This is a review and detailed measurements of the Onkyo TX-RZ30 9.2 home theater AVR. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $1,100.
As you can see, we have the same cookie-cutter design with no attempt at differentiation. As if to copy that into controls, the volume knob is the same stiff one everyone else implements. A tiny of row of black buttons which are kind of hard to push under the display given some level of control.
Back panel shows input types dating decades back:
I wonder where they are finding the silicon to decode and digitize component video. We even have AM and FM inputs and antenna!
Happy to see the pre-amp out although sadly, there is no way to turn off the internal amplifiers.
I was pleased to see extruded aluminum for the heat sink rather than spring steel. A large fan which never came on sits between it and the top of the unit. In use, the unit never felt too warm.
The transformer seems rather small which explains the very manageable weight.
Before testing, I performed an online update to latest firmware. I attempted to use the WebUI but it is only for setup with control systems rather than interacting with the unit.
Onkyo TX-RZ30 Measurements
As usual, I started with using the pre-out to determine the fidelity of the internal DAC. It was quite challenging to get proper output until I realized in 2 channel mode, by default it turns on some kind of processing. Once I defeated that using Pure Direct (Stere, etc. works as well), I got more reasonable results:
Nice to see 2 volts output but performance disappoints, represents that of a 16 bit device:
I guess landing in the middle of a bunch of lackluster results is cause for some relief.
As with other AVRs, turning up the volume will increase noise:
But we also get higher output voltage of nearly 4 volt which is very good for unbalanced RCA. You can drive just about any power amp to its peak power without penalty.
Multitone performance is good:
Jitter is not:
IMD response shows that we are still so far behind desktop products:
Ditto for noise:
The filter is the standard we expect as well as its less than ideal attenuation:
Which is likely the cause of poor wideband response:
Switching to the amplifier, measurements with HDMI and analog were basically the same:
For ease of testing and comparison, I stayed with analog for the rest of the tests:
We see that the amplifier implementation is good.
I was surprised how quickly the amp clipped:
Figuring out why when I ran my power sweep:
As with other Onkyo and Pioneer AVRs, any attempt to push the amplifier will cause it to go into a lower power mode. This can not be fixed with a power button cycle. You must disconnect the AC cable or it will continue to do so until end of time.
As a result of this, I can't run any of my power rating tests as they rely on finding the clipping point.
Conclusions
What can I say. Nothing all that good. The power limiting alone is enough to make my blood boil. Do their product marketing people know what the engineering has done? Do they care? Even ignoring that, performance is average at best for a brand that thinks it is better than average.
OK, I am happy about the high output voltage drive from the pre-out without distorting.
I can't recommend the Onkyo TX-RZ30.
-----------
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/
As you can see, we have the same cookie-cutter design with no attempt at differentiation. As if to copy that into controls, the volume knob is the same stiff one everyone else implements. A tiny of row of black buttons which are kind of hard to push under the display given some level of control.
Back panel shows input types dating decades back:
I wonder where they are finding the silicon to decode and digitize component video. We even have AM and FM inputs and antenna!
Happy to see the pre-amp out although sadly, there is no way to turn off the internal amplifiers.
I was pleased to see extruded aluminum for the heat sink rather than spring steel. A large fan which never came on sits between it and the top of the unit. In use, the unit never felt too warm.
The transformer seems rather small which explains the very manageable weight.
Before testing, I performed an online update to latest firmware. I attempted to use the WebUI but it is only for setup with control systems rather than interacting with the unit.
Onkyo TX-RZ30 Measurements
As usual, I started with using the pre-out to determine the fidelity of the internal DAC. It was quite challenging to get proper output until I realized in 2 channel mode, by default it turns on some kind of processing. Once I defeated that using Pure Direct (Stere, etc. works as well), I got more reasonable results:
Nice to see 2 volts output but performance disappoints, represents that of a 16 bit device:
I guess landing in the middle of a bunch of lackluster results is cause for some relief.
As with other AVRs, turning up the volume will increase noise:
But we also get higher output voltage of nearly 4 volt which is very good for unbalanced RCA. You can drive just about any power amp to its peak power without penalty.
Multitone performance is good:
Jitter is not:
IMD response shows that we are still so far behind desktop products:
Ditto for noise:
The filter is the standard we expect as well as its less than ideal attenuation:
Which is likely the cause of poor wideband response:
Switching to the amplifier, measurements with HDMI and analog were basically the same:
For ease of testing and comparison, I stayed with analog for the rest of the tests:
We see that the amplifier implementation is good.
I was surprised how quickly the amp clipped:
Figuring out why when I ran my power sweep:
As with other Onkyo and Pioneer AVRs, any attempt to push the amplifier will cause it to go into a lower power mode. This can not be fixed with a power button cycle. You must disconnect the AC cable or it will continue to do so until end of time.
As a result of this, I can't run any of my power rating tests as they rely on finding the clipping point.
Conclusions
What can I say. Nothing all that good. The power limiting alone is enough to make my blood boil. Do their product marketing people know what the engineering has done? Do they care? Even ignoring that, performance is average at best for a brand that thinks it is better than average.
OK, I am happy about the high output voltage drive from the pre-out without distorting.
I can't recommend the Onkyo TX-RZ30.
-----------
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/
