Onkyo TX-NR818 Pro Reviews

The Onkyo TX-NR818 delivers the kind of stylish design and excellent build quality that we have come to expect from the Japanese manufacturer. The front facia is clean and uncluttered, although you can't turn the display off completely, and the chassis comes in a choice of either black or silver. There is a very generous set of connections at the rear and we're glad to see that Onkyo have dropped a lot of legacy connectors in favour of 8 HDMI inputs (7 at the back and 1 on the front) and 2 HDMI outputs. The front-panel HDMI port has also been designed to connect with compatible smart phones and other portable electronic devices using the new Mobile High-definition Link (MHL) standard, which is useful. We also really like the layout of the speaker terminals at the rear, which are logically positioned and sensibly spaced. The remote control is well made and comfortable to hold but we found the buttons too crowded and it was difficult to use due to the lack of a backlight and some rather idiosyncratic functions.

Onkyo continues its yearly rampage of home AV. The 818 is brilliant, and the best-sounding AVR we've ever heard from the company. We're a little weary of saying this, but we honestly think this £1.000 model outperforms Onkyo's own £2.000 receiver from a couple of years back. That's a remarkable achievement for the company, and it means that it's still trying to give value to people who can't afford the high end. The only quibbles we have with the 818 are that it's a little bit fussy when it comes to entering things via the remote control, and the online functionality, while good, isn't very responsive. We liked Spotify, but we found using it fairly tedious. The app for smartphones helps a bit, but it's still the area we think most needs improvement. Additionally, DLNA playback is great for music, but video is poorly served. Where it counts though, in sound quality, build quality and performance, we can't really fault the 818. The quality of TV and movie soundtracks is incredible. Music too is far better than ever before, and we're pretty happy that it's the sole music system in our lounge at the moment. It's great to see such progress being made, and we hope it continues for a long time to come.