AV Receiver Reviews

Onkyo TX-SR875
Aside from the Denon flagship, Onkyo’s $1,699 TX-SR875 was the only other AVR in this survey to offer full HD video processing with both digital and analog sources. Not surprisingly, the TX-SR875 employs Silicon Optix’s Reon video-processing chip, which is a scaled-down version of the flagship Realta. It employs the same deinterlacing and scaling features for simple cadences such as 3:2 and 2:2 for both HD and SD, but the noise-reduction features are limited to SD sources.

The TX-SR875 did an outstanding job, offering full deinterlacing and scaling of both analog and digital input sources. It also has an available passthrough mode for those of you who don’t want video processing, but it is a global setting and applies to all inputs. One word of note, though: There is an onscreen display that you can toggle on and off, and it directly impacts the quality of the video signal. We recommend that you leave this off if you decide to pass through video, as it applies some slight scaling and affects image resolution slightly.

The TX-SR875 did have some slight rolloff in the higher frequencies with chroma information when fed an analog SD source such as DVD. This will have a small effect on color detail with analog sources that are being upconverted to HD and sent out via HDMI. The TX-SR875 did an outstanding job with scaling SD sources, with no obvious ringing or moiré, and the luma resolution was spot on.

Considering its price point, the Onkyo is a very attractive receiver in terms of video processing and one to look at closely if this feature is high priority for you.

[Note: The Onkyo was a late entry that didn’t get tested with the rest of the group, hence its absence in the opening photo.—Ed.]