Onkyo TX-8050 Network Stereo Receiver (Black)

I purchased this receiver to replace an Onkyo TX-V940 receiver that I had paired with a couple of Cerwin-Vega VS-100 speakers (125 watts RMS @ 6 ohms), as well as a turntable and a CD player. The receiver is rated at 80 watts at 8 ohms and, according to Onkyo, it is about 100 ohms at 6 ohms. Since it is a bit less powered than my old receiver (100 watts at 8 ohms), I was a bit worried about whether or not it could handle these speakers, but I was worried for nothing as it is fine. I also purchased the Onkyo WiFi LAN adapter Onkyo UWF-1 Wireless LAN Adapter to go with the receiver and, as it turns out, I am mostly using it network connected. I have used it with Pandora, DLNA (to a Windows 7 computer on my home LAN) and I have also tried the free network radio with it, although I prefer Pandora. I read another reviewer who had a lot of complaints about the network features of this unit, but I have no such complaints, I am very happy with it (I set up the DLNA stuff on my computer and I set up Pandora on my computer, I don't really expect to do this on the receiver, so not a problem for me).Regarding the power of the receiver relative to my speakers, for "normal" listening I am setting the volume of the receiver at about 10 (out of 80 I believe). This weekend, I got permission from my wife to test the volume at what, for me, is a much higher level to see whether or not I was getting any distortion or clipping. Given that, I tuned to my "Pink Floyd" channel on Pandora and cranked it up as loud as I thought I could get away with. This took me up to about 40 on the volume and it sounded very, very good to my untrained ear. I have the stereo in a very large living room with vaulted ceilings and, as I mentioned, reasonable listening levels for that room, including the adjacent kitchen, are achieved at 10-12 on the volume (granted, my speakers are pretty sensitive at 95 db).My only complaint about the networking, which I think was mentioned by another reviewer, is that it has to reconnect every time I turn the receiver on and it takes a bit of time to do that (not sure, maybe 20 seconds or so). Once it is connected, it also has to connect to the specific service you are using (e.g. Pandora, or DLNA). Once it is connected, things work great (although I have seen one instance where Pandora disconnected and I had to reconnect it).I found it easy to set up the networking, I used the "push button" approach on my router which worked just fine (connecting with WPA security on an 802.11N 2.4 ghz network). Entering the email and password for Pandora was a bit tedious, but worked fine (once I figured out how to find the @ sign for the email, which is answered in another review posted here.One thing that surprised me was that my turntable (as it turns out) does not connect to the Phono inputs on the receiver (I did not realize this until I tried it and it sounded terrible, which caused me to have to go back and look at the manual for the turntable (where it clearly said "do not plug this into the Phono inputs on your receiver as it will sound terrible"). There was not a good alternative input that was not a bit misleading (I looked for auxiliary, was not there, ended up using DVD or something).One other surprise for me was that the receiver did not recognize my 2nd generation iPOD Nano ("No storage" error). It did recognize my son's more recent iPOD, but not mine. I actually think this is a problem with my iPOD as my laptop has a similar issue with the device (although it does work with my desktop), so I am not faulting the receiver for this.I have tried the FM and AM tuner and that seems fine, I am getting all the stations I expected to get.I have also used my CD player with this unit and that was fine as well.While I was researching the unit, I called Onkyo a few times to ask questions and I found them to be responsive and knowledgeable.This receiver has several audio modes, one of which is aimed at optimizing digitized music - I like that setting the best, it seems to work very well.So far, I am very happy with the receiver.

We bought the Onkyo TX-8050 for three reasons: (1) we moved out of the broadcast area of some of our favorite radio stations and hence wanted to receive programs directly from those stations via the internet, (2) we preferred Onkyo for we have enjoyed an Onkyo receiver (TX-904) for about 20 years to play CDs, tapes, records, and TV sound and wanted to continue to get the quality sound of that receiver in a package which could also access our those radio stations over our high-speed internet connection, and (3) Onkyo claimed iPod/iPhone connectivity through a USB port and through a separate dock for the iPod/iPhone.We were sorely disappointed. The TX-8050 gets very few internet radio stations -- indeed it gets ONLY the nine subscription stations listed by Onkyo and it CANNOT GET ANY internet streams directly from broadcast radio stations. We were quite surprised at this, but this shortcoming was confirmed by Onkyo's technical support. We thought we might have a work-around by connecting an iPhone through a USB port on the receiver or Onkyo's UP-A1 dock (a separate accessory) but neither of these connections allow access to the internet radio stations available on the iPhone except by plugging into the iPhone's headphones socket (which we could have done from almost any stereo receiver), and in any case, as neither of these connections allowed our iPhone to recharge, the connection can be used only for a few hours before having to disconnect the iPhone and recharge it. Unacceptable.We also found that the tuner in the TX-8050 found fewer FM radio stations than did our 20-year-old Onkyo TX-904 (both using the same external antenna in the same location).For these shortcomings and inconvenience, we have given the TX-8050 and the UP-A1 the lowest (1) rating, even though the quality of the sound delivered by the TX-8050 from CDs, DVDs, and a cable-fed digital TV was quite good.So, the bottom line is that if you are happy with the very restricted list of internet stations offered by Onkyo in the TX-8050, this is a good receiver. However, if you want your sound system to access a wide selection of internet radio stations, you should look elsewhere.