to run a media server thanks to the Atom 230 1.6GHz CPU and 1GB of ram. Just don’t expect to play CoD5 on it.
Onkyo Japan today announced the Sotec C1 Hello Kitty (C101K3W) [JP], a netbook designed for fans of the famous cartoon cat from Sanrio. Unlike other Hello Kitty PCs, this model has been modified not only design- but also hardware-wise (see the picture above).
The Hello Kitty C1 features an Atom N270 CPU (1.60 GHZ), 1GB of RAM, a 120GB HDD, a 10.1″ TFT display (resolution: 1,024×600), a web cam, a QWERTY keyboard (layout: Japanese/US) and three USB 2.0 ports. Windows XP (SP 3) and a Hello Kitty wallpaper are pre-installed.
Today, the HT-S9100THX system was announced and it has its sights set on HD theater buffs across the country. The 7.1-channel system (130W/channel) includes THX’s Loudnes Plus technology and comes with four HDMI v1.3a ports. The more HDMI ports, the better, I say.
Audyssey and Faroudja handle onboard audio and video processing. Faroudja’s DCDi Edge technology bumps all component, composite, and S-video sources up to 1080i while Audyssey’s 2EQ automatically calibrates acoustical output for maximum eardrum popping. Moreover, Audyssey’s Dynamic EQ “algorithm adds moment-by-moment refinement of the receiver’s frequency response and surround levels in order to compensate for volume-dependent deteriorations in the listening experience, particularly at low volume levels.” Can anyone translate this into layman’s terms?
Additional info on the system can be found after the jump. The HT-S9100THX is available now for $1,099. Read More
You know what the world needs? No, not more gadget blogs; more iPod docks and Onkyo is pleased to help the cause. The CBX-Z20 AERO sound system is going to be released later this month and seems to be your standard AM/FM, CD, iPod radio. With the Onkyo nameplate though, the 50,000 yen player’s ($497 USD) sound and build quality should be above par.
Tired of the tyranny of headphone wires when listening to “Headphone Silence” on your iPod 200 times in a row? Who isn’t! Lucky for you there’s Onkyo’s MHP-UW2, a pair of unfortunately named wireless headphones that operate on the 2.4GHz frequency. You have to plug a receiver into the bottom of your iPod in order for it to work, but once that’s out of the way you’re golden.
Rather than trust the machine translation, we’ll merely mention that it’s due for release November 14 (in Japan at least; USA?) for around ¥20,000, which, right now, is about $197.
Onkyo yesterday announced in Japan [JP] that it will enter the market for low-priced notebooks, starting with a Sotec machine, which is priced at about $570. The so-called DC101 minimum PC will be released in this country October 3.
The notebook features a 10.1-inch display (backlighted, resolution: 1024×600), 1GB of memory, a 120GB hard disk, an Atom N270 CPU (1.60GHz), a 1.3 megapixel web camera, a memory card slot and one USB port. It comes with Windows XP pre-installed and operates for about 2 hours on a fully charged battery.
The Sotec notebook will be available in white or black and weighs 1.2kg. Onkyo will also offer a more expensive version ($760) with Microsoft Office installed.
We’re getting closer to the point where I’ll actually be convinced not to use my laptop as a media center. This Onkyo system has about half of what I’m looking for – it’s got a nice big LCD for displaying info it nabs from online, an 80GB hard drive, and a USB slot for loading stuff directly. It looks classy, and although the speakers are a bit anemic at 26W each, Onkyo is a good brand and I trust them to be pretty high-quality.
Problem is, with 80GB of music you need a way better interface than a D-pad – this thing needs a decent touchscreen, or the screen needs to be a detachable controller so you can control everything from across the room. And what’s up with the supported formats? MP3, PCM, and ATRAC? What about OGG and M4A, or any of the other formats to which the discerning listener might have ripped their collection? Until these problems are remedied, I can’t see myself paying ~$750 for a system like this. Good day, sir!
Today Onkyo unveiled a new stereo system which will go on sale in Japan on June 28th. The Nippon-only BR-NX10A is priced at $710.
It comes with two bookshelf speakers, a CD player and an LCD color display. The most distinctive feature is the 80 GB HDD which is integrated into the main unit. Onkyo says this is enough to store a total of 40,000 songs.
The company placed “cushions” under the HDD and cooling fan in the main unit. Onkyo claims this “floating technology” significantly reduces vibrations and noise .
User can record music on the the hard disc drive in linear PCM/ATRAC/MP3 formats. The BR-NX10A is equipped with a USB port and Ethernet connection for CDDB. The two speakers feature an output power of 26W each.
Onkyo today dropped a trio of home theater in a box set-ups, and they’re fairly affordable, full-featured systems.
The HT-S3100 is your basic 5.1 home theater system with capacity to hand HDTV via component inputs. Up to three hi-def devices can be displayed on your HDTV, switched automatically. It also has plenty of standard analog inputs for your legacy gear.
The HT-S4100 is the same system, but adds a powered subwoofer to the package instead of the non-powered variety the S3100 has.
The champ, though, is the HT-S5100, which is an entirely different package, and one of the best deals for the price I’ve seen anywhere. It’s a 7.1 surround sound system instead of 5.1, giving you two additional channels of surround audio.
The S5100 also includes three HDMI inputs as well as two component and four digital audio inputs. This is for serious home theater fans.
Other niceties include an integrated iPod dock and Sirius satellite radio connectivity, dual speaker zones, and several legacy inputs. This would perhaps be the last theater system you’d ever need, and at $579, it’s a very good price.
The S3100 and S4100 are $379 and $479 respectively, and great for beginners, but if you’re a serious home theater guy (as I am), you’re already checking your current system to see how it could compare.
Onkyo makes good home theater gear, and today we get word of two new affordable receivers. They’re coming out in April, and they seem pretty sweet, as far as how they spec out. The TX-SR576 and 506 both come in black or silver, feature daul audio zones, 5.1 Dolby and DTS, and multiple HDTV inputs, including 3 HDMI inputs and two component video inputs. For audio, the receivers have two optical and two coaxial, so those of you with multiple game systems are well served.
The main difference between the two is how they handle HDMI. The 506 basically acts as an HDMI switcher, where as the 576 has a decoder on the HDMI bus. If you’re planning on making HDMI your main interface, then the 576 is the one to look to at $479. If you have a healthy mix, you’re fine with the $379 506.
Onkyo Debuts Entry-Level A/V Receivers With Powered Zone 2, Audyssey Dynamic EQ and More [Press Release]
I’m nuts about home theater, it’s true. But that’s because I’m something of an audiophile as well as a videophile, natch. I think it’s great that we can have near-cinema-style experiences in our own homes without it costing nearly half as much as it did just a few short years ago.
The centerpiece of any good home entertainment system isn’t the HDTV, it’s the receiver. This is the unit that routes the video from your sources to the HDTV and the 5.1 Surround Sound system. It’s truly the brain of the whole thing.
What a lot of people don’t know is that they don’t have to cost a fortune. Rovert Silva over on About has a great review of Onkyo’s TX-SR304 unit. With three separate component inputs, it’s built for HD, and with 7 different digital audio profiles built-in, you can customize it to sound best in your home. And the things only around $200. If you’re getting started with HD, this is the type of unit you should be looking at.
Okay you guys, listen up for a second. I’ve got some bad news. It’s been a long and winding road and we’ve all fought really hard, but it appears that HD DVD might actually be on its way out for real. We just got word that Onkyo has decided to stop making HD DVD players. I know you feel. I feel like I got punched in the gonads, too.
Oh no! Yet another manufacturer is dropping support for HD-DVD, this time coming from home theater heartthrobs Onkyo. While not committing to total abandonment of the troubled format, it’s definitely an ominous sign of things to come.
Onkyo, though, is oddly mum about switching over to the competing Blu-ray format, neither confirming or denying that it will develop next-gen players using Sony’s technology in the future. It wouldn’t, however, make any sense to not embrace the winning disc technology as soon as possible.
Onkyo suspends HD DVD support [Wesley Tech]
This format war will drag on until we’re long since bored with it, if we’re not already. Onkyo’s shiny new HD DVD player, the DV-HD805, takes full advantage of the format’s extra features, including those that require a network connection. Movie freaks will be thankful for its ability to play movies at 24 frames per second—a feature that sorta came out of nowhere this past year—and support for the new DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD audio formats. Don’t forget the HDMI 1.3.
Onkyo’s player will hover around the $900 mark, quite a bit more than some of Toshiba’s offerings, Toshiba being the Swiss Guard of HD DVD.
Press Release [Onkyo via Electronic House]
You wouldn’t believe how dreary it is in the greater New York region right now, so dreary, in fact, that I’ve lost the will to call out Onkyo for making yet another iPod speaker+dock. The CBX-Z1 is actually more of a plane jane tabletop radio+CD player than a “straight up” speaker+dock, just with an additional slot for your iPod. It is, however, part of Onkyo’s Aero Sound System, which, judging by the name, means that it should sound about as good as these little tabletop radios can be expected to.
It’ll makes its mark in October, just in time for the new iPod. (Right Apple? New iPods soon? How many people bought iPhones vs. how many will buy an iPod?)
Product Info [Onkyo Japan via Akihabara News]
, Fine(320×240 at 15fps) and Normal(176×144 at 15fps) modes. The VR-1000J supports MPEG4 for video, AAC/G.726/AMR for audio and has room for a memory card or SD card.<br />
Not too bad for $170. </p>
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 you’re doing you and your loved ones a serious disservice by using them.
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To help you out, ‘cause that’s how we do, we put together this run down of eight of our favorite home-theater-in-a-box systems (HTIB, pronounced “HTIB”). Are they as good as buying individual components to handle your media needs? No, probably not. True audiophiles and film freaks will probably want to go with individual specialized components, especially if you’re trying to fill a large room with mind-blowing, bone-rattling sound. Will they pump out satisfying surround sound for the average music-and-movie enthusiast? Absolutely.</p>
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 that completely removes digital-equipment noise.
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The TX-SA505 also boasts 24bit/192kz and supports Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, DTS, DTS-ES, AAC and Dolby NR Professional Logic. May 18 is the slated launch date and it’s priced at $425.</p>
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