Onkyo TX-8260 2 Channel Network Stereo Receiver, Black

I’ve had my TX-8260 for four and a half years now. I retired a Sony ES receiver that I was happy with for one reason: streaming services. I was using an Apple iPod Touch to run streaming apps and play digital files using iTunes. I had the iPod mounted in a dock and then cabled to the receiver. It was a kludge at best. Finally when Spotify was no longer compatible with the iPod I gave up. After shopping around for a plain old stereo receiver, not an AV receiver I carefully checked specs and manuals about what services were supported and the only manufacturer who ticked all the boxes was Onkyo.It supports Spotify and TuneIn Radio which I was already using and added AirPlay, music server and two ports for direct connection of USB storage…sold! I use the Onkyo Controller app on my phone instead of the remote for certain things, such as scrolling through files on the network or USB storage and selecting TuneIn Radio presets. I appreciate that it has support for services I do not currently make use of…Chromecast, Bluetooth, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon Music, etc. I did sign up for trials of Tidal and Amazon and both worked fine although I'll warn Amazon users that it only supports compressed audio, not the high resolution service. I use a Synology NAS as the backup disk for the computers in the house and to hold my music file library. This has worked perfectly. I’ve also experimented with USB storage, both thumb drives and hard drives and found that worked well, too. It can play mp3, Apple compressed or lossless, WAV and FLAC files, many other manufacturers don’t support all of those, even my iPhone doesn’t. This saves me the hassle of converting files from one format to another. I’ve experimented with some high resolution audio files and playback is flawless. I have had issues related to Spotify bricking and Onkyo support quickly helped me fix it. It turned out a reset of the receiver was ll that was needed. I've done two firmware updates using the USB option and both were painless. All in all I’ve been very happy with it except for three small annoyances: 1. There are only four tuner preset slots. That’s ridiculous, even a car radio has many times that. I programmed my four most used TuneIn Radio stations into those slots, but I wish I had more. Why those presets can only be selected from the front panel but not the remote control is a mystery to me. 2. The white lettering on the black front panel is difficult to read. Either use a larger font or provide a silver panel with black lettering, like the remote control! 3. The size of the remote makes it uncomfortable in my hand. It is both longer and narrower than other remotes I use with other devices. I just find it clumsy to use one handed because of this. Because of those three things, I give it a four out of five.

I bought this receiver to replace my failed ONKYO TX-8050 that I had used for 8 years. It is very important to check your speaker ohm impedance 'set up' at the receiver. My old RF-3 Klipsch speakers were once rated at 8 ohms changed to 3.2 which I believe overworked the old receiver causing it to fail. I set the TX-8260 for 4 ohms and I have 70 dB avg. at 50 % which I consider loud. My old receiver I admit to pushing the volume way beyond loud too often. The 'set up' allows for a max. volume lock to prevent an accidental/intentional increases. To my old ears its sounds great. Bluetooth feature has great range in my wood framed house. I probably will never use all the new features. My other ONKYO components are: TA-2600 cassette player recorder, DX-C370 cd player. I also have Klipsch R-112SW subwoofer. Room size 12' x 16'.

I give it 5 stars because when it comes to features, it trumps many other brands' network enabled stereo receivers that cost more than 2 to 3 times. The only complaint I have is its power/volume scale-- you need to turn its volume up to 50+ in order to start hearing any sound at all, even with fairly sensitive speakers.