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With most audio brands, you'd expect to pay a lot of money for a "flagship", top-of-the-line receiver. In fact, it's possible to spend upwards of $5, 000 to get the best receiver some brands have to offer.Sherwood is not playing that game. For less than one-tenth that amount it offer the Sherwood RD-8601. It decodes all of Hollywood's latest movie formats including DTS-ES (both Discrete and Matrix) and Dolby Digital EX. It has fully adjustable Dolby Pro Logic IIx to turn broadcast TV, VHS tapes and even 2-channel CD's into 6 channel magic; Dolby Headphone for amazing private surround listening and Dolby Virtual Speaker to reproduce full surround effects from only 2 speakers.With six 100 watt per channel, high current, discrete amplifiers on board, sound quality for the 8601 is superb. So is ease of use. The RD-8601 not only has switching for 3 audio/video source units, 3 for audio only and 2 for high-def signals, it is one of the few receivers in the world with Universal Video to change all video signals to a single component video output. It even offers automatic speaker set-up, complete with supplied microphone, to minimize the hassle normally required for initial operation. Control is possible using the built-in On-Screen Display, from the front panel or via the 8-unit preprogrammed remote control.Additional conveniences include the capability for 3 Macro remote command sequences, one-touch operation of Sherwood DigiLink III components, display dimmer, sleep timer and more.
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 Great Product for the Money! |
| Review Date: March 4, 2010 |
| Reviewer: L. Gaudio, Illinois |
I'm very happy with this receiver. The description was accurate, and the sound quality is very nice. I did have trouble with the automatic speaker setup, and had to set them up manually, but the instructions were clear on how to do that. I don't recall the listing pointing out that the unit is rebranded, but I was aware of that fact when I purchased the unit, having read it in another review. I downloaded the manual from Sherwood and compared it with the manual that came with the unit, and the illustrations and instructions are functionally identical.
The bottom line for me is, I got a better unit than many of those I looked at before purchasing this one, and paid less money. Shipping was much quicker than I expected. All in all, I'm very pleased! |
Excellent Value
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| Review Date: March 4, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Jonathan Pass, BURLINGTON, Co United States |
I bought this as a sensibly priced replacement unit after my Sony receiver petered out on me suddenly. I have always been a fan of Sony products, but for some reason that receiver went bad again after it had been repaired before (and to be frank, it went another 18-months after the repair, but still). Money at the time was tight, and I have not made the upgrade to HD or BluRay as I still have a huge Tube TV.
I frantically searched and reviewed all that was available and this Sherwood unit caught my eye. Now that I have it (the company that full-filled the order shipped extremely fast FedEx for free) and have used it for coming on five-weeks now, I can say, it is excellent. In compairison, to the Sony it replaced, it doesn't seem as powerful, but it has a clear and rich sound and very distinct surround sound separation. To my pleasant surprise, it came with a microphone for automatic speaker adjustment. The very cool thing is that all inputs are up-switched to the component video out, and this is something even my Sony couldn't do. In fact, it's a rare feature that I think should be commonplace in any surround receiver. For instance, my VHS player only does composite video, but DVD, Wii and PS2 have S-Video, well the unit's outputs all of them through the component video.
As I say, for the price, this unit is an outright steal. Great quality at a price that makes it easily affordable. If you want a good, inexpensive surround receiver, (for the kids or game room, or secondary TV area, bedroom, whatever)and have not yet made the leap into the Hi-Def world, you cannot go wrong with this guy. |
Better than my old SONY
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| Review Date: March 13, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Joseph Madden, FL |
Very Nice AMP for the $$$$ really makes watching movies on my big screen seem like I am in a real movie theater.
Great sound on cd's too. |
Great intro to the world of Surround
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| Review Date: June 5, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Peter Hopkins, |
| Several months ago, I wanted to set my home theater up for surround sound. After quite a bit of research, I settled on this unit and ordered it. I received it promptly (the day after Thanksgiving, no less), and set it up. Now that I've given it a thorough test drive, I wanted to share my opinion. Even with just the old speakers I had at the time and no sub-woofer, it sounded great. I was really pleased with all of the different audio settings for both analog and digital sources. I did want to mention one nice feature that no one else has mentioned. It's listed as having 3 video inputs, with the choice of composite, S-video, or component on two of them, and just composite on video 3 (the one on the front). In reality, you can connect seven separate video devices at once. For example if you connect three game consoles to video 1, one on composite, one on S, and one on component, the receiver will automatically select the strongest signal (the console that's in use). So you can have three separate devices connected to video 1 and video 2 at the same time. And all selections output on one component connection to the TV, with simplifies things. Unfortunately, there's no HDMI, but that's easy enough to work around, and that's probably why this unit has come down in price so much. My only real complaint is that there's no button to select between the digital inputs on the remote. You have to navigate through the on screen display to do that. It's no big deal though. I really love this unit, especially for the price. |
Great Product
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| Review Date: October 26, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mina Caliente, |
| Love the product, will buy Sherwood again. Great price from Amazon and shipping service was fast! |
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