This is a review and detailed measurements of the Onkyo TX-NR7100 8K 9.2 Channel THX certified Audio/Video Receiver (AVR). It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1,099.
Not much departure from the classic look of AVRs in the last 30 years. The on screen interface has been enhanced to be high resolution and is responsive. While some parts of it are intuitive, others are not. Options are grayed out at times with no indication as to why. For example I wanted to turn on Zone 2 audio but the option was gray. Reading the manual revealed that you have to first enable Multizone option to get access to that. I updated the firmware over the air and that went well. But when finished, it just told me on the AVR that the update was completed but then sat there locked up requiring a power cycle.
Back panel shows the puzzling inclusion of analog composite and component video:
I guess it is for folks who still pay their original Nintendo game console.
Onkyo TX-NR1700 Measurements
There is no pre-out so I could not test the performance of the main DACs. There is zone 2 so I went ahead and tested that:
The high level of distortion is embracingly poor if it is any indication of how the main DACs operate. For the rest of the tests, I went for full end to end performance starting with HDMI input:
This lands the unit next to its sister models from both Onkyo and Pioneer:
With most of its competitors in the "Green" category, this stagnant performance is not good. Performance is naturally similar with Toslink input (used for later tests):
Notice the noise variations to the left of our main tone which is absent when we use analog input:
Noise performance is in the same "fair" category, not reaching the target of 16 bits at 5 watts:
If you use direct/pure direct, system bandwidth is wide and flat as you expect:
If you do not, response truncates down to just 20 kHz (not shown) indicating everything is resampled down for processing.
Multitone has high noise floor and same ho-hum performance.
Same with 19 and 20 kHz intermodulation test:
Power testing is what got my blood pressure to shoot way up. Ran the sweep and got just 40 watts or so! I remembered the power limiting I had seen in previous units from Onkyo/Pioneer but had forgetting the cause. I updated the firmware and power cycled the unit as mentioned in introduction. I got full power then, remembering that if these units ever clip, they will stay in ECO mode of some sort until you remove the AC cable! I didn't recall the unit clipping however in this case. Here is 4 ohm test:
The 1% THD test pushes the amp into clipping often which meant it took a lot of effort to get the right measurement data:
Here is 8 ohm:
I let the power sweeps vs frequency clip and there, you can see the sudden power limiting as sweeps go from 15 kHz down to 20 Hz:
Note that there is no indication whatsoever that this mode is activated! The amp simply stays in this mode producing only 15% of its rated power until you power cycle it (it does NOT reset with power switch).
Conclusions
The TX-NR7100 delivers "OK" performance across my tests. The problem as I have noted in previous reviews of this shared platform between Onkyo/Pioneer is this severe power limiting mode. I have to think it is there to pass UL regulatory tests and hence the reason it doesn't even tell you that it has gone into this "limp" mode. Naturally there is no mention of it and even searching online won't clue you in this problem.
Based on this testing, I suspect many users are experiencing a fraction of the power this AVR is capable of without knowing it. Detecting/proving that it is doing this requires power sweep measurements which is outside of the abilities of almost every user of this AVR.
For above reason, I cannot recommend Onkyo TX-NR7100 AVR or frankly, any AVR from Onkyo/Pioneer until they address this power problem.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Not much departure from the classic look of AVRs in the last 30 years. The on screen interface has been enhanced to be high resolution and is responsive. While some parts of it are intuitive, others are not. Options are grayed out at times with no indication as to why. For example I wanted to turn on Zone 2 audio but the option was gray. Reading the manual revealed that you have to first enable Multizone option to get access to that. I updated the firmware over the air and that went well. But when finished, it just told me on the AVR that the update was completed but then sat there locked up requiring a power cycle.
Back panel shows the puzzling inclusion of analog composite and component video:
I guess it is for folks who still pay their original Nintendo game console.
Onkyo TX-NR1700 Measurements
There is no pre-out so I could not test the performance of the main DACs. There is zone 2 so I went ahead and tested that:
The high level of distortion is embracingly poor if it is any indication of how the main DACs operate. For the rest of the tests, I went for full end to end performance starting with HDMI input:
This lands the unit next to its sister models from both Onkyo and Pioneer:
With most of its competitors in the "Green" category, this stagnant performance is not good. Performance is naturally similar with Toslink input (used for later tests):
Notice the noise variations to the left of our main tone which is absent when we use analog input:
Noise performance is in the same "fair" category, not reaching the target of 16 bits at 5 watts:
If you use direct/pure direct, system bandwidth is wide and flat as you expect:
If you do not, response truncates down to just 20 kHz (not shown) indicating everything is resampled down for processing.
Multitone has high noise floor and same ho-hum performance.
Same with 19 and 20 kHz intermodulation test:
Power testing is what got my blood pressure to shoot way up. Ran the sweep and got just 40 watts or so! I remembered the power limiting I had seen in previous units from Onkyo/Pioneer but had forgetting the cause. I updated the firmware and power cycled the unit as mentioned in introduction. I got full power then, remembering that if these units ever clip, they will stay in ECO mode of some sort until you remove the AC cable! I didn't recall the unit clipping however in this case. Here is 4 ohm test:
The 1% THD test pushes the amp into clipping often which meant it took a lot of effort to get the right measurement data:
Here is 8 ohm:
I let the power sweeps vs frequency clip and there, you can see the sudden power limiting as sweeps go from 15 kHz down to 20 Hz:
Note that there is no indication whatsoever that this mode is activated! The amp simply stays in this mode producing only 15% of its rated power until you power cycle it (it does NOT reset with power switch).
Conclusions
The TX-NR7100 delivers "OK" performance across my tests. The problem as I have noted in previous reviews of this shared platform between Onkyo/Pioneer is this severe power limiting mode. I have to think it is there to pass UL regulatory tests and hence the reason it doesn't even tell you that it has gone into this "limp" mode. Naturally there is no mention of it and even searching online won't clue you in this problem.
Based on this testing, I suspect many users are experiencing a fraction of the power this AVR is capable of without knowing it. Detecting/proving that it is doing this requires power sweep measurements which is outside of the abilities of almost every user of this AVR.
For above reason, I cannot recommend Onkyo TX-NR7100 AVR or frankly, any AVR from Onkyo/Pioneer until they address this power problem.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
