The Onkyo TX-8255 Stereo Receiver is a bit of an odd little beast, Im not really sure what section of the market its aimed at. At the bottom end are those who dont really see the need for or the reason to have any kind of separates system and they are perfectly happy with radio built into their stereo system. On the other end are the power users who want a well specifed separate tuner for their system. So where then does a mid spec stereo receiver like the Onkyo TX-8255 stand? Who will buy it? What kind of home will it be used in? Well after playing with it for a little while it becomes obvious that it may not have an obvious market amongst those who are interested in “Hi Spec HiFi” but it certainly should find a home amongst those who appreciate quality stereo sound at a very moderate price.

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Removing the Onkyo TX-8255 from its box one could be mistaken for thinking one had just received a simple hifi amplifier rather than a fully speced receiver, the unit has a very “no frills” look with the very solid casing mounting bass, treble and volume controls on the right hand side. The tuner controls are mounted in a very unassuming manner on the right of the units display in a very simple and I have slightly delicate looking way. The keys are not very solid feeling and I thought that after extended use might be come a bit dodgy. Having said that most of the channel hopping is likely to be done via the simple and easy to use remote supplied.

Initial setup and tuning was pretty easy, no convoluted menus or anything obtuse to deal with plug in the unit, connect the antenna, hit the auto tune option button and away it goes finding all available channels. The Onkyo TX-8255 can store up to 40 of your favourite channels in its memory for easy access. The system is also RDS enabled so you can read off any information (station name, song name, etc) the station might be transmitting along with the AM/FM audio signal. As well as the amplifier the TX-8255 also has stereo inputs for CD, Tape (in and Out), Phono turntable, DVD, and a second spare input for any other analog unit you might want to use. The back also has two sets of outputs for connecting 2 sets of stereo speakers with appropriate control buttons for each speaker set on the front left of the unit and on the remote of course. This nice little added extra makes it easy to wire up 2 separate rooms with ease. Finally the back panel includes a Remote Interactive port which allows you to connect your iPod using the optional Onkyo DS-A2 iPod dock.

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Now though the TX-8255 is actually very good in terms of features I have to say that sonically is where the unit really shines. I really was not expecting such quality from such a budget unit. The TX-8255 manages to be both natural sounding and polished at the same time, bass is well handled up to quite loud levels of amplification. The units 50W per channel at 8 Ohms drove the Mission MV-8s we were testing with easily and with excellent results. Clarity was maintained throughout and I never had a sense that bass or treble was getting out of control or rough. Stereo placement was well handled and gave several CDs I tried the system with appropriate breadth. Kaki Kings excellent “Until we saw red” proved the TX-8255 to be a great performer with acoustic music. The only minor niggle was a slight bit of a peak that can be noticed on some more modern heavily compressed recordings at about the 1-1.5 khz range, weather this will be an issue for you depends entirely on the type of music you will be playing and your room acoustics. Overall though a very polished sound with a surprising amount of presence and finesse for such a meagre price. All in all if you are in the market for an integrated receiver/amplifier I’d highly recommend you check out the Onkyo TX-8255.

Manufacturers Specifications

• Stereo RMS Power: 50W per channel x 2, into 8 ohms
• Dynamic Range: 135W per channel x 2, into 2 ohms, 105W per channel x 2, into 4 ohms, 70W per channel x 2, into 8 ohms
• No. of Channels: 2
• Speaker Selector: Yes
• AM/FM Tuner: Yes, with 40 presets
• Input Analog Audio: – x5 Sets (RCA)
• Input Phono: – x1 Set (RCA)
• Input FM Antenna: – x1
• Input AM Antenna: – x1
• Output Analog Audio: – x2 Sets (RCA)
• Output Headphone: – x1 (1/4″ Phone)
• Output Speakers: – x4 Sets (Binding Post)
• IR Input/Output Port x1 (Mini)
• RI Port x1 (Mini)
• RRP: $249.00 (Check Amazon For Current Pricing)

From time to time we like to review lower end kit around here (actually we like to try to review everything we can beg, borrow or steal eventually)  but just because something is in a budget price range doesn’t mean it should be given an easy time. So when I got my hands on a Panasonic sc-hc20p-k to review I did my best to get into my “nasty picky reviewer” mindset. Luckily the SC-HC20P-K is such a fine bit of budget kit I didn’t have much call to flex those particular muscles.

The SC-HC20P-K is fairly pedestrian in appearance, going for a demure simple grey and black look with a slight nod to Bang & Olufsen styling, the CD player and iPod dock both being hidden away on initial observation. The SC-HC20P-K is by no means ugly though and the build quality is reasonable for a unit of this price though I wouldn’t recommend dropping it or knocking it off a shelf as it doesnt look built to withstand that level of stress. One odd thin we did notice is that for such a compact unit the SC-HC20P-Ks remote is extremely large and to be honest not exactly easy to use either.

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The main feature a lot of buyers for this unit will be looking at will be the universal iPod/iPhone dock, this pops out form its front hiding place with ease and will accept any current apple iPod or iPhone with ease. I found that the 3rd gen iPhone we used to test slid in the dock easily and felt like it was being held secure and snugly. The CD player is a fairly standard pop out model and was easy to use and felt reliable enough. The radio is a fairly basic autotuning AM/FM model without much in the way of bells or whistles other than the decent amount of preset storage.

Now its time to get down to the nitty gritty how does the Panasonic SC-HC20P-K sound? Well to be honest I was fairly pleasantly surprised, ok so it is only specified to 10 watts @ 6 ohms so you wont be banging out sounds at a loud volume on this unit but if you intend to use the SC-HC20P-K in a kitchen, small office or similar it shoudl give plent of bang for the buck. The bass end is quite smoothe and gives a decent reproduction of older recordings (Thelonious Monks Underground) at lower volume levels but some more modern compressed and bass heavy tracks (EG: James Blakes – Limit To Your Love) were evidently over stressing the SC-HC20P-Ks speakers at anything near top volume. The top end also became raspy in the top 1/4 of the volume dial, the 4 preset EQ didn’t really help mitigate this in any way which is a shame, though EQing off the top end helped a little. Being honest the Panasonic SC-HC20P-K performed as well as I’d expect for a unit of this price and with the stated THD of 10% which is quite high to my mind I’m not really surprised about the high volume sonic results.

So should you buy this unit? Well if what you are after is a way to amplify your iPod/iPhone in smaller rooms and perhaps listen to some FM radio then it gives decent enough results for the non audiophile home user. If you are used to higher end equipment in other rooms you may well find the shortcomings of the Panasonic SC-HC20P-K start to annoy you a little after a while. But at the end of the day the unit is decent value for money and is a cheap and cheerful way to get those iPod sounds sounding out in your kitchen.

Manufacturers Specification

• Total output power: 10 watts (1kHz, 6ohms, 10% THD)
• iPod dock: Yes, Universal Dock for iPod/iPhone; playback and recharge
• Radio: AM/FM (15 AM presets, 30 FM presets) with auto tuning
• Disc playback formats: CD audio, CD-R/RW, MP3
• Programmable time: Yes (sleep, play
• Surround sound: Yes
• Preset EQ: 4 (Heavy, Clear, Soft, Vocal) + Flat
• Bass and treble controls: Yes
• Bluetooth: No
• Remote control: Yes (IR wireless)
• Wall mountable: No
• Speakers: Full range, bass-reflex; 3-1/8-inch (bamboo paper cone speaker)
• Dimensions: 8-7/16 x 15-1/8 x 4-13/32 inches (HxWxD)
• Weight: 4.6 pounds
• RRP: $99.95 (Check Amazon for Current Pricing)

HDTV manufacturers seem to have realised over the last few years that not everyone has the space or inclination to set up a full 7.1 surround system in their small suburban living room and so to address this issue many companies have started to produce alternatives one of the currently popular systems is the Sony HT-CT150 3D Sound Bar System. Now I will say that I’m used to a full surround system and that a sound bar is never going to be able to repicate that kind of feel in terms of sound stage or immersion so I didnt review the Sony HT-CT150 as such. Instead I’m looking at it in terms of overall sound quality compared to the loaner Sony Bravia KDL32BX300 I used it with. Be aware that the Sony HT-CT150 works best with tvs that have sonys proprietary BRAVIA® Sync, so your results with another manufacturers TV may not be as good.

So out of the box the Sony HT-CT150 sound bar itself is actually quite compact if a little long (31-1/2″) it will however clip to the top of a lot of larger Bravia models without much trouble (it looked a little large on our 32″ model though). The sub woofer unit is a bit more substantial in size but nothing monstrous and it will sit happily next to most tv stands without looking like a huge toolbox somebody left lying around. Appearance and build wise the HT-CT150 is nothing amazing, it has a simple and functional design that will not have people asking “What the frak is that?” like some subwoofers I could name. The HT-CT150 system is built to match the current batch of Bravia TVs in terms of appearance and so if you have a sony setup it will fit in nicely. Build quality seemed quite good during our testing but I would probably avoid dropping the sound bar if possible as its thin build could make it a little fragile.

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I found setup was very simple, pretty much plug and play with the BRAVIA® Sync system. Though I have read others saying it was not so simple with non Sony products hence my earlier warning. Get the Right tool for the right job and all that. Unusually, the Subwoofer unit is where all the connections & I/O for the HT-CT150 system are this means that the subwoofer unit must remain out in the open unlike most soundbar systems which have the connections mounted on the bar itself. In terms of connections the system has a very decent array of HDMI I/O. 3 switchable 1.4 (3D compatible) inputs, a single HDMI 1.4 output and a number of analog and optical inputs to connect older gear. To some degree this unit acts as a receiver that isn’t a receiver, for this price I wasn’t really expecting this level of control or I/O options.

Once the sound bar was mounted atop the tv and both units were plugged in and powered I found the sound to actually be extremely good. Its decently loud and manages to produces a very reasonable soundstage for a system that is pretty much set up “Front and centre”. ok so you’re not getting full surround and you wont be looking behind yourself to hear where that noise is coming from, but for this price and with setup this compact and simple I was more impressed than I thought I would be. So In summary if you want more than the stereo speakers of your TV currently offer but you dont want to splash out on a $1,000+ reciever & speker package setup then the Sony HT-CT150 system is likely to be a great match for you, especially if you have a BRAVIA® Sync compatible TV.

Manufacturers Specifications

Audio Power Output: RMS: 75W x3 +75W Subwoofer (180-20kHz, 4 Ohm, 1% THD)
Coaxial Audio Digital Input(s): 1
DIGITAL MEDIA PORT: 1
HDMI Video Input(s): 3
HDMI Video Output(s): 1
Optical Audio Input(s): 2
RCA Audio Input(s): 2
Bass/Treble control: Bass/Treble
Night mode: Yes
Preset EQ: Standard/ Movie/ Drama/ News/ Sports/ Game/ Music/ 2ch Stereo/ Portable Audio
Dimensions (Approx.): Subwoofer: 7-3/4″ x 17-3/4″ x 16-1/4″ (196 x 450 x 410 mm); Sound Bar: 31-1/2″ x 2-9/16″ x 2-5/16″ (800 x 66 x 60 mm)
Weight (Approx.): Subwoofer: 23 lb 3 oz (10.5 kg); Sound Bar: 2 Lb 13 oz (1.3 kg)
RRP: $265 (Check Amazon for Current Pricing)