Questions Regarding the "Vintage" Onkyo 605: Audyssey, Video Passthrough... - Blu-ray Forum

Hillside Trece · 01-12-2011, 10:35 AM

Hi All.

I'm still running my trusty 605 since the time the model debuted on the market. Haven't had any issues with it thus far, no overheating, shutting down, dropouts...however, a couple of things got me curious as I have been thinking of them, and I was hoping some other "600 series" owners/expert users could lend some insight here...

First, some background: I'm set up HDMI all the way, with a single HDMI link going from an OPPO BDP-83 to the 605's HDMI 1 input, and a second HDMI link going from the 605's HDMI OUT port to a Sony SXRD projection set's HDMI in. That's it for connections. I have run Audyssey 2EQ a couple of times, but never really "cared" for its results in my room, and perhaps this is just from not giving it a chance, but I simply manually calibrated it, leaving the EQ defeated (OFF).

How many of you 605 (or newer "600 series") owners run Audyssey on your unit? Being that this is the least powerful implementation in Audyssey's stable on these Onkyos (the 2EQ), do these systems work as well as they do on higher end models? I know they don't EQ the sub and offer eight points of measurement, but do you still think the 2EQ is worthwhile? Does it reasonably measure a room and do a good job with setting EQ points and "correcting" for variances in a room? To me, it was just actually easier to enter my speaker levels (they're balanced), distances and crossovers manually, and leave the EQ off because I wasn't going to play with each band of each frequency on my own...but how do you other 600 series owners feel -- do you think even the lowest version of Audyssey works well?

Here's another thing -- I have read that certain TrueHD tracks that are bitstreamed to the 605 (not sure about the 606, 607 and 608) above a certain sampling frequency do not allow Audyssey to remain engaged due to processing power (lack thereof)...is this true? If so, if Audyssey isn't engaged during certain TrueHD track playback, what happens to the receiver? Are all other settings made by Audyssey still implemented, just not the EQ or what? And what about DTS-HD Master Audio tracks...are these too powerful for the 2EQ system as well, or does it only apply to Dolby's TrueHD codec?

What about video passthrough on these units -- have any of you who pass video through your 600 series AVR (via HDMI) to a display tried routing the video directly to the display instead of through the receiver? Did you see a difference in quality -- as if the AVR was "degrading" the signal somehow, or did they look identical? Do the 600 series Onkyos pass video straight through unmolested, so long as it's HDMI IN > HDMI OUT?

I'd also like to know what happens to 6.1 or 7.1 tracks that are played back on a system being powered by the 605 (or any other AVR for that matter) that's only in a 5.1 configuration -- what happens to the information from those extra channels? I am only running a 5.1 setup -- but when I play back DVDs or Blu-rays that have more channels than that in their encode, what happens to that "extra" information...does it simply just go into the two standard surrounds?

And does anyone know what happened to "Lordoftherings" Bob? First a suspension, and now a ban? What happened?

01-12-2011, 10:35 AM	#1
Hillside Trece Banned Member since:Nov 2010	Questions Regarding the "Vintage" Onkyo 605: Audyssey, Video Passthrough... Hi All. I'm still running my trusty 605 since the time the model debuted on the market. Haven't had any issues with it thus far, no overheating, shutting down, dropouts...however, a couple of things got me curious as I have been thinking of them, and I was hoping some other "600 series" owners/expert users could lend some insight here... First, some background: I'm set up HDMI all the way, with a single HDMI link going from an OPPO BDP-83 to the 605's HDMI 1 input, and a second HDMI link going from the 605's HDMI OUT port to a Sony SXRD projection set's HDMI in. That's it for connections. I have run Audyssey 2EQ a couple of times, but never really "cared" for its results in my room, and perhaps this is just from not giving it a chance, but I simply manually calibrated it, leaving the EQ defeated (OFF). How many of you 605 (or newer "600 series") owners run Audyssey on your unit? Being that this is the least powerful implementation in Audyssey's stable on these Onkyos (the 2EQ), do these systems work as well as they do on higher end models? I know they don't EQ the sub and offer eight points of measurement, but do you still think the 2EQ is worthwhile? Does it reasonably measure a room and do a good job with setting EQ points and "correcting" for variances in a room? To me, it was just actually easier to enter my speaker levels (they're balanced), distances and crossovers manually, and leave the EQ off because I wasn't going to play with each band of each frequency on my own...but how do you other 600 series owners feel -- do you think even the lowest version of Audyssey works well? Here's another thing -- I have read that certain TrueHD tracks that are bitstreamed to the 605 (not sure about the 606, 607 and 608) above a certain sampling frequency do not allow Audyssey to remain engaged due to processing power (lack thereof)...is this true? If so, if Audyssey isn't engaged during certain TrueHD track playback, what happens to the receiver? Are all other settings made by Audyssey still implemented, just not the EQ or what? And what about DTS-HD Master Audio tracks...are these too powerful for the 2EQ system as well, or does it only apply to Dolby's TrueHD codec? What about video passthrough on these units -- have any of you who pass video through your 600 series AVR (via HDMI) to a display tried routing the video directly to the display instead of through the receiver? Did you see a difference in quality -- as if the AVR was "degrading" the signal somehow, or did they look identical? Do the 600 series Onkyos pass video straight through unmolested, so long as it's HDMI IN > HDMI OUT? I'd also like to know what happens to 6.1 or 7.1 tracks that are played back on a system being powered by the 605 (or any other AVR for that matter) that's only in a 5.1 configuration -- what happens to the information from those extra channels? I am only running a 5.1 setup -- but when I play back DVDs or Blu-rays that have more channels than that in their encode, what happens to that "extra" information...does it simply just go into the two standard surrounds? And does anyone know what happened to "Lordoftherings" Bob? First a suspension, and now a ban? What happened?

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