I have had the 888 for about two months now, and I guess I am fortunate. I have had absolutely no hiss or hum...none. The sound has been excellent and it far surpasses the Yamaha that I replaced with it. Mine plays DTS cds everytime and with no problem. I am using a high grade optical cable however. I will admit that I have to turn the volume up higher than I would have expected, but it has all of the volume I need. (More than needed according to my wife.) I am using the new Polk RM7500 speakers with it and it is awesome IMHO. I have had many other JVC products over the years, in fact my current SVHS VCR and TV are JVC. I have to give it a 5!

Great unit. Great sound, no hiss, and it does everything I want...almost. A couple gripes:
- what the heck is the S-Video in on the TV/DBS for? No matter what I put in there and how I configure the box, no video emerges. Everywhere in the manual basically says "don't hook to this video"...so what is it for? I know nothing about DBS, so I assume it is a specialty type of input, but then they shouldn't tell folks the thing has 4 S-Video ins...it effectively only has 3.
- Why didn't JVC consolidate the video output and send it out both the RCA and the S-Video monitor jacks? I have one RCA component (VCR), and my stupid TV (also JVC) will not take in an RCA signal as long as _anything_ is plugged into the S-Video input jack...so, I have to run the VCR picture through coax, and mess with my TV changing from VID mode to channel 3. What a pain. Thank God for my Marantz RC2000 remote...

Anyway, all in all it is a great unit for the price. I'll go with 4 stars.

I have had several receivers, (two of which were digital), and I have to say, this is absolutly the BEST received I have ever heard or owned. The quaility of the sound is great. JVC's SuperA Amplifier is a great improvement over it's previous amps. My system has **NO HISS** and plays DTS CDs PERFECTLY! Maybe I've been lucky, but I plan to keep this unit a while.

My receiver plays DTS CD's perfectly. I have no hiss at all. Great receiver for the money.

First let me say that I looked at quite a few AV receivers in my price range before I finally decided to go with the JVC RX-888. The Sony units ran hot. The Kenwood systems looked cheap and I hate and I mean hate the remotes on the new Yamahas.
I’ve only had the JVC for a few days so as far as reliability goes I can’t comment but for sound a ease of use I give this baby top marks. Setting up the sound fields was a snap and I can do a ton of stuff with the remote. Sure I could spend twice as much for a receiver and it would sound better but I just can’t bring myself to spending that much on something that gets outdated in a couple of years and use once or twice a week.

I read another post that the manual leaves a little to be desired as far as not putting all the rear connection plugs on one page. I agree with that. It was a little tricky but not to bad. I do wish there was some way to dim the display. It’s a little to bright for my liking. I played the Eagles "When Hell Freezes Over" DTS version last night and the sound blew me away. (Panasonic A-110) Keep in mind folks, I went from a standard surround receiver ( I skipped the Pro Logic phase) to this bad boy so I knew I was in for a treat. I’m watching my DVD catalog all over again.

New and better speakers next. Unless my wife kills me first. Why don’t women appreciate go sound or home theater?
I’ll post an update in a few months. I'm giving it four stars since I've only had it a few days.
Later
Frank

Bought mine from www.ecost.com for only $324.14 brand new. If you do your homework and take the time to actually test all the brands the store has to offer, I would say you'll end up with this unit. This unit rivals the quality of all units street priced up to $700. Sometimes the name carries major weight for amateurs, especially SONY which was very dissapointing. If you're looking for value, be patient and try all available products.

I am not an expert on audio. After reading most messages here, I think the hiss problem in the surround mode has to do with the sensitivity on the speakers. For example, using a 87db speaker, you need to turn your volume way up to hear decent sound. But with a 93db speaker, you need much less power for the same sound !! Of couse the Ohms also has alot to do with it. The rating on this JVC unit is 5x100w into 8Ohms. If you are using 6 ohms speakers, it will give you 30% more sound !!! Comments are welcom. I am going to get one of this receiver at ubid. I am going to offer $200 for it. For this price, I won't lose !

Easy to hookup

Buzzing in Surround Mode, Overloads easily.

I Bought this Receiver to replace a 4 year old JVC surround model.
I was very disapointed with it. The hissing when it was in the surround mode was very noticable at any volume level. If you crank up the volume it would go into overload (75-85) if you are listening to anything with a resonable amount of bass. I've owned JVC products for 10 years and was sorry to have to return this receiver.

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none

price, features

Must choose SVHS or Composite signal for video!

An amazing bunch of features for the price. It does everything you would want in a home AV system save THX sound and more video in/outs.

If you want to use this thing to switch video signals to your TV, you have to commit to all SVHS cables or all RCA/Composite cables - switching internally only connects the inputs and outputs of like types. This was an issue for me because I wanted to use both VCR1 and VCR2 and they only allow RCA video on VCR2. I hooked everything up with SVHS cables anyway, and just ran the VCR2 output directly into the VCR1 input, so the reciever doesn't switch it.

I use Bose 401 speakers. No hiss or other problems as some of these people mentioned. There is loads of power in the top 40 of the 100 scale of volume. So I had no problem getting power when I wanted it.

An extremely competitive product! I paid $370 at soundcity.com, plus $10 shipping. Total.

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Past JVC and other brand large recievers

lots of features, computext is a nice feature if you have a jvc 200 cd player or other jvc component

power, you really do need to crank the volume up to 60 or so to get good sound

I don't really have any issues with this receiver except for the fact that you really do have to crank the volume up to 65 or so to listen to a movie in Dolby Digital. I've had the receiver up to 80 and it's definitely loud!!! I haven't had any overload problems, but it does seem like it should be a lot louder at 45 or so. I don't have any hiss problem with digital cables on cd or dvd, but with standard RCA jacks if I don't have signal to a source and turn up the volume to 80+ it does hiss. I'm not sure why this would be a problem for anyone, if you have the volume up loud enough to hear a hiss, I'm sure you would be causing damage to you hearing anyway.
Overall, I feel I got a good deal on this receiver from ecost.com at $344 it has nice clean sound, and great features. If you want it really loud, you should probably look elsewhere.

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I've had Sony and Kenwood receivers over the years, and like them. This is my first JVC receiver.