Onkyo Tx 8050 Network Stereo Receiver Survey Bought this receiver and matched it up with a pair of Paradigm Atoms w/ Auralex speaker platforms. This was for a bedroom set-up and the unit and speakers sit on a 2x dresser. I was expecting an average sound and got much more. Pros: 1. Plays FLAC via a NTFS USB Powered Hard Drive. The hard drive I use is 640 GB. It reads the Hard Drive relatively quickly (15 sec) and scrolls through the folders very quickly. 2. Adding the receiver to the network is easy - just enter your WEP - done. You can stream WMP and with the program Jamcast you can stream Spotify, MOG, etc via DLNA. Has Pandora, MyRhapsody and some other programs already installed on the receiver. Entering your username and password for those services using a dial is probably the most painstaking effort for setting it up. 3. Most important - it sounds GREAT. I was worried about having a lean sound with Atoms and Onkyo. However, it's actually quite warm. It could be that it's in a carpeted bedroom, but whatever works. The sound optimizer for playing MP3s works well overall in smoothing out the clipping MP3s have especially in those low kb bit rates from Pandora, etc. There's only so much that can be done on low bit rate streaming. Cons: There are several, but minor and wouldn't change my mind from recommending it. None of these issues are related to the sound, but just convenience. 1. No subwoofer cut-off capability. I don't feel my set-up needs a subwoofer, but if it's important to you. 2. No backlighting on the control. 3. Hard Drive doesn't shut off when the receiver is off. You'll have to unplug from USB when you are done. 4. The Android App really doesn't do much except change the volume and change the input. It does play songs off the Android, but with all the other options, don't really see a need for it. Would be nice to link Spotify, MOG, etc to the Onkyo via Android App. 5. On Pure Audio, would like the display to come back on when changing folders, input, stations, etc. Have to scroll through the sound options (5 total) to get back to pure audio after changing an option. Other than that, to reiterate I was really impressed by the sound, esp ~$600 set-up. I have a dedicated listening room with a Squeezebox, DAC, SACD, room treatments, turntable, etc. Although this Onkyo + Atom combo doesn't beat out the dedicated listening room set-up, for computer audio it comes really close. I recently built a workshop in my backyard and wired it up with a network connection and stereo speakers while I was at it. The whole time I just assumed that good networked stereo receivers would be easy to come by for not much money - but it turns out I was wrong. After a fairly extensive search, I finally came across this little bad boy. I've never owned an Onkyo product before, but I do know they have a good reputation - so I went ahead and pulled the trigger. Just so you know, my main usage includes listening to AM & FM as well as networked radio stations and music from my local music collection that's already on my network. After having said all that, here are the things I like about the Onkyo TX-8050: 1) The sound is excellent! I have it hooked up to a pair of Polk OWM5 speakers and they sound very good. Just what I was looking for in my workshop. 2) The Internet radio options are very good. With the vTuner, I can tune all of the radio stations I typically listen to, and they sound better than the AM or FM broadcasts. It's easy to organize network radio stations into named categories and the station names themselves can also be renamed. Overall, it's extremely easy to keep everything organized and easy to look up. 3) Configuring this receiver to play music off my network was simple. It's simply a matter of turning on media sharing on the PC where the music files are loaded and then scrolling down to that PC in the DLNA menu. I am sharing my music from a Windows 7 system. The hard drive and USB options are great - but I prefer using the network so I don't have a bunch of USB dongles hanging off the front of the receiver. . . 4) There are options to tune in just about any Internet music source you can think of, including: SiriusXM Internet Radio, Pandora, Rhapsody, Slacker, Mediafly, Napster, and Last. fm. Those are in addition to the vTuner option I already mentioned that lets you tune in radio stations that are also streaming over the Internet. 5) The favorites menu can be configured over the network. If you don't feel like scrolling from character to character, manually renaming everything -
just load up the TX-8050 in an Internet browser and you can do all the renaming and configuring from there. This also lets you set URLs for manually streaming radio stations that haven't been added to the vTuner service. The way to do this is to get the IP address from the setup menu (such as 192. 168. 1. 100), and then type it into your web browser like: "[. . . ]". 6) Did I mention that the sound is excellent?! Although, for the most part, everything is working great - I do have a few minor complaints: 1) The AM/FM reception is mediocre at best. This would be a bigger deal if my stations weren't available for Internet streaming. 2) The favorites menu is kind of cool - but the standard organization is so good that it just adds clutter in my case. It would be better if manually entered stations could just be integrated into the vTuner categories instead. 3) The network startup time is fairly long. Forget just hitting the switch and getting networked tunes in a few seconds. In my case, it takes close to a minute - and that's over a hard-wired network. 4) Setting this up was a piece of cake for me, but I wonder if someone without any networking skills would fair as well. In other words, this probably wouldn't make a great gift for dear old grandma who's just looking to listen to the radio. . . Overall, this receiver is exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something with better sound than a SqueezeBox; yet with at least the same number of networking options - and the Onkyo TX-8050 pulled that combination off nicely. I would highly recommend this if you're a techie person who wants great sound combined with all the networked music options you could want. This review was written after two weeks of ownership, and updated after 7 months. Do I like it? Yes! Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes! PROS: - very good sound quality - solid design and construction, audio section in particular - DLNA and Web enabled, including Apple and Android Apps (!) - USB port for playing from an iPod, HDD, or other MSC player - subwoofer output (see details) - Zone 2 output (pre-amp level only) - firmware updates via USB or internet CONS: subwoofer output does not mute when using headphones (dumb!) - occasional DLNA lockups and web station dropout. - the front panel button text is hard to read, but still better than most other brands. - runs hot even at idle (no sound). - plays WAV files from my old WD NAS just fine, but can't play the same files from my new myDitto NAS. I needed a modestly priced stereo receiver for my office and found quite a few candidates on the web including models by Sony, Sherwood, and Onkyo. A few intriguing brand X products showed up also, but the user reviews were poor enough to scare me off. Even the Sony and Sherwood models had their hate mail, so I zeroed in on the Onkyo models. Funny that I should buy Onkyo again because I chose an Onkyo model for our 7. 1 home theater system a couple of years ago. The Onkyo TX-8050 was twice what I was planning to pay, but the networking caught my eye. With that feature I can listen to internet radio and music from my NAS without turning on my PC. Some reviewers had problems with that feature, but reading between the lines I felt they may not have been very experienced with the technology, so I ordered it from Amazon. The advanced features are pretty significant for a stereo receiver; here is an overview: - Seven web audio services including Pandora, Last, Slacker, and Spotify. You enter your username and password only once into the receiver directly, or via PC browser. - 40 available memories to store favorite web stations, set locally or via PC web browser. - DNLA sees all LAN media servers, in my case a WIN 7 PC, Twonky and NAS media server. - USB port plays any MSC device, including large HHD (one connection on front panel only) - FM presets can be named (but only by extensive remote control gymnastics). Everything works pretty much as promised. The browser setup and Favorites interface is great. It is so much better than character entry from the remote control (slow). The Android app setup for my Asus tablet was easy, and works very well. The GUI looks great on my Android cell phone, but on a 10" tablet it is huge, vertical only, and low resolution. But again, a very intuitive interface, much better than the Android apps for my Roku or WD media players. Other specs of interest: composite video switching (not much use these days), 80W/CH, headphone jack, phono input(!), 2 coaxial and 2 optical digital inputs. I connected my PC's SPDIF output to one of these, and DVD output to another. The D/A section of the receiver is likely to be much better than the built-in sound cards of most PCs. There are various Listening Modes including a Music Optimizer to "enhance the sound quality of compressed music files". Be careful not to leave this on when listening to uncompressed files! Is it perfect? Hardly. - As with every single media player I have ever used, the player firmware is quirky. But at least this one is reliable
enough to enjoy regularly. - Menu structure could be improved, and you don't always get what you expected. For example, depending on the internet source, you may have to press Enter two or three times to "dig deeper" into the URL (this is not a delay issue, only related to the particular web site). - The NET and USB menus are as good as can be expected for on 2-line display, but can be time consuming when browsing. - I have yet to make the M3U Playlists on my media server work. The first selection plays correctly, and then seems to wander off course almost randomly. - The subwoofer output is not processed in any way except volume; there is no bass management, EQ, etc. What's even worse is that it stays ON even when headphones are being used, even when neither speaker is selected. This is something they should be able to fix in the next firmware update, if and when it comes (none as of Dec 2012). - If you intend to use the Zone 2 feature, be aware that volume changes can be made on the remote only, not from the front panel volume control. Inconvenient but workable. - There is only one "input" selector to enter the internet mode (NET). Three selectors should have been provided: one for DNLA, one for web services, and a third for Favorites. Onkyo should be credited for introducing a networked media (audio) player in a stereo receiver. It has all the features you'd ever want in a stereo unit, and then some. And thankfully, the design has no major faults that will cause you to hate the product later. I needed a simple, low cost stereo with a phono input for a living room/dining room music system. After seeing what was out there, this was a no brainer. I'm running the 8050 into a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 10. 1 speakers sitting on a built in wall bookshelf. It sounds great. Not too warm, not too bright in my room (wood floors, dining table, couch, tables, and chairs) with decent bass response. A nice, rich, full sound with all sources. I'm using the analog stereo out from an old Oppo 981 as my disc player for the time being. No complaints there. I will say discs sounded better via the Oppo analog out compared to the digital in of the 8050. But it works great for audio out from the DirecTV receiver. I'm using a TRENDnet TEW-650AP as an AP client plugged into the 8050 to stream music from a Synology DS2011j NAS. I would have gotten the Onkyo USB adapter but the cabinet door wouldn't have closed with the adapter jutting out of the front. The AP shouldn't have taken so long to set up but the documentation is poorly worded (if you know what your doing trust your instincts - I had is set up correctly in 5 minutes but second guessed myself and wasted 2 hours). I'm still working out some minor kinks on the NAS/WMP 11 end, but otherwise I've had no issues. Listening to Pandora via the 8050, and Shoutcast via the Synology, and it's been great. Yes, scrolling through the menus is a pain via the receiver's display but. . . for this price, I'll deal. Anyway, playlists and favorites can help with that. Plays FLAC, wav, mp3 with no issue. Sounds surprisingly good with low bit rate sources (internet radio mostly; most of my mp3 are 320kHz). Even the tuner is pretty good. I know over the air radio isn't the main selling point of this receiver, but as an afterthought I plugged in the included antenna I was surprised with the strength of the tuner. All in all this is one great piece of equipment. I highly recommend this receiver. I had an old Onkyo Pro Logic receiver years ago and loved the sound (I got rid of it thinking I'd never need it; turns out I did. Ironically I bought another Onkyo) Shipped without issue. Box was fine, etc. Oh, updating firmware is painless. I did two updates via USB. Onkyo seem to be providing regular updates which is a good thing. First and foremost, if you are looking for a fine sounding receiver, this is one of them and you can give it five stars for a mid-fi receiver. In my case, however, I wanted more than that; I already had a fine sounding networked amplifier system (handmade by me) driven by a dedicated computer with an audiophile sound card, but I wanted something convenient for the wife that would play internet radio (Pandora) and our collection of CDs which lives on our Windows 2003 server in the basement. From the advertising, this seemed like a good option, but it is not so. This review is all about the networking capability of this receiver. I think it's appropriate because Onkyo touts this machine for its networking ability. First the good news: If your main interest is in Internet radio, this might work for you. My experience is with Pandora which is supported by this receiver. You can program Pandora into your 8050 and you will be presented with the website and your options will include all of the "radio stations" you have created in Pandora. So far, so good. But you better have paid for
your subscription (not the 'free' version) because Pandora occasionally asks "Are you still listening?" and expects a response. My Onkyo did not seem to respond properly, and the music would stop. I would have to reset the station for the music to continue. Totally annoying! Furthermore, you really cannot interact with Pandora through the receiver. You need a separate computer to do that. DLNA. Well, that's another story. Assuming that you get it working (I couldn't with Server 2003, so got it working on a Windows 7 workstation), the ability to select music to play on the receiver is extremely limited. It is nothing like playing music from a computer where you can easily select and queue music. The problem is that on the receiver you're working with a two-line LCD display -- not enough information! My mistake/misunderstanding. This is supposed to be a networkable receiver. My impression was that I could control it from any computer on my home network, but not so! The connection available on the network is pathetically limited to very basic setup options. There is no ability to control the receiver via a computer -- no volume control, no input selection, no queuing of music from a server -- none of that. Apparently Onkyo has "apps" to allow limited control from an iPhone and Android. Well, that doesn't help me. I have a sophisticated network in my house. Where is my networkable Windows App????? Bottom line, I was disappointed and returned the receiver to Amazon. Amazon was excellent -- my return hit their dock one day, and I had notification of my refund the very next day. Not bad. Kudos to Amazon, not so much for Onkyo on this receiver.
http://gradebit.com/41077