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Customer Reviews:
I sent it back
I wanted to replace a 35 year old Marantz 1060 amplifier that had started blowing fuses. I got this thing and set it up and played a record and it sounded like Clapton was singing down inside a big can with a clothespin clamped to his nose. I was stunned. I could get Eric to sing really loud, but he couldn’t take off the clothespin or get too far up out of the can. I found a local guy who diagnosed and fixed my Marantz for less than $80. I gave it one star because you can plug it in and turn it on.

Broke after 2 months, service terrible
After reading the reviews, I was looking forward to getting my new receiver (old one, Sony, broke down after 20 years of use, I can’t complain!). New receiver broke down after less than 6 weeks! The service center was rude and unhelpful (hung up without telling me where to send it). Now I have to pay for shipping, will be without the receiver for at least a month since the service center in Colorado has a 14 day turnaround just on diagnostics, then 2 weeks to fix, then time to ship back. I am not a happy Onkyo customer and will not buy their product again. Hope this saves someone else my same grief. Buy Sony.

Everything you’d expect except a loudness contour
Budget audiophiles rejoice. This receiver puts out plenty o clean swat. It is enough to fill my small listening space with plenty of warm vinyl sounds. While it is no way my deceased marantz 2270 it is a heck of a deal. Not too many receivers offer this amp and a phono input at this budget. I have this attached to two koss cm 1030 towers from 1981, an audio source dual 10 band eq, and a fisher 6330 turntable with a shure mx97e cart installed. It is hands down better than my previous kenwood integrated amp. However, one thing bothers me. With all the nice clean onkyo features they left out the loudness contour. Not a big deal to most… but.. with a small listening room in a town home it is needed. Okay now for the good stuff. The receiver is fairly transparent. It pumps out plenty o watts for the buck. It cost me a whopping 152.00 refurbished. The bass and treble controls are at a nice frequency as well. My vinyl sounds very nice through this piece. The features are also well laid out. I warn you, feed this guy some larger speakers because it will more than likely destroy most inferior models.

Incredible Value
My friend has been running this puppy for about 6 months now. It just doesn’t quit. Throw it rock, opera, jazz, youtube; whatever, just great amplification. The built-in diagnostics prevent you from ruining your speakers. I follow the rule of spend no more than $1,000 for an amp; this puppy is resetting my understanding.

Dismal product and so is the Onkyo customer support
I bought a reconditioned TX-8522 from an Onkyo’s authorized dealer in January 2008. As I turned on the unit for the first time, there was instant shutoff with overheating. I called the vendor and was explained that I should try again, connecting speaker wires through banana plugs to avoid possible short-circuiting by a loose thread of a speaker wire. I followed the advice and the problem disappeared. In a month it came back. Following the trouble-shooting guide, I have disconnected all the wires and kept the receiver unplugged for 24 hours. It returned back to normal. In a couple of weeks, a persistent shut-off reappeared again. This time, nothing could remedy the problem. In a week of trying, I engaged with the customer support. This takes me to the second and most horrible part of the saga.

The first contact person explained that this could be happening because of a faulty transistor. She asked me to send the receiver to their regional repair center in Syracuse, NY. I asked several times whether they had any licensed repair shop in Maryland/DC, where I live (could not believe, there would not be one), but she insisted there was none. I went to their website and found out there was a shop in Silver Spring, MD. - Hence, the first feature of Onkyo’s unfriendly style: they seem to try to misguide you about their repair network, to get you to pay the cost of shipping to NY, figuring this might deter the complaint.

When I brought the unit to the repair shop, I tried to demonstrate the problem. First time I plugged the receiver in and turned it on — it stayed on. When I tried again in several minutes, the receiver shut off. I pointed the problem out to the front desk lady and she nodded. In two weeks, I heard from the repair shop. They were assuring me that the equipment worked perfectly, and therefore they would not do anything to address my problem. They explained that Onkyo pays little and does not pay anything for diagnostics unless there is a clear malfunction. I elevated my complaint to the customer support Onkyo/USA.

Mr. Don Philips (tel: 201-785-2632) is the Onkyo/USA front line of defense. He said they would arrange for the unit to be transferred from MD to NY. Three weeks later I got a call from NY, saying the unit was working fine in their facility. I explained the problem and asked to diagnose it a little in-depth. As time went by and there was no news, I called Mr. Cooper again and requested a refund. This was in late May. He asked me to send him a fax (201-934-7823) explaining my problem and requesting a refund. He promised a response within 3 days. I called back in a week only to find out that he concluded there was no problem with the unit. He also noted that the unit was returned to me in working condition. When I pointed out that I actually have not seen it for about two months, he corrected himself saying it was in the process of being returned.

Clearly, he neither managed the situation nor intended to. I asked where I could escalate my complaint. He gave me the name and contact info of Jack Cooper but refused to share his phone number. He requested instead that I sent a fax for Cooper at the same number that I faxed to Philips. On the Web, I found Cooper’s phone number (201-785-2629) - slightly different from that of Philips, however Mr. Philips picked the phone.

So now I am waiting for a response from Mr. Cooper. I was not sure whether he existed at all, or whether Mr. Philips cloned himself to confuse and exhaust disgruntled customers. - There are scores of them in on-line blogs, and somebody mentioned that he actually spoke with Philips and Cooper - both equally rude and unhelpful. I can certainly confirm this impression from my fruitless talks with Philips.

Bottom line: Onkyo’s equipment can be good or bad, I guess. However, if it turns out to be unreliable (as in my case), prepare to be stuck with the totally ineffective customer support service. I am sure Mr. Philips can afford to BS the public because he has support from Onkyo corporate. My advice - avoid Onkyo brand unless you are prepared to join the enraged crowd of cheated customers.

Customer Reviews:
Great Picture quality but it has its flaws
This Recorder is still working after 5 months but any Panasonic recorder will eventually break down after 5 or 6 months.

The LP speed is great and better than almost any other DVD recorder on the market.

The bad thing is it won’t recognize DVD+RWs

I inserted several DVD+RWs and the recorder did not read them

luckily none of the content on the DVD+RWs were erased.

3 or 4 times a recording got messed up and the DVD-R discs ended up being unusable.

Maybe there were flaws on the DVD-Rs or there was a problem with the recorder.

Another flaw is that you can’t preview how a title will look in the finalized menu after you type the name of the show you recorded after you edit a title so if a title is more than 16 spaces long some of the letters might end up on the next line.

This is a big problem.

Previous Panasonic models had a preview window where you could see how the title would look like before the DVD was finalized.

I hope they bring back the preview window in future models.

Ups and downs…
This item records well, but the menus take a couple of seconds to come up, and they’re not well-organized when they do. The entire unit takes 15-20 seconds to power up and accept commands from the remote (say you’re turning it on, then trying to view the DVD menu on a disc you’ve recorded), and like many DVD recorders, it will refuse to copy a manufacturer’s original VHS. So if you want to turn those old VHS copies of your favorite Hollywood movies into DVDs, you don’t want this recorder. Honestly, this is a stupid function, and if I would have known about it, I would have purchased a different brand that didn’t infringe on my legal right to make a backup copy of a movie I already own. I haven’t tried to record from HBO or anything like that, but recordings from PBS, SciFi, History Channel, and a few other cable channels have come out fine.

It’s not a bad recorder, but there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Worthwhile Investment
Unlike the Sony, LG and Samsung DVD recorders I tried, this one actually works right every single time when burning dual layer discs. Those other units could only burn about 5% of the dual layer DVD’s I used, where as the Panasonic has yet to have a failure. Picture quality is good, plenty of input and output options and the fact that it works every time is a major plus. Highly recommended!

Pulling my hair out.
Problems right out of the box in December, 2007. Froze up during certain aspects of operation. Had to reset and reprogram unit to get it to work. Same problems persisted. (Being that this is my first dvd recorder, and was trying to learn and understand how to operate the unit, this was all very confusing and frustrating.) Tech Support sent firmware. Ran firmware and unit worked well for 4 months, or so. Then, unit dropped all digital TV channels. Analog channels fine. Reset unit and reprogram several times over a couple of days before channel scan finally gave me digital channels back. Turned unit off, then immediately back on and digital channels gone, again. Tech Sup sent second firmware. Ran firmware to no avail. Four days later, was getting ready to unhook unit and pack up to send to repair depot. Suddenly and magically, channel scan gave me digital channels back. Been working fine for a week, now. Decided not to send unit in for repair at this time. Self Healing? Intermittent problem? I have been aware of Panasonic’s electronics since early 70’s–they have always enjoyed a reputation for excellence. This unit changes all of that in my mind. This unit has design and engineering flaws and it should never have been put on the market in its present condition. Although I got a marked down or discounted (great) price on the unit, and although I really enjoy some of the features of this unit, it is not worth all of the headaches–I have no hair left. I have lost considerable amounts of my time due to malfunction. I am disappointed and I recommend you choose a different brand. The only reason I gave it 2 stars is because when it is working properly, I really enjoy it.

DVD recorder
It’s working great, only a little bit slow when turn it on, just be patient.

Customer Reviews:
Not nearly as fun as the Ben 10 Omnitrix F/X
My son is a huge Ben 10 fan. Last year, the Ben 10 Omnitrix F/X and the Ben 10 Transforming Arm Set arrived for his birthday.

He’s since played with the Omnitrix almost every day. The transforming arm set landed in the toy box after about a month and hasn’t come out since.

The problems with the transforming arm set:

1. It is heavier than the Omnitrix and less comfortable to wear (especially for boys younger than 6).

2. The punch counter works, doesn’t work, works, and so on.

3. The face plates use hard plastic snaps to set in place. You need a second person to help put them on if you don’t want to risk cracking the plastic tab.

My kids love it
Got this toy for my 6 and 3 year old boys. They play with it all the time. My three year old is pretty small and he has this huge watch on his arm just working the dial. He really digs it. It does not do much but makes noise and my kid loves that. He thinks he is Ben Ten. So, any toy they play with is good. It did not do much for me but I expected more technology for the price.