Onkyo HT-S7700 5.1.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver/Speaker Package

I bought this because my Samsung HTIB w/ 3D Bluray player started crapping out on me (also the "D.In Bug" on Samsung was ANNOYING!).That said, I wanted something powerful but not too expensive. I didn't want to spend thousands on a home theater audio system. After much research, I decided on this Onkyo HT-S7700. I bought the 'refurbished' model. To my surprise it arrived almost as if I bought it 'new retail', the only thing was I didn't get a pretty box, I got a brown box that had huge "REFURBISHED" lettering on it. Do I care? Not one bit! The contents are what counts and the contents were BRAND SPANKING NEW! No issues what-so-ever. Oh yea, the rumors are true, this package comes in a HUGE box! About the size of an apartment sized refrigerator!I planned ahead and with my purchase I bought 100ft of 16 gauge Amazon speaker wire. I immediately tossed the included Onkyo speaker wires (they are so thin!) and started cutting and stripping the Amazon wire [sidenote: this must be the hardest wire to strip -EVER-, but that is for another review ha].I got it all set up, and started the automated setup process. I used the included microphone. I have a relatively small living room, 15ftx12ft, but the microphone seemed to accurately judge 'how far' the speakers were from the microphone. After this, it prompted me to complete a Firmware update which I did, this took about 15mins on a wired Ethernet connection.Now, the box was fully connected and ready to start!Started watching some of my TiVo backlog of recordings and noticed an immediate improvement in the listening experience of my shows. I did end up fiddling with some settings, I found that +2dB Treble and +2dB Bass was the 'optimum' EQ for my ears/room. I have the powered Subwoofer at just under the halfway mark (there is an old school analog rotary knob on the back of it).I also changed some of the speaker levels, I like the 'dialog' prominent while watching TV, so I bumped the 'Center' channel to +3dB. and I also boosted the Left and Right channels to +2dB. Again, nothing scientific about it, just what sounded good to my ears and in my living room.Moving on, I thought I was going mad, but when I watched Blurays or other HD content thru various media player boxes (Popcorn Hour, Zidoo, WDTV Live), it seemed the audio sync was off. This didn't happen with my TiVo input, I swapped HDMI cables - thinking that could result in audio delay - but nope, not the cables. I started going thru the menus, I found a setting that turned Automatic HDMI Audio Sync On or Off, it was set to On. so I turned it Off. Still didn't fix it completely, but now a new option appeared in the Quick Menu, and the ability to adjust Audio Sync via +/- ms option appeared. I could manually control the audio sync now. While watching a 3D Bluray it seemed I needed +280ms audio sync for it to be in sync and a regular Bluray +150ms audio sync. Well this seems annoying, why should I have to change the audio sync timing depending on what Bluray I am watching??? I also noticed that while it seemed 'in sync' at some points, it would slowly drift out of sync every few mins, only to come back into sync. It wasn't too noticeable, but I am a stickler for audio sync issues, I can detect even a few milliseconds out of sync. It bothers me!After digging in the menus I found an option called "Picture Mode", it was set to "Custom". This Picture Mode does some "processing" on the image (not sure what), but as soon as I changed it to "Bypass" (no processing), I immediately noticed my sound sync issues I was having were GONE! I reset the Audio Sync to 0ms (no correction) and voila!!! 3D and regular 2D Blurays are back in action, playing perfectly in sync! Every cymbal crash and drum hit are perfectly in sync with the image.Besides the little couple day fumble with audio sync issues, which could've resulted in a negative review, I finally found the culprit! The Onkyo Picture Mode processing feature seems to slowly drift in and out of audio sync when active. Onkyo: stick to the sound! We don't need any picture processing here! :POverall, this unit and speaker system puts out amazing room rumbling window shattering punchy sound. And for the savings on the Refurbished unit this is an awesome deal! Just don't forget to set the Picture Mode to BYPASS!Highly recommended!!!!

My system randomly shuts off during movies (usually during loud actions/suspenseful scenes). When I turn it back on it says "Check SP Wire". After doing some googling, I found that this is a common problem. I purchased the Amazon insure when I bought this item, BUT that doesn't kick in until after the manufacturers warranty, or if the manufacturer won't cover what they're supposed to. In that case you need a note as to why they won't cover it. Thing is I live in Tucson, AZ and their closest service center is 400+ miles away in California. I did more reading and apparently I have to ship it there on my own dime! I'm only going to send the receiver, but that thing is HEAVY and I can't imagine how much that's going to cost!!!pros:-when it worked it sounded pretty good (didn't use the ATMOS feature)-the sub woofer is bigger than most theaters in a box-lots of HDMI inputscons:-comes with short/cheap speaker wire-CAN'T ENJOY MOVIES B/C IT SHUTS OFF-Manufacturer's warranty is a joke, unless you live near a service center.-Speakers are HUUUGE.Save up and buy a better brand system. Maybe one at your local best buy and have them price match amazon.***EDIT***Amazon warranty is pretty awesome. They informed me that anything the manufacturer doesn't cover (i.e. shipping, parts, labor) they will cover. So I'll pay to ship the stupid thing to a service center 500+ miles away, but I can send my receipt to Square Trade (amazon warranty) and they will reimburse me. Thank goodness!!

6 Month update:I've taken a star off because of the silly, lack of headphone tone control and the coax/fiber inputs lack of complete tone adjustment. The last three A/V receivers I had, a Pioneer® VSX-915 first, a Yamaha® RX-V675 AV Receiver second and now this Onkyo® HT-S7700, or HT-693. It was sold to me as an HT-S7700 but the label on the back has it list as an HT-693. I'm going to get this figured out with Onkyo when the work week starts tomorrow so I can finally register it. Both of my original receivers had dedicated circuits for headphone control allowing one to hear very realistic surround sound through the Pioneer and further enhancements by the Yamaha with its surround sound "Silent Cinema" setting to let the user hear surround or sound field effects through your headset connected to the PHONES jack. The Pioneer did this superbly. I could hear a helicopter in a movie flying over my head even from the rear left or right to the front right or left respectively but the Yamaha works quite well too. The op amp for the center channel went out on the Pioneer after many years of service so I "upgraded" to the Yamaha only to have the subwoofer outputs go dead after about a year. I wired them (subwoofers) directly from the speaker outputs but the bass just wasn't as crisp and clear so I decided to get a new receiver and go with a Dolby Atmos system. Boy was I disappointed when I found out two major shortcomings (to me at least):1. There is no bass or treble or any other adjustment for the headphones. I tried by attaching my Sennheiser® 800 cans and trying to bring up the Tone menu on the front panel and remote; there is none with headphones connected. I am bypassing the Onkyo's HDMI inputs with my laptop and instead wiring the HDMI output directly to my Samsung® "smart" TV and attaching my sound card (a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro) to my laptop's USB port and the fiber output of the Creative card to the fiber input on the Onkyo and I get only Subwoofer and Center channel controls for tone. No treble, no bass, no nothing else. Fortunately for me my Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro (an external card, see [...]) has a Creative Entertainment Controller with many sound enhancement such as a 10 band equalizer, an EAX field setting (simulates the sound echoes or lack thereof in various settings such as Theater, Jazz Club, Recital Hall, etc.), THX settings like dialog boost, subwoofer boost, surround sound adjustment and a couple other such adjustable effect. The subwoofer boost and equalizer in Creative 5.1 Pro show the headset’s true capability and IMHO any good receiver should allow adjusting headphones' frequencies just like they were external speakers. Yes, I tried headphone amps, from Schiit, but you can’t get even simulated surround through them. They sound great for stereo though. The subwoofer boost and equalizer in Creative 5.1 Pro show the cans true capability.2. Speaking of external speakers when using any input device including the digital coax or fiber inputs if you set the "Listening Mode" to "Direct" the unit puts out the same music format as it receives and gives the user only control of the subwoofer and center speaker volumes nothing else. Whose bright idea was that I wonder! Just because the user inputs a 5.1 surround feed doesn't mean they have no desire to adjust the treble, bass and phase matching bass (to get a balanced center speaker output). When I play DVDs or Blu-Ray disks on my Oppo BDP93 even with the listening mode set to direct I’d like get all the volume controls to use them to adjust the sound to my liking. Of course with any input you can change the Listening Mode to something other than Direct and then you get all the tone controls but since most people playing a DVD or Blu-ray or using the coaxial or fiber inputs are inputting 5.1/7.1 surround changing the Listening Mode from direct to the Onkyo's Dolby Surround means Onkyo takes it and tweaks it with its own converter circuitry as stated in the manual, "Dolby surround is a next generation surround technology that intelligently up mixes stereo; 5.1 and 7.1 content for playback through your surround speaker system". Now I don't know for sure that means it processes a 5.1 surround input signal through its own up mix converter but it certainly sounds like it. If your input is 7.1 surround what would it up mix that to? I've listened carefully to the side speakers while playing the same section of "These Days" by Jackson Brown while switching between Onkyo's “Dolby Surround” and “Direct” settings (“Direct” = Creative's Dolby Digital Live 5.1 surround in my case) and there is a definite difference so it is doing something to the 5.1 input when set to "Dolby Surround" rather than "Direct" and I for one prefer the Creative's Dolby Digital Live surround. This is something you may or may not care about but there it is. My main complaint with both the headset and the fiber inputs is even though the Creative Entertainment Center can give me the tone control I want it doesn't have a remote to do that. I have to switch windows to it and adjust it interrupting nearly everything I'm watching or listening to. It would be so nice to be able to use the Onkyo remote to do these things with no window change or interruption.Other than those two items it is definitely an awesome sounding system and I've had no problems with it so far even when I had the volume up to 80 (unknowingly) for nearly an hour. It got quite hot but kept going. I keep an eye on the volume since then and above 60 put a small personal fan in front of it which cools it down significantly. I still haven’t found any DVDs or Blu-ray disks in Dolby Amos format so I can’t comment on that. I’ve noticed that when playing DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD with the 7.1 channel inputs enabled this unit does turn on all 7 of its speakers, front and top facing and that definitely provides a more room filling, encompassing sound. I’ve seen Dolby Atmos demos on YouTube. I’m guessing I did run my laptop through an input on this receiver I would get all 7 channels from it but haven’t yet tried it. I haven’t had any trouble with its subwoofer like I noticed a number of others complained about. Of course I’m not running it as loud most likely since I have two others helping it out. :-)First review July 11th 2016:Just plain awesome! Of course I've only had it less than a week and the way things are made these days I'll be satisfied if it lasts for the 5 year warranty period. Case in point; I bought a Whirlpool fridge in 1989 and 26 years later it’s still running strong. While investigating new ones I discovered now days you're lucky to get 4-6 years’ service from a $1,300 a new one!!! Disgusting and the downside of living for 70+ years. Like Merle Haggard I remember when a Chevy or Ford, and most everything made in our once great country lasted a very, very long time.I'll write back again when I've had this for a year and let you know how it’s going.