There's no doubt that, for a lot of people, there is just a better convenience/quality trade-off. I had a good size Onkyo system for watching movies and I configured it meticulously. But it's hard to explain to others why there is so much ceremony and bulk, especially when watching habits degenerate from immersive movies to binge watching netflix serieses.
Part of the experience with hobbies is some kind of sacrifice along with the reward. The drive towards convenience takes away that sacrifice and makes me appreciate something a little less.
It's like takeout and boxed wine, wearing a T-shirt; versus dressing up a bit, making a nice meal, and opening a bottle from a winery you visited. The former is ovjectively good and convenient, and all of the latter ceremony is a hassle that provides little benefit (you probably can't tell the boxed wine apart in a blind test).
But... aren't we happier with the latter experience?
I'm too lazy to "waste" time on that kind of happiness though. That's the sad part.
I think if I'm motivated by others it's different. For instance, stuff like surfing/snowsports requires a significant hassle, and it's a lot easier to find people who will put up with that hassle.
Weirdly in the last couple of weeks we’ve been clearing out our house and I found three(!) Onkyo home cinema amp boxes in the attic. I don’t own a single Onkyo amplifier anymore. Every single one got returned due to a serious fault (from suddenly producing no sound, to literal smoke coming out of it) within a year or 18 months, and typically swapped for another, slightly newer model Onkyo amp - rinse & repeat yearly. Their hardware from my experience was utter garbage. It had great features and UI, but literally went up in a puff of smoke on an annual basis. After three or four cycles I got fed up and changed to Yamaha. Unplugging a load of HDMI cables, speaker cables, re-running audio calibration, etc. is not something you enjoy repeating on an annual basis. I was always glad Richer Sounds (in the UK) have an unbelievably good returns policy. Even loaning me another amp FOC for a couple of months while Onkyo tried to repair one of them for me, before they gave up and just sent me a whole new higher end amp, free of charge.
I’ve got two Yamaha amps, both at least 3+ years old which have never had a single fault. I’ve also got a Denon home cinema amp, just over two years old which has never had an issue. To be honest I’m surprised they were still in business, as it never seemed from home cinema forums that my story was that unique.
>It's like takeout and boxed wine, wearing a T-shirt; versus dressing up a bit, making a nice meal, and opening a bottle from a winery you visited. The former is ovjectively good and convenient, and all of the latter ceremony is a hassle that provides little benefit (you probably can't tell the boxed wine apart in a blind test).
>But... aren't we happier with the latter experience?
I think this is increasingly true of us as a society. We have been consistently elevating "ease of use" over every other objective and/or subjective quality.
We've reached the point where easier is better, even if it is objectively worse.
We are all settling for local maximum that are significantly lower than several other maxima because apparently making the effort to move further along the x-axis is now almost considered the worst thing one can do.
I partly agree. Though once you do have a working setup and know which buttons to press, there isn’t a lot of inconvenience anymore, apart from being bound to the particular room.
The problem for the industry is more that an important target group for them are A/V nerds who are never satisfied for long with their setup and are always looking for the next best thing to upgrade to, and which also serve as a multiplicator. And those are becoming fewer and fewer.
I think what should also be highlighted is not that we necessarily just prefer convenience, it's that we don't value effort and craftsmanship so much anymore because the 'cheap' systems produce 'good enough' products. Suits can be quality enough without being hand tailored. Home order meals are not the cardboard horrors of the past, they're ok enough to outweigh the effort of creating a meal from scratch, etc.
I think it's terribly sad honestly.
I think the major, major downside is the gradual migration to a complete lack of knowledge of how to make things, except for the centralised, large, automated product makers.
We sacrifice our autonomy without realising it, while at the same time losing our ability to even discern and appreciate hand crafted skill and the value it provides.
The problem is that there is no choice. There are no good receivers that have modern UIs with sane defaults. They just hacked on wifi and phone apps that do a horrible job papering over the complexity. Sonos tried to fix this but their hardware is woefully inadequate for theater quality setups.
I feel that the AV-receiver market has gone the way of the DSLR market. Compact speaker systems like Sonos (that don't need a separate AVR) simply got good enough. Thus the need for buying a separate AVR to drive your Dolby / DTS / etc. setup has all but vanished except maybe for the most determined audiophiles (and even most of these would do well to simply get a compact wireless speaker setup instead of some monstrosity that they can hardly ever enjoy...because too small of a listening room, and neighbours).
I'm not saying market for Onkyo, Denon, Sony, Yamaha, etc. AVRs is a goner, but I am suggesting it may have peaked and that going forward there will be less and less demand for AVRs, especially in the low/mid range of things.
This isn’t big news, the actual “Onkyo” that consumers know will carry on, the Bankruptcy is the remains of the company that had already sold off the hardware divisions.
“The company sold its core home audiovisual business to Sharp and U.S.-based Voxx International and its earphones and headphones business to an investment fund, both in September. A joint venture between Sharp and Voxx is expected to continue using the Onkyo brand”
I was window shopping for an atmos receiver and noticed the manuals and even product design between a certain Onkyo and Pioneer receiver were basically identical.
The design of the manuals, including the fonts and screenshots were almost identical. The back and front of the units were almost identical. I bet even the guts were identical!
Bankruptcy in Japan doesn't work the way it does in the West - it's pretty much a death sentence commercially in Japan. The brand will never be used again and the assets will be liquidated. The loss of face and reputation makes it very different.
Right, the big news was that it was already sold off months ago. But just because Sharp / Voxx is going to reuse the brand name (and likely some base IP) that doesn't mean people won't notice. (It's not likely anyone has noticed yet, since it takes until the next production or two to actually make cost / design changes).
> the actual “Onkyo” that consumers know will carry on
I’m not so sure. The mainstream market (by that I mean excluding expensive “high-end” brands like NAD) can’t support a lot of independently designed products. In the AVR mainstream market there’s currently Denon/Marantz, Onkyo/Pioneer, Sony, and Yamaha (did I miss any?). There’s bound to occur more consolidation if the market keeps shrinking. The brands may continue to exist, but sharing the internals with other brands.
This. The final ignoble nail in the coffin of folks saying "Hey, I remember Onkyo: I'll buy this storied brand's products" in the futur and feeling miserable after getting a cheap junky product.
There is a special place in hell for brand destroyers: it's bad enough when the original company does it, but to have a licensee skate on nostalgic happiness only to slam you with their blade... Consumers deserve better.
They screwed up their receivers circuit board from 2009 to 2015 ish. All their receivers would fail after 5 years and Onkyo did a massive recall campaign to replace the main circuit board (with all the amps attached.) That must have costed them.
Sad to hear. Growing up I had an Onkyo amplifier that I liked a lot. I picked it up at a garage sale for a few dollars and used it through my teenage years.
It's too bad Denon (DENki ONkyo) didn't buy this Onkyo to make the merger complete :). I'm guessing it wasn't worth it to go downmarket via Onkyo, and it sounds like Onkyo had been accumulating debt for years.
I had an Onkyo 5.1 system in service from 2002 - 2018. Great stuff! First movie I watched on the system with a 28" CRT TV was "Driven" on DVD. Going from TV-speakers to a full set of speakers including subwoofer was amazing! Later on it serviced Blu-ray:s and a PS4 beautifully.
I must say this is a rather sober ending to the week, and for the company. For a company that lived for over half a century - that is a lot of people who've lived their entire lives working at that place. Households that were purely supported because of people buying their audio gear.
I'm not a fan of Onkyo specifically - having never used them, or even had the money to buy proper audiophile gear - but it is a bit sad to see once-great industries and companies slowly start fading and dying off, as gradually fewer and fewer people remember them.
After getting a set of Sonos speakers in my living room I couldn't bring myself to just pawn off my Onkyo TX-NR626 and Polk speaker set, so now I've put them to use with my work setup and gaming rig. My PC games sound pretty good now, as do standup meetings!
When my Onkyo finally gives up the ghost, which could be in 2 years or 20 years based on what I'm reading in this thread, I'll be looking for whatever gives pretty good audio quality while having an absolute minimum of IoT cruft.
This and many other "japanese luxury products" will for sure go down the drain when for a drop of 5% in quality (which is already quite subjective) you could get virtually the same product in other brand for about 60% of the price, this (pretentious) focus on the details will kill many of those products/brands
It is weird this. I have just been trying to juggle a few home systems. I have pretty good bulky amps, but the problem is, they are bulky. And the inferior soundbar gets more use, as Bluetooth is convenient. I also have a dlna renderer with an onboard DAC, but the software is abandonware, and client support for dlna is just horrible. Particularly dlna controllers. Not sure why it is so utterly terrible, license fee induced hellscape? Casting could be good, but software support is all over the place, not to mention hardware.
Quality mini-amps with some over the air playback options. And polished/supported software would go a long way. I am getting so infuriated by the landscape, I am tempted to just buy active speakers.
Oh and only two devices I have have ever had, kind of play okay with Bluetooth When it works, it is good.
Shame you can't easily get diagnostic/feedback, about codecs and transport. Let alone volume.
I had sensitive ears when younger, probably lost a lot of my hearing. And the biggest annoyance ainhave with the TV is just trying to hear dialogue. The soundbar I have is good at background music in shows, and okay for music, but dialog it sucks at.
My onkyo GA speaker is okay for some types of music, sucks with others, and is terrible again for voice/podcasts etc. Different domains, I understand that. But not even configurable eqs.
Looking at this with sadness from the point of view of being a Rotel preamp+amp owner with equally old Infinity speakers. Onkyo has had some quality products over the years.
The Kappas all lost their surrounds but was able to replace them 15 years ago - they came back better than new, and still sound amazing.
Preamp only has a DB25 connector for 5.1 surround; hooks up to RCA outputs on an archaic, yet high end ASUS Xonar sound card. And all of my media goes through my 10 year old Windows 10 HTPC (recently refurbished with a new case, cooling and storage) and controlled by a Logitech wireless keyboard.
I love watching movies, YouTube etc on my 6 year old 65" Samsung that's simply a dumb display like that. Couldn't be easier to use; very performant. Beats a "tv app only" experience out of the waters.
There's a reason there are barely any double-blind tests on Hifi equipment. The difference just isn't there anymore. The entire market is full of bullshitters trying to sell you cables for USD 1k. Being "into Hifi" is basically a psychological diagnosis.
Oh wow! I had an Onkyo AVR that did have Audyssey (TX-SR508), but I guess they stopped putting it into later models awhile ago. They replaced it with something called AccuEQ which some reviewers say works just fine.
I personally switched over to Denon AVRs when it became time to upgrade.
How hard would it be for them to just take their existing stereo and hook it up to alexa or sonos or some other existing streaming service. If the audio quality is good then quality + decent interface seems straightforward?
Many modern receivers support both Chromecast and Airplay, as well as some level of HomeKit / Google Home / Alexa integration.
I think for Onkyo, they just fell in an awkward middle. Not as high end as Denon/Marantz/etc. and not as cheap as < cheapest thing you can find >. Combined with the drastic decrease in people "needing" receivers and speakers (many people now just get a sound bar, or Bluetooth speakers) and the market squeezed them.
Most a/v units have long offered good connectivity and even mult-room setups using one. So, interoperability and connectivity are easy. Aside from reasons mentioned in the article, you now have 1-2 generations of people who grew up without having much exposure to a/v receivers and large speaker setups, whether at home or big box store electronic stores.
Even the ones who have, the marginal benefit of having pricier and higher end units cannot detected easily.
Market for receivers will always be around, but it is shrinking for sure.
My circa-2015 Marantz receiver (NR1606) shipped with support for Airplay, Spotify, Pandora, and SiriusXM, so they’ve had decent connectivity with modern services for some time now. The UI isn’t amazing but that’s barely relevant since those services are typically streamed or controlled by a phone app.
Easy, with built-in Bluetooth. I run my phone with Spotify into my Costco-special Onkyo with Bluetooth. Works great, and I can even play audio with Bluetooth while viewing video through another HDMI port.
I switched to sonos and never looked back. I had a lot of Onkyo over the years and it always felt like they should have gone the software route much sooner.
ultimately i think smart tvs and roku were a bigger part of the receiver demise - it just didn’t fit the receiver mindset and the experience sucked
sonos wasn’t cheap but i’m on year 7 and it still works and i only saw one product refresh on soundbar but my old one still works - just sticking to spdiff. with 7 years of onkyo i would have been on 2nd or 3rd receiver just trying to stay ahead of dvd to bd and hdmi 1.x to 2.x and evrything between.
I'm using a 7-year old Onkyo 7.1 surround sound system right now. It sounds great, but when you use the menus (like browse a DLNA server) or switch inputs (or something cuts out), there's a second or two lag on everything.
I wish that AV receivers had USB inputs for PCs.
"But Andrew," I hear you say: "Go to $store and search for receivers with USB ports. There's hundreds!"
Those USB ports are for playing MP3s off a flash drive. A PC isn't a flash drive. Do you have a receiver like that? How do you connect a PC to it with USB?
If you kept CDs and want to play them, have DAB+ radio and need to receive it, and want something like Plex to not turn on a TV with chromecast, you wind up neeeding either to spend ludicrous sums on component Hi-Fi, or look for a receiver which has enough HDMI inputs to feed digital media in.
Yamaha, Onkyo and Marantz look to be the ones who occupy the space and include some DAB+ choices integrated into the unit, which reduces the backside plug count
So my world of "what do I buy next" just dropped down one provider. Bummer.
I had a high-end Onkyo and it travelled to 3 countries with me.
Until one time it was in storage and some water dripped in it and ruined the circuit board.
But MAN! I bought it with matched 7.1 speakers and remember setting it up, tuning it with the included microphone and plugging in the Avatar Blu-Ray. Jesus!
Now I'm with crap-shit Samsung soundbar in my house here in Asia, which I can't even turn up too much because I respect my neighbor. Too much bass. Not enough mids or highs. Sigh.
[+] [-] chmod600|3 years ago|reply
Part of the experience with hobbies is some kind of sacrifice along with the reward. The drive towards convenience takes away that sacrifice and makes me appreciate something a little less.
It's like takeout and boxed wine, wearing a T-shirt; versus dressing up a bit, making a nice meal, and opening a bottle from a winery you visited. The former is ovjectively good and convenient, and all of the latter ceremony is a hassle that provides little benefit (you probably can't tell the boxed wine apart in a blind test).
But... aren't we happier with the latter experience?
I'm too lazy to "waste" time on that kind of happiness though. That's the sad part.
I think if I'm motivated by others it's different. For instance, stuff like surfing/snowsports requires a significant hassle, and it's a lot easier to find people who will put up with that hassle.
[+] [-] christoph|3 years ago|reply
I’ve got two Yamaha amps, both at least 3+ years old which have never had a single fault. I’ve also got a Denon home cinema amp, just over two years old which has never had an issue. To be honest I’m surprised they were still in business, as it never seemed from home cinema forums that my story was that unique.
[+] [-] LudwigNagasena|3 years ago|reply
>But... aren't we happier with the latter experience?
No?
[+] [-] thaway2839|3 years ago|reply
We've reached the point where easier is better, even if it is objectively worse.
We are all settling for local maximum that are significantly lower than several other maxima because apparently making the effort to move further along the x-axis is now almost considered the worst thing one can do.
[+] [-] layer8|3 years ago|reply
The problem for the industry is more that an important target group for them are A/V nerds who are never satisfied for long with their setup and are always looking for the next best thing to upgrade to, and which also serve as a multiplicator. And those are becoming fewer and fewer.
[+] [-] headsoup|3 years ago|reply
I think it's terribly sad honestly. I think the major, major downside is the gradual migration to a complete lack of knowledge of how to make things, except for the centralised, large, automated product makers.
We sacrifice our autonomy without realising it, while at the same time losing our ability to even discern and appreciate hand crafted skill and the value it provides.
[+] [-] colordrops|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FpUser|3 years ago|reply
Excellent movie does not have to be "immersive". I think your statement sounds rather snobbish.
[+] [-] madengr|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rixrax|3 years ago|reply
I'm not saying market for Onkyo, Denon, Sony, Yamaha, etc. AVRs is a goner, but I am suggesting it may have peaked and that going forward there will be less and less demand for AVRs, especially in the low/mid range of things.
[+] [-] akmarinov|3 years ago|reply
“The company sold its core home audiovisual business to Sharp and U.S.-based Voxx International and its earphones and headphones business to an investment fund, both in September. A joint venture between Sharp and Voxx is expected to continue using the Onkyo brand”
[+] [-] spookthesunset|3 years ago|reply
The design of the manuals, including the fonts and screenshots were almost identical. The back and front of the units were almost identical. I bet even the guts were identical!
Here is the pioneer unit: https://intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com/manuals/docs/SN29403616...
Here is the Onkyo unit: https://www.onkyousa.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/TX-SR494...
[+] [-] FunnyBadger|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] layer8|3 years ago|reply
I’m not so sure. The mainstream market (by that I mean excluding expensive “high-end” brands like NAD) can’t support a lot of independently designed products. In the AVR mainstream market there’s currently Denon/Marantz, Onkyo/Pioneer, Sony, and Yamaha (did I miss any?). There’s bound to occur more consolidation if the market keeps shrinking. The brands may continue to exist, but sharing the internals with other brands.
[+] [-] mwexler|3 years ago|reply
There is a special place in hell for brand destroyers: it's bad enough when the original company does it, but to have a licensee skate on nostalgic happiness only to slam you with their blade... Consumers deserve better.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] guardiangod|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rrdharan|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
I had an Onkyo from the bad cap era that blew its capacitors, it was maybe 15 years old when it died, FWIW..
[+] [-] Hamuko|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cerium|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lynguist|3 years ago|reply
Onkyo means sound. Also: Often when there’s To (actually Tō) in a company’s name, it refers to Tokyo’s To such as in Toshiba.
[+] [-] agumonkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] starky|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krueger71|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krnlpnc|3 years ago|reply
I used to have a large 5.1 setup but over the years I’ve downsized to a hdmi enabled 2.0 setup.
Also my Onkyo receiver stopped working, while my NAD, Yamaha and technics amps have been going strong for decades.
[+] [-] user_7832|3 years ago|reply
I'm not a fan of Onkyo specifically - having never used them, or even had the money to buy proper audiophile gear - but it is a bit sad to see once-great industries and companies slowly start fading and dying off, as gradually fewer and fewer people remember them.
[+] [-] steelframe|3 years ago|reply
When my Onkyo finally gives up the ghost, which could be in 2 years or 20 years based on what I'm reading in this thread, I'll be looking for whatever gives pretty good audio quality while having an absolute minimum of IoT cruft.
[+] [-] ordiel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HollowEyes|3 years ago|reply
Quality mini-amps with some over the air playback options. And polished/supported software would go a long way. I am getting so infuriated by the landscape, I am tempted to just buy active speakers.
[+] [-] HollowEyes|3 years ago|reply
Shame you can't easily get diagnostic/feedback, about codecs and transport. Let alone volume.
I had sensitive ears when younger, probably lost a lot of my hearing. And the biggest annoyance ainhave with the TV is just trying to hear dialogue. The soundbar I have is good at background music in shows, and okay for music, but dialog it sucks at.
My onkyo GA speaker is okay for some types of music, sucks with others, and is terrible again for voice/podcasts etc. Different domains, I understand that. But not even configurable eqs.
[+] [-] sundvor|3 years ago|reply
The Kappas all lost their surrounds but was able to replace them 15 years ago - they came back better than new, and still sound amazing.
Preamp only has a DB25 connector for 5.1 surround; hooks up to RCA outputs on an archaic, yet high end ASUS Xonar sound card. And all of my media goes through my 10 year old Windows 10 HTPC (recently refurbished with a new case, cooling and storage) and controlled by a Logitech wireless keyboard.
I love watching movies, YouTube etc on my 6 year old 65" Samsung that's simply a dumb display like that. Couldn't be easier to use; very performant. Beats a "tv app only" experience out of the waters.
[+] [-] wafriedemann|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] layer8|3 years ago|reply
Edit: Apparently Onkyo caught up at some point, but at the time I switched away from them they were lagging behind regarding room correction.
[+] [-] otterley|3 years ago|reply
I personally switched over to Denon AVRs when it became time to upgrade.
[+] [-] 7speter|3 years ago|reply
Gotta remember these names for when I can afford a good audio system…
[+] [-] CuriousSkeptic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] countvonbalzac|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|3 years ago|reply
I think for Onkyo, they just fell in an awkward middle. Not as high end as Denon/Marantz/etc. and not as cheap as < cheapest thing you can find >. Combined with the drastic decrease in people "needing" receivers and speakers (many people now just get a sound bar, or Bluetooth speakers) and the market squeezed them.
[+] [-] pcurve|3 years ago|reply
Even the ones who have, the marginal benefit of having pricier and higher end units cannot detected easily.
Market for receivers will always be around, but it is shrinking for sure.
[+] [-] Bud|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bamboozled|3 years ago|reply
Try using a Japanese bank when traveling, wow...
[+] [-] codetrotter|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kitsunesoba|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gunapologist99|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] supernovae|3 years ago|reply
ultimately i think smart tvs and roku were a bigger part of the receiver demise - it just didn’t fit the receiver mindset and the experience sucked
sonos wasn’t cheap but i’m on year 7 and it still works and i only saw one product refresh on soundbar but my old one still works - just sticking to spdiff. with 7 years of onkyo i would have been on 2nd or 3rd receiver just trying to stay ahead of dvd to bd and hdmi 1.x to 2.x and evrything between.
[+] [-] theandrewbailey|3 years ago|reply
I wish that AV receivers had USB inputs for PCs.
"But Andrew," I hear you say: "Go to $store and search for receivers with USB ports. There's hundreds!"
Those USB ports are for playing MP3s off a flash drive. A PC isn't a flash drive. Do you have a receiver like that? How do you connect a PC to it with USB?
[+] [-] ggm|3 years ago|reply
Yamaha, Onkyo and Marantz look to be the ones who occupy the space and include some DAB+ choices integrated into the unit, which reduces the backside plug count
So my world of "what do I buy next" just dropped down one provider. Bummer.
[+] [-] eric4smith|3 years ago|reply
Until one time it was in storage and some water dripped in it and ruined the circuit board.
But MAN! I bought it with matched 7.1 speakers and remember setting it up, tuning it with the included microphone and plugging in the Avatar Blu-Ray. Jesus!
Now I'm with crap-shit Samsung soundbar in my house here in Asia, which I can't even turn up too much because I respect my neighbor. Too much bass. Not enough mids or highs. Sigh.
I miss that Onkyo and the speakers.