Tuners Reviews

This tuner does it all!
OK, if you need a tuner and you don't want to be caught with your pants down, format-wise, then this is the one you want. AM, FM, RDS, Sirius, XM, and HD-Radio (which I LOVE!), this tuner can do them all! Operation has been flawless, with the added perk of remote control of pretty much every function. It seems well built for the money, as all Onkyo products are, in my experience. Sound quality is very good to my ears, but then again, I don't have a 00 Magnum Dynalab tuner to compare it to! All in all, a very high value product.

Attenna Quirk
I have never written a review on Amazon but I felt this needed to be delt with. I had trouble with this tuner receiving both XM radio and HD radio.
I actually returned one unit in exchange for another and the problem continued. After listening to XM radio the tuner was unable to decode the HD signal. My phone calls to both XM radio and Onkyo were unrevealing and terribly unhelpful. Both companies hit a new low in providing useless information. After experimenting I found that my roof antenna was putting out TOO STRONG a signal and probably over loading the tuning circuits. I added a 3dB attenuator and the problem was solved.

The unit has excellent sound and makes the best of the compressed formats
on XM and HD radio. But beware, you antenna may actually be too good.

Another quirk is that you have to press a button to find out what is being played rather than the information appearing automatically.

Nice unit, but you will need to buy a separate XM or Sirius tuner
Unit is very nice, looks great in the stack with my other equipment (NAD Amp & PreAmp and Denon SACD player), but please read carefully. It is Sirius and XM READY, meaning it does not have a built in tuner and you will need to buy a separate unit to get either one. Somewhat disappointing for the price and not very well documented here. Other than that I have no complaints and it seems to be a nice unit, but I would not have bought it if I had known it didn't have the tuner built in.

The best tuner ever!
This Onkyo Multi Platform tuner is the BEST product I have listen to in years, I am a very demanding audiophile, this tuner meet and exceed my expectations, the HD sound CD like quality will blow you away! Adding Sirious to it will make this machine one of your favorite components! Highly recommended!!Awesome!

Excellent picture
My first converter box was a Zenith DTT900. It died exactly 92 days after purchase which was 2 days after the full warranty expired - very displeased. Instead of paying Zenith the they wanted to fix it, I ordered a 2nd coupon and bought the Tivax. Wow, the color is brighter and the picture is noticeably more sharp than the Zenith on the same TV. My whole family noticed it right away. Almost made me glad the Zenith died - almost. I'm very pleased with the Tivax. The only thing the Zenith has over the Tivax is that the Zenith remote can be programmed to turn on the TV so you don't need 2 remotes to watch TV. Of course, that doesn't help much if the box is dead.

I must add that although I love Amazon and their service, this box is overpriced here. It's available for less elsewhere.

A really great upgrade to analog TV
After much research, including the previously mentioned Consumer Report recommendation as a best buy there, we ordered and installed this converter box about a week ago. Even with just an indoor amplified rabbit ears antenna, the quality of the picture of the channels is DVDesque and the other functionality such as the Signal (strength measuring) button are extras that help get the antenna oriented right, depending upon which channel you are trying watch. After getting everything hooked up (well illustrated in the User's Guide) I ran the Automatic Scan for the first time and instantly had more channels than before (4 PBS channels compared to one before, along with four of another Network that previously only had one using just analog). Then I pointed the antenna towards the one major city we live to the east of, ran the Update Scan and pulled in more channels without wiping out the previous channels found. Point the antenna towards the other major city we live west of, and more channels appeared rerunning the Update Scan. In all, about 26 channels with an indoor antenna that we've had for close to eight years. This converter also comes with both AV and RF cabling, unusual for most of these units. All and all, this a great solution to those who don't want to sell out... er... shell out a weekly food budget to cable every month.

IT'S GREAT!!
The previous reviewer was upset about the high price Amazon charges - not about the converter's performance. I purchased two of these from another online vendor using the coupons and ended up paying an additional .00, so about .00 a piece. If you want quality, you have to pay for it. This model received high praise from Consumer Reports and I agree with them. The picture is as clear as a DVD and the sound is really good too on most stations. The stations without super sound probably has more to do with the broadcaster than the box. The remote has a number of useful buttons. Very simple to set up. The colors are a bit more intense so you may need to adjust your TV set again. I received about 30 stations initially, but deleted ten or so since they were in other languages. Very happy with my puchase. Highly recommended.

My folks say it works fine
My folks say theirs works fine and greatly improves the appearance of broadcast TV on their old style television but it has a weak manual.

NO ANALOG PASS-THROUGH
The description for this device is incorrect. There is NO analog pass-through and this is just another cheap converter. It works as expected for a cheap converter, for example, poor sensitivity. Do yourself a favor and buy a decent converter. I am disappointed with Amazon's failure to at least verify their own site's description. Hopefully they will correct it. I will use the converter for garage TV.

Basic features but excellent value.
I purchased unit from Amazon about 1 month ago. My decision was based on Consumer Reports' rating for image quality and price. I'm perfectly satisfied with the purchase. Set up went smoothly and unit worked fine on first try. The instruction manual is serviceable. Purchased and set up an AV switch/hub to make it easier to switch between the converter and game boxes. I live in the middle of an urban area and I'm getting Excellent picture quality on all stations using just a moderately priced rabbit ears antenna. Unit has an on-screen display for signal strength and signal quality, but I didn't really need to use this feature during setup. The remote is tiny but is mostly intuitive, and easy to learn. The button for changing the aspect ratio requires some experimentation and persistence to yield desired results. There does not seem to be a way to remove unwanted stations from the list of auto-selected stations, thus the 4 star rating.

Lasonic Tv converter box
I really liked this product.It is very small and compact which takes up less room.It picks up alot of channels and they are crystal clear.I love it!!!

No RCA Cables
First, I would like to say that while this products works well, I was mildly disappointed with it. The main reason why I was disappointed with it is because it doesn't come with everything you will need. It doesn't include the RCA cables (those red, yellow and white wires). They are going to cost you an additional five to ten dollars. Those criminals at Radio Shack tried to charge me for a 3 foot wire and for a 6 foot wire. So if you're intent on buying this, buy the RCA wire too since you're not going to get the wire cheaper anywhere else. Make sure it has red, yellow and white wires.

Now what were the pros, you ask? Well, it did find alot of local channels in the area that had already switched. I expect I will get more after the mandatory switch. It went from being able to see 4 channels moderately clearly to 10 channels perfectly. This is before the switch! I live in northeast Pennsylvania, so you might get more or less channels if you live in different areas. But at the very least you will get much better picture quality.

The cons are no RCA Cable. That additional cost was unexpected at a little annoying. Even my cheap DVD player came with an RCA wire! Lasonic went the cheap route. Also, one other con is you will only get digital channels. You will not get the analog channels with this box. So if no channels in your area have switched over, you will get no channels until February. The only place that this is likely to be a problem is in less populated areas. In any city or suburb, you should have no problem. People in the sparsely populated areas in the south or midwest might not get many channels.

So my advice ultimately is to get a different converter box with an RCA wire. It'll save you time and trouble when you're setting it up at about the same price.

Nice Picture for a Small Price...
I wanted to try out a box with my government rebate that I could use with my cheap old antennae and decent TV. So when I got this from Amazon for very little after the [...], I was very excited.

The first impression I had, was that the unit is so small! I pictured a VCR size box but it was about a 1/3 of the size. So it will not clog up your space. On the down size the remote is also very small, almost palm size and this would be easily lost in my home. The buttons on the remote were also hard to push and very cheaply made.

Set up was easy although the manual must have been translated to English but can be understood. The programming was simple and the channel scan found about 50% more stations than I received with the antennae alone.
The picture is VERY clear and as good as when I had digital cable. The on screen channel information is an added bonus.

Overall I would say I did get my money's worth and would buy this again for each of my TV's. My only suggestion is to program the unit to your universal remote which can be done with the help of the last page in the included manual.

Not Bad, But I Won't Be Buying A Second One
Nice-looking space-saving design. Easy to set up. Nice picture. Nice sound. I would have given it four stars if it didn't have such poor on-screen displays (my old TV's and VCR's on-screen displays are much easier on the eyes). Digital broadcast is a great improvement over analog. My old RCA indoor antenna works perfectly with it. But if the quality of the on-screen displays is important to you, then you should shop around. I won't be buying a second one.

VCR TIMER - good to keep your DVR or VCR working
The main reason I bought this product was for the DVR/VCR Timer. This feature allows you to program your favorite shows, and the box will automatically change channels to that show. You can then use your DVR or VCR to capture the video off the box.

Other boxes like the Zenith DTT901 have better reception capability, but lack the ability to operate with DVRs or VCRs.

The Zinwell also has analog passthru for people who will be watching Low Power or "clear air" stations after the February 2009 analog shutdown. If you're like me, and don't have any analog stations post-transition, then this feature has no real relevance.

The Zinwell's guide is rather poor, since it only tells you what program is on now, and what program will be on next hour. The Dish DTVpal has a full=featured guide upto 12 hours into the future, but I don't recommend that device due to poor quality build & software bugs that make it almost unusable.

Overall I'm satisfied with the Zinwell's DVR and VCR capability, although I still use the Zenith as my main box when watching live television.

comparison with dtvpal plus
I purchased the two major timer event schedulable/programmable converter boxes available as of this date: the Zinwell and the DTVPal Plus (enhanced version of the DTVPal or TR-40 CRA). These are some of the major problems and advantages of each. The biggest problem I have with the Zinwell is that the remote control is the flimsiest and cheapest control I have ever seen with any product. The down arrow button is already having problems responding to pressing after only a few days. It usually takes several years before buttons on a remote control begin to go bad, and I am concerned that this one will not even be working a year from now. The biggest problem with the DTVPal Plus is the poor reception. The Plus is supposed to have enhanced reception over the prior models which were famous for bad reception (and you pay more for the 'enhancement'), but in my area it does not get as many channels as the Zinwell and does not even pick up the local ABC affiliate. Both devices get the clock time automatically from the digital signal but both devices (at least the ones I possess) keep erratic time. After a few days, the Zinwell became stuck at 62 minutes behind the correct time and the DTVPal Plus became stuck at 53 minutes ahead. If you are buying this to schedule timed events, this is obviously going to be a problem. Attempts to remedy do not help. The Zinwell has no daylight savings on/off (which is not the problem in my case anyway), while the DTVPal Plus does allow you to control daylight savings. The Zinwell has the advantage that you can manually set the time, while the DTVPal Plus does not allow you to. Even after manually setting the time in the Zinwell, I found it loses 1-2 minutes per week and also loses the clock time completely if power goes out even for a second (most devices will hold the time for 2-3 minutes in a power outage). I have mine on a UPS (backup battery) to keep it from losing time in a brief power outage. At least the Zinwell allows you to control the time. I have had problem with the Zinwell mysteriously changing the number of channels (5 suddenly becomes 31) with no way of changing the numbers back-even re-recognizing does not help. The Zinwell has a quirk at the end of the timer scheduling process that makes it easy to cancel your timer event, so watch out. The analog pass-thru of the DTVPal Plus provides a strong signal but shuts off digital operation if you go into analog pass-thru mode. The Zinwell puts a little interference on the analog signal, but if you connect all cables (both RF/coax and RCA/composite) it keeps digital operation alive while in pass-thru mode so it is easier to switch back and forth between digital and analog channels. Zinwell has poor support: they responded to a question after 4 days and then never replied after I gave them follow-up information. I have not contacted DTV so their support may be just as bad. There are several other issues and quirkswith both devices but this review is already too long.

It works
Unpack it, hook it up, and use it. No problem.

cph

Great for the price
With the government coupon this was a wonderful deal.

I love the remote and the on screen menus etc.

The only downside is that I bought it for the analog pass through and unless I'm doing something wrong... that just doesn't work. Hoenstly have not spent a lot of time on it but I get nothing.
I would still buy it again though.

great purchase! better than expected
The only reason I ordered this was because of the upcoming tv conversion to digital. I had no idea that having a converter box would make such a huge difference!! I get 3-4 times more channels than I received before and they are as clear as cable tv. Especially with the government discount, this box is such a great deal and I would recommend it to everyone who uses rabbit ears.

VCR TIMER - good to keep your DVR or VCR working
The main reason I bought this product was for the DVR/VCR Timer. This feature allows you to program your favorite shows, and the box will automatically change channels to that show. You can then use your DVR or VCR to capture the video off the box.

Other boxes like the Zenith DTT901 have better reception capability, but lack the ability to operate with DVRs or VCRs.

The Zinwell also has analog passthru for people who will be watching Low Power or "clear air" stations after the February 2009 analog shutdown. If you're like me, and don't have any analog stations post-transition, then this feature has no real relevance.

The Zinwell's guide is rather poor, since it only tells you what program is on now, and what program will be on next hour. The Dish DTVpal has a full=featured guide upto 12 hours into the future, but I don't recommend that device due to poor quality build & software bugs that make it almost unusable.

Overall I'm satisfied with the Zinwell's DVR and VCR capability, although I still use the Zenith as my main box when watching live television.