Onkyo is launching the world’s first 9.2-channel AV receivers featuring Audyssey DSX and Dolby IIz processing. The models, which also sport THX Ultra2 Plus certification and dual subwoofer outputs, are priced from £1,300.
Top of the range is the formidably specified £2,400 TX-NR5007. Attractions include eight HDMI inputs (including one front-mounted), with two outputs; DLNA 1.5 networking with extensive audio file support (MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, LPCM, WAV, WMA and WMA Lossless) and 1080p video upscaling via Silicon Optix HQV Reon VX video processor.
Naturally both DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD decoding is provided, and there’s a DSD Direct facility, for SACD owners.
[Big and beautiful - Onkyo's TX-NR5009] The step-down £1,700 TX-NR3007 retains most of the NR5007's feature spread, but drops an HDMI input and eases off the power. Also in the range is the £1,300 TX-NR1007, which sheds another HDMI and Dolby Volume and trades the HQV processor for a Faroudja DCDi Cinema chipset.
[Eight HDMI inputs and two outs - enough for everyone?] Front is better than back?
However, it’s the Audyssey DSX modes which could prove the most interesting aspect of these AVRs. DSX processing allows for the installation of an additional pair of front height channels, and/or a pair of front wide channels (designed to sit alongside the main stereo pair). Audyssey advocates that the extra front channels are used instead of traditional rear back channels.
Chris Kyriakakis, the founder and Chief Technical Officer of Audyssey Laboratories, told HCC that the decision to expand the front soundstage comes from new studies into depth perception. ‘Human hearing has much higher special resolution in the front hemisphere than it does in the rear,’ he says. ‘If you only have a fixed number of channels, it is better to use them where they will have the most impact.’
Kyriakakis goes on the say that the home cinema market actually went in the wrong direction when it added additional back channels years ago.
For more on this, read our full interview with Chris in Home Cinema Choice #173 (on sale this week) and find out exactly what we thought of Audyssey’s radical DSX processing technology in our exclusive six-page test of the Denon AVR-4310.