ONKYO Home Theater A/V Receiver TX-SR503B

Would have been nice to have manual. Hard time figuring out how to pair with TV.

After getting this receiver hooked up and using it for about five hours, it suddenly caught a case of the dreaded 'automatic shutoff' disease. When your receiver does this--shuts off for no apparent reason everytime you turn it on, you're pretty much screwed. It is, apparently, a labor and tech intensive fix. In the process of discovering this I experienced the same customer service hell the other two customers below did. The most you might get out of this outfit is the address of a certified repairshop. Other than that, they are rude and completely useless. Onkyo receivers are great sounding, but on the downside--their north american customer service is non-existant. It's customer dis-service. The sound quality/price difference between Yamaha, Pioneer, and Onkyo isn't large enough to justify Onkyo's existance in the US market given their poor customer service. Buy a Pioner VSX 516 or 816 (or a Yamaha HTR 5930/5940) rather than this, or any other model of Onkyo.

Sure, my father has the TX-SR502 and 503, and it appears to hook up the rooms wall speakers, HDTV, DVD, CD, Tape, Satellite very well. But this feat is marred by their horrendous, and let me use CRAPPY support. Email support is "too busy to accept", so the "Submit" button is disabled. I called their non-800 number, was on hold for 2 hours, and never got through. Voice kept saying my call would be answered in 30 minutes for an hour. But that countdown only comes on after you've already waited an hour. Yes, I was able to hook up the wires fairly simply; it's easy to follow. The "listening mode" button enables the various speakers around the room, and is not too intuitive. "Stereo" means only half the speakers are on-air. You have to toggle through the non-intuitive listening modes to send audio through all the channels. But everything is connected. A VCR clock-challenged guy like me was able to hook it all up. But if you have a problem or question, good luck trying to get in contact with someone. You probably have to call your local service center, and have someone come out to look at it and pay them a fee, while it's under warranty. Because of their EXTREMELY POOR service, I personally will NEVER conisder an Onkyo product. You try waiting 2 hours to no avail, and go buy that product again. I'm no masochist.

Did not have to use since my current unit was ok......keeping this as backup since it is not needed.....Want it back?

it is the SR606 receiver. lots of HDMI output and input for easy use and sounds great. very good sound

I have owned an NAD receiver for 2 years but because it had center channel problems I purchased the Onkyo sr503, which was actually cheaper than the NAD repair. The machine is a breeze to set up and user friendly. Be patient, put on a dvd you like and make fine adjustments for the speakers. There are more sound settings than you will ever need so just use the ones that sound best to your ears. You can slightly raise or lower the volume on all speakers independently until the sound is just right. While this receiver can never compare to the rich sound of an audiophile's high end stereo receiver, it does an excellent job for its price range. I enjoy the "ALL STEREO" and "ALL MONO" features, which will use all four (or six) of your speakers as main speakers. This is excellent for parties when you want the music spread evenly throughout a crowd of people. I've found it especially pleasant this Christmas to have holiday music playing quietly throughout the living room. By the way, I use Polk speakers which, like the Onkyo, deliver good sound at an affordable price.My bottom line: this is an excellent home theatre receiver at an excellent price. I only omit one star because no product is perfect and you will surely find little things about the receiver you wish were different. But you could do a lot worse than the SR503 and spend a lot more money.

I have spent collectively 3 hours, perhaps more, trying to reach customer service and I can't get anyone. This is the WORST customer experience I have experienced at any point in the last ten years. I won't be buying an Onkyo product again. What is the point of making a decent product if no one from the company will bother dealing with the inevitable problems that arise? Onkyo needs to rethink how it does business.

This is a great mid-level priced AV Receiver that has premium features.Along with 7.1 Dolby Digital EX/DTS-ES Surround sound, there's HD Component switching. It has 3 Component(Y,Pb,Pr) inputs that let you switch between 3 High Definition/Progressive Scan video sources. I have my CATV(HD), DVD(PS), and XBOX connected via component video cables. The unit also has 1 Digital Coax and 3 Fiber Optic Audio inputs, so all three video sources can produce digital surround sound as well.Since my living room is average sized, I'm only using 5.1 channels. My speakers are Polk Audio RM6005 satellites and PSW303 subwoofer.TV shows broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound really good. During Yankees games on YES-HD, fan comments can be heard from the side speakers making you feel like you're at the game. The first DVD I played was Star Wars: The Empire Stikes Back-Widescreen. It's encoded in DD5.1 and it sounds incredible. The tie-fighters and x-wings sound like they're flying around the room. I'll never grow tire of this classic. Many XBOX games are also encoded in DD5.1. If you have the XBOX HD-AV adapter with a Fiber Optic Audio cable attached, these games sound great, too.BTW, I have it in black and it perfectly matches my Syntax Olevia LT32HV 32" LCD TV. You won't be dissapointed with this receiver.