TX-NR616 went back to Best Buy - so much for Onkyo

After the lengthy troubleshooting with my 616 and a firmware that finally bricked my unit, I returned it to Best Buy today before my 30 days was up. If I had a longer return time I might would have tried swapping out the unit but the Onkyo's offer to replace the unit after I ship mine would have put me over my 30 days. I had high hopes and expectations for my first Onkyo so it was that much more bitter to have such issues. How many people want to spend hundreds of dollars on a receiver to troubleshoot and end up mailing the unit off for weeks less than a month after purchase? This whole experience was extremely frustrating and it does not appear that Onkyo has a true solution yet. Good luck to the rest of you guys!

don't blame you at all jaypugh. i have lots of onkyo gear and i was really surprised how badly they blew this product launch.

i am beginning to think that the internet firmware update process works against beta testing a product as thoroughly as it might have been tested before release in previous years. the mentality must be to push out a product thinking that you can always release an update to fix problems. this speeds up release dates, but they didn't figure on the consumer back-lash from the lack of real customer service with our problems. many of us will now think long and hard before investing in another onkyo product.

i have yet to get a straight answer in this forum from onkyo and in a world where there are examples of excellent customer service in the marketplace, this kind of support is unacceptable.

the same internet that allows firmware updates also allows wide open discussion among consumers, and if i had browsed this site before purchasing my 616 i would not have purchased it. shame on me this time, but this will be the last onkyo for me until something changes. yeah, big deal for onkyo if i skip the next purchase with them, but this lack of anything approaching real customer service is much larger than my single purchase.

I don't know if I will take the time to complain to Onkyo in writing or use the New Jersey Attorney General's consumer protection process, but it is tempting to at least voice my opinion about this company.

chuck

I feel your pain jaypugh....I really feel there customer support staff don't have the answer and the online support is the same answer from your manual, and the answer is to call customer support to sit and wait 45mins on hold.

After trying so hard to GIVE them more money for a upgraded system and getting no where, I'm pulling the plug on Onkyo as well...I had really high hopes but I dropped everything off at Fedex this morning.