Onkyo TX-RZ50 Review (Home Theater AVR)

[brettjv]

That's a really nice setup!

I've used Plex forever, it works, I just don't really care for the GUI or how it organize my media, but I've worked it out and I'm mainly a folder guy LOL

I've been in the computer business my entire life, so I have certain ways I've adopted that I am not willing to part with.
I like full control of everything.

Just a quick update on the rz50. After the latest firmware update everything sounds really nice, no word on what it fixed from Onkyo, but I'm super excited that everything sounds suddenly as good as I had always hoped to achieve.

Only tidal on shield is not working right, but that's a small issue at this point, even Google TV app sounds great...when I wanna do some critical listening I stream either from phone, Onkyo app or passthrough on shield....cool!

I just ordered the az5000es.....I just really wanna hear it and see if I can replicate all the excitement that some reviews are offering, or, see if it's just a fluke...I'm quite happy with the rz50 movie sound and I'm worried if the 360 spatial experience is going to be overstimulating.

If it's nothing special, I'll return it and upgrade my front to f208s which has been my dream for a minute.

If the rz50 stays stable like this, I'll definitely keep it as my main AVR. The arcam avr11 I tried was quite amazing sounding but boy the user interface is unacceptable to me ...I just can't deal with that.

Oh, yes, the huge UHD files with true HD coding plays on the shield no problem at all ...I just use an external super speedy SSD for movies and music....

Those raid 5 arrays are by far the best configuration for your use hands down.

I use a Raspberry Pi 4 for my Plex Server, with a single spinning NAS-grade 14GB drive set in a caddy and hooked up by USB 3.0 ... Everything is only on Wi-Fi, too, though I have a fairly good mesh system in my house. And huge 4K movie files stream perfectly to my Shield from the Pi. Obviously it'll barf if it needs to do any transcoding, but ... it doesn't need to.

Nice to have a beefy NAS and RAID array, but you can get away with bare minimum stuff depending on the application.

Glad to hear the Onkyo is now working right, very cool!

Also I do notice on my Denon that playing Spotify through HEOS sounds better than playing it via the Shield. I've wondered why that is but never investigated.

 

[Agapetos]

I use a Raspberry Pi 4 for my Plex Server, with a single spinning NAS-grade 14GB drive set in a caddy and hooked up by USB 3.0 ... Everything is only on Wi-Fi, too, though I have a fairly good mesh system in my house. And huge 4K movie files stream perfectly to my Shield from the Pi. Obviously it'll barf if it needs to do any transcoding, but ... it doesn't need to.

Nice to have a beefy NAS and RAID array, but you can get away with bare minimum stuff depending on the application.

Glad to hear the Onkyo is now working right, very cool!

Also I do notice on my Denon that playing Spotify through HEOS sounds better than playing it via the Shield. I've wondered why that is but never investigated.

I did a lot of additional testing, and at this point I needed to find out exactly what I am dealing with.

So, I did a bunch of a b tests with the shield compared to Roku ultra latest version and both of them has issues....

The only place I can get solid continued performance is through the NET source as far as sound, but even tidal froze up several times yesterday...the Roku couldn't even play the dolby tests score , it didn't separate the channels at all.

I also lost my Ethernet connection several times.... needless to say, I bought a new AVR.

Probably the rz50 is faulty and once I'm all setup, I'll start a ticket for repairs with Onkyo.

The sound is awesome when it works, but I also would randomly experience a dull lifeless sound which I would then fiddle with and all of a sudden, back to normal.

So I bought the Arcam avr11, and between the two speakers I was mainly looking at, Revel f208 and the JBL hdi 3800, I bought the JBLs. They where $1250 per speaker, in glossy walnut. Been watching them on and off but all of a sudden they where gone from all the places that had them on sale....found them on sound advice but a loooong backorder.

The Arendal was tempting....but I like to play fairly loud and now I have an excuse for some power amps later

Just gotta get used to the GUI or lack thereof on the arcam, but it checks a lot of my required boxes

 

[MbphotoX]

I did a lot of additional testing, and at this point I needed to find out exactly what I am dealing with.

So, I did a bunch of a b tests with the shield compared to Roku ultra latest version and both of them has issues....

The only place I can get solid continued performance is through the NET source as far as sound, but even tidal froze up several times yesterday...the Roku couldn't even play the dolby tests score , it didn't separate the channels at all.

I also lost my Ethernet connection several times.... needless to say, I bought a new AVR.

Probably the rz50 is faulty and once I'm all setup, I'll start a ticket for repairs with Onkyo.

The sound is awesome when it works, but I also would randomly experience a dull lifeless sound which I would then fiddle with and all of a sudden, back to normal.

So I bought the Arcam avr11, and between the two speakers I was mainly looking at, Revel f208 and the JBL hdi 3800, I bought the JBLs. They where $1250 per speaker, in glossy walnut. Been watching them on and off but all of a sudden they where gone from all the places that had them on sale....found them on sound advice but a loooong backorder.

The Arendal was tempting....but I like to play fairly loud and now I have an excuse for some power amps later

Just gotta get used to the GUI or lack thereof on the arcam, but it checks a lot of my required boxes

why would you need a GUI anyways?

ifyou set it up right thefirst time, you should never need to fiddle with the menues again


hope the Arcam doesn't show the same issues with the Shield (I'm fairly certain that it's a setup issue on the Shield causing it to apply weird processing to music)

 

[Agapetos]

I'm so used to on screen fiddling

But, yes, once it's setup it should not be much of an issue. On the Onkyo, it's constant messing around, my crossovers really creates issues, it's a whole thing ...I have to run my l and r in full range otherwise it sounds awful.

My sweeps shows this as well. Even my sub gets compromised whenever I turn on any crossover point. I know something is wrong somehow.

I've done sweeps where my right channel is 10 DB lower than the right, intermittently. Anyways, I had the arcam for a few days, and I could not replicate the issue, so I'm comfortable with trying out the new AVR for a while and see what happens. The Roku was also having issues so there's that.

At this point I just need the issue to go away

I can use the Onkyo in my bedroom so it's not a big issue, I need a new AVR anyways.

Hey thanks for chiming in and listening to my rants, I appreciate it much!

 

[EWL5]

The sound is awesome when it works, but I also would randomly experience a dull lifeless sound which I would then fiddle with and all of a sudden, back to normal.

Sounds suspiciously like the "stealth" protection mode that Amir mentioned. What nominal resistance (ohm rating) are your speakers?

Edit: Looks like your JBLs are 4 ohm. Symptoms match the culprit! The RZ50 would never let you play "loud" because it would cut off power at the knees before it gets to that point! Do yourself a favor and read Amir's RZ50 review (1st post) and Pioneer 505 review for explanation of this issue.

 

[MbphotoX]

Sounds suspiciously like the "stealth" protection mode that Amir mentioned. What nominal resistance (ohm rating) are your speakers?

Edit: Looks like your JBLs are 4 ohm. Symptoms match the culprit! The RZ50 would never let you play "loud" because it would cut off power at the knees before it gets to that point! Do yourself a favor and read Amir's RZ50 review (1st post) and Pioneer 505 review for explanation of this issue.

Yeah, the Onkyo doesn't like 4 Ohm speakers and tends to limit power for those.

If driven in 8 Ohm mode, it shouldn't, though.

That said, unless those speakers are really bad, 35-40 Watts per channel (in limited mode at 4 Ohms) should be plenty loud enough for a disco!

 

[dlaloum]

Sounds suspiciously like the "stealth" protection mode that Amir mentioned. What nominal resistance (ohm rating) are your speakers?

Edit: Looks like your JBLs are 4 ohm. Symptoms match the culprit! The RZ50 would never let you play "loud" because it would cut off power at the knees before it gets to that point! Do yourself a favor and read Amir's RZ50 review (1st post) and Pioneer 505 review for explanation of this issue.

I have an AVR of that family, and I have 4 ohm nominal speakers, with dips dropping to 1.6ohm.

I have tested this assumption - monitoring via the web interface, allows you to tell whether the amp is in protection mode or not.
Mine has never gone into protection mode, even at silly volume levels in my space.

However, it just does not sound great on my main speakers - it sounds fine on my second pair of speakers, which are a far more benign 8ohm nominal load...
I can only assume that when driving difficult loads, the distortion levels increase - what I experience is a muddled midrange, reduced intelligibility of vocals and dialogue, loss of imaging and soundstage.
Running the AVR into a power amp that can handle my speakers with ease - all those issues disappear - which indicates that the problem is related to the AVR's amp and how it behaves into difficult speaker loads... and not the preamp/decoder sections which provide an excellent clean output.

in 2 years of monitoring the various forums around this family of AVR's, I have yet to come across anyone that has experienced the "stealth protection" kicking in.

AmirM's test ran the amps at 5W continuous into 4ohm...

To give you an idea, with my inefficient 86db/wm speakers, I almost never reach peaks of 4W.... and absolutely never run 4W continuous (my normal listening level is 75db average...) - at my listening position at circa 3m from the speakers - 1W delivers around 81db SPL... 4W would be around 87db continuous/average - which is very loud.

I have yet to encounter anyone who has experienced one of the current generation Onkyo/Integra/Pioneer AVR's going into its protection mode. (and I certainly haven't experienced it myself)

 

[Agapetos]

Sounds suspiciously like the "stealth" protection mode that Amir mentioned. What nominal resistance (ohm rating) are your speakers?

Edit: Looks like your JBLs are 4 ohm. Symptoms match the culprit! The RZ50 would never let you play "loud" because it would cut off power at the knees before it gets to that point! Do yourself a favor and read Amir's RZ50 review (1st post) and Pioneer 505 review for explanation of this issue.

I haven't gotten my JBLs yet, this is my rp8000f.....it's been a pain in the butt, so many odd things, but then it'll sound amazing all of a sudden....I come back out to play something and there it goes again.

Got the arcam avr11 coming, if this rectify my issue, it's the rz50....I had an arcam avr11 for a few days, sounded incredible....and, what was very interesting is that it was way louder than the rz50 with a power amp. So something is subdued on the Onkyo for sure.

I wish I was able to know exactly what it is, but I've spent so much time troubleshooting and now I really just want a good sounding system without any issues in general.

Thanks for checking in with me, I appreciate it much!!

 

[MbphotoX]

what do you mean "was way louder"?!?

Did you run the Onkyo at max volume and it couldn't go any louder?

 

[jonfitch]

The main heat issue on the AVR's over the last 15 years has been DSP and HDMI (video) chipsets.

The current Onkyo's have mini fans and heatsinks on the video and DSP chipsets, and the main fan on the power heatsinks.

Previous generations needed external fans to assist with cooling HDMI/DSP - which on most models didn't even have heatsinks

The internal main fan (on power amp heatsink) appears to activate at around 36 or 37 degrees C - which is just fine (I have never seen the heatsink get warm enough to move the fan above its lowest setting)

Given there is sufficient air space around the AVR, I doubt external fans will have any impact on the current generation.

What I find interesting is Yamaha has stuck to their guns with a fully passive approach even up to their flagship products, and I haven't heard anything about elevated failure rates on Yamaha receivers.

I wonder if this is kind of like when AMD X570 motherboards first debuted with chipset fans and everyone was saying its because of the extra heat generated so it has to have active cooling. But years later as production costs came down the motherboards all went fully passive because margins increased and manufacturers opted for installing larger heatsinks and the narrative of "active cooling was necessary" completely went away.

I suspect fully passive cooling is completely possible and not even much more expensive, it's just manufacturers are pinching pennies for profits. And since active cooling is an additional failure point because fans can and will fail, it's simply a short-term profit trade-off.

 

[dlaloum]

What I find interesting is Yamaha has stuck to their guns with a fully passive approach even up to their flagship products, and I haven't heard anything about elevated failure rates on Yamaha receivers.

I wonder if this is kind of like when AMD X570 motherboards first debuted with chipset fans and everyone was saying its because of the extra heat generated so it has to have active cooling. But years later as production costs came down the motherboards all went fully passive because margins increased and manufacturers opted for installing larger heatsinks and the narrative of "active cooling was necessary" completely went away.

I suspect fully passive cooling is completely possible and not even much more expensive, it's just manufacturers are pinching pennies for profits. And since active cooling is an additional failure point because fans can and will fail, it's simply a short-term profit trade-off.

I agree that passive cooling solutions are both possible and optimal.

But it requires different engineering, and the layout differences and additional metal involved in heatsinks and heatpipes, is likely a more expensive solution than active cooling.

The performance levels are now incredibly high at pricepoints that would once have been unheard of - in inflation adjusted terms, today's AV Receiver provides truly astounding value for performance, but to achieve that, we have given up on some of the engineering needed for long term reliability.

In any case, the current generation run very cool indeed... even under load, my Integra DRX3.4 is barely warm to the touch - and that bodes well for the long term.

 

[SlaughterX]

So this is a really weird issue... but it has happened twice with my unit so far and it really annoying. While fast forwarding a blu-ray at 120x on my PS5... the audio on my RZ50 stops working completely! Even after a factory reset. This happened once before and I had to take it to Chicago to get it repaired, but for the exact same thing to happen twice while simply fast forwarding a movie... how the hell is this even possible?

Happened the first time while watching Lost and last night while watching Shogun.

Just updated my firmware after the factory reset and everything is working again. Really scared me for a moment because I don't want to be beothered with sending it in again.

 

[vivid]

.....

After switching off with remote, try to unplug power cable from AVR /or power socket/ for a few seconds.

 

[SlaughterX]

Already fixed... but last time it happened that didn't work and I had to send it in. I should call them and ask exactly what needed to be repaired. I didn't worry about it because it was covered under warranty but, now I would like to know!