Onkyo TX-NR801

Don't worry, we haven't turned into Personal Hifi World overnight, although this is a home cinema receiver. But it's not just any old receiver, as it has an Ethernet port, which it can use to stream mp3 files around the home.

With this one box - and what a box it is - you can get the most out of DVD movies and stream music from your PC. One of the first things you'll notice is the THX-certified badge on the front of the large silver chassis. This gives a good indication of the kind of sound you can expect.

Swing the box around and you'll see that it supports 7.1 speaker configurations. Using 6ohm speakers, the TX-NR801E delivers 135w per channel. When we had it hooked up to our speakers and a DVD player, the sounds was superb for the price and the equal to many of the more expensive receivers.

The rear has a large choice of inputs including seven S-video and composite, two component video, three digital optical audio and three digital coaxial. Using the remote it's possible to assign these inputs to different sources, such as optical 1 to the DVD. This makes the Onkyo TX-NR801 very flexible.

Streaming mp3s involves installing the Net-Tune server software. It looks like a very basic mp3 player and is a little clunky to use when creating items such as playlists. However, once done the TX-NR801E detected our server and all of its music.

A track can be selected by artist, genre, album or playlist using either the large LCD on the front of the receiver or, preferably, a TV screen. What you can do from the receiver is basic, but it's dead easy to use.

For the price this is an amazing receiver packed full of high-end goodies.

Contact: Onkyo 07887 553 101
www.onkyo.net

Specifications:

• 7 x 135w channel
• THX-certified
• 7.1
• Ethernet Port
• Net-Tune Central Software
• Multifunction remote control