Features for price (DTS/DD),3 digital inputs,many S VHS inputs

Lack of switching between RCA and S VHS inputs

Hard to beat for dollar spent. Hooked to Toshiba SD2109 DVD,delivers home theater that will delight the family. You could be purist and remain in the higher buck "digital ready" domain and save those hard earned ducats for a better Yamaha or Onkyo, or get this great receiver and enjoy home theater if you dont need to blow out the windows in the process. The DSP modes,as well as the SEA modes are nice,but if you want to just pop in the DD/DTS DVD and let her rip,play with speaker and delay settings without making a zillion adjustments or creating your own soundfields...you may. Lots of tweakablity if you desire as well. DD/DTS is awsome on it's own. If you need DD/DTS now,for the dough,you can't go wrong. I have experianced no hum,but am not the type to make my ears bleed to find out if there is any. If you need raw power,seek a receiver with a high current design and an amplification stage to support it. If you just like watching flix and cranking up some music now and then,it will deliver. No problems at all with decoding DVD/CD software.

Similar Products Used:

Sony

Dolby Digital/DTS decoding, 4 S-video inputs, excelent overall value

I was somewhat apprehensive about ordering this receiver due to several people complaining about the noise audible during quiet periods. Other products I considered were the Pioneer VSX-608 (even lower rating than this model for not much savings), Onkyo TX-DS676 (Onkyo admits to a hum problem in the center channel, but it may not affect every receiver), Denon AVR-3300 (just too expensive on a single income family budget).

One thing which was very important to me was the availability of at least 3 S-video inputs, since I have 3 S-video sources, but only 1 S-video input on my TV. This function it fulfills admirably, with 4 of them available along with 1 RCA A/V input. I actually need all 5 inputs for 2 VCR's, DVD, Satellite, and a Camcoder. As such, I really dislike front-panel A/V inputs, but the only receiver which had them all in the rear was the Denon. That's just a personal preference though.

Before I forget about the hum/hiss issue and the related doubts raised by some reviewers about the actual power output by this receiver: The volume scale adjusts from 0 to 90. You might have to turn the volume up to beyond 45 to get enough sound for some action DVD's. But then again, I believe it's not a linear volume scale; this makes sense as you get more fine-tuning of lower volume levels. There some hiss noticeable with no inputs and the volume cranked up in the 82-90 range. At that volume level, you'd be hard pressed to hear the slight hiss over the sound blasting out of the speakers. I'm not going to dispute that audiophiles will thumb their noses at this, but also remember what price you paid for this receiver.

The on-screen menu is a nice feature, and the menu is output on both S-video and composite jacks.

The tuner is a little weak, as some other reviewers have suggested. One other little complaint I have is that you can't relabel inputs. VCR1 stays "VCR1"; you can't relabel it "Camcoder" or whatever.

It has quite a few DSP modes, none of which I plan on using. It may be more important to you if you only have 2 or 3 speakers.

In summary, I can wholeheartedly recommend this receiver. It probably won't satisfy the hard-core audio enthusiast, but it's hard to beat the features you get versus what you pay.

I ordered it from Soundcity.com for $369 delivered. They shipped it out that same day. Ecost.com had it for $345 delivered, but wouldn't you know it - the day I finally ordered it, they were backordered.

The VALUE rating is a definite 5 starts
The OVERALL rating is probably closer to 4.25 (just because of the minor issues I mentioned), but what the heck - I'm feeling generous.

Good price, solid performance

Puts out alot of heat, ventelate well.

I feel I must give this receiver a review and raise the average review for this product after this Brett Russo character unfairly lowered the average by posting MULTIPLE bad reviews of this receiver. I am by no means an audiophile, so I find this product to be a great solid receiver for the price. Not everyone wants to have high end home theaters ranging into the tens of thousands to get that "perfect sound." Great features and works perfectly along with my JVC DVD and JVC D-Series TV.

Had originally bought a Kenwood VR-309, but returned it in disgust for the JVC 888, and shelled-out a mere $138 extra incl taxes, and it was very well spent. I have no hiss/humm issues as others have reported, and I have fairly good audio from DVD/CD/VCR starting at about 40% volume gain. Excellent pricing, solid construction, and plenty of lights and buttons, and LCD info to go around. The VR-309 was just too simplified. I use an Acoustic Research 6' Digital Optical cable from my Sony DVP-S330D to my 888, and the same brandS-Video cables from the Sony DVD deck to the Amp and Amp to my Sony 32" TV.
The only thing that I dislike about the 888 is that it gets rather hot. It requires plenty of airflow and convection space. However, this is labelled on the top of the deck and in the manual. I use 8 ohm KEF speakers for the Front, and I have yet to perceive any noticeable hum/hiss from the deck at volumes upto 60. I have not tried higher than 60 - I fear damaging my KEF and Acoustic Profile speakers - aging beasts that need replacement soon. I'll be recommending this Deck to anyone of my friends that are currently in the market.

I agree with Tony. I bought the Yamaha 795 receiver 5 days ago and i'm very happy with it. I didn't expect the huge difference between a quality product of Yamaha and the worthless JVC that cost me a couple nights of sleep. I'm glad i've dumped the JVC 888vbk.

After having this receiver for a month I can say that it's one of the best inthis price range

Bought this unit two weeks ago. One reason was I have a JVC DVD and thought the Compulink would be useful. It is, somewhat but no great shakes. Yes, I've had to keep the volume over 40-50 to hear anything. No, haven't noticed the hiss problem. I do have to crank the center speaker level way up when watching Dolby Digital DVDs, otherwise dialogue is hard to hear. Haven't had any overloading problems yet. Nice feature set, but the lack of DTS CD capability is surprising considering the advertising. Interesting that some people can get it to work and others can't. I tried to play through my DVD player (my CD player is seven years old and has no digital capability) which plays "regular" CD's fine. So in all, a good feature set for the price, but for serious listeners, there are probably better units. (note: I don't use a subwoofer due to living in an apartment so that may color my sound perception somewhat).

Well this unit is going back to the store. (thank goodness for a 30 day trial period). Numerous calls to JVC tech support have confirmed that this model and the 1028 model were "not engineered" to decode DTS audio cd's. This is one of the reasons I chose this unit. (DTS capability) They tell me it will play DTS DVD's though. BIG DEAL why DVD's and not audio DTS cd's? I think it is a marketing ripoff to have the DTS logo on the front of this unit and let you discover in the manual the shortcomings of this unit. For those of you stuck with this unit they did explain that DTS encoded audio cd's will sometimes work if you play them all the way through and not use the skip or other features.(Nice design, someone should be fired) What kind of product is this? The humm and hiss that everyone is talking about only affects my unit when the DVD player is on pause or the menu screen. When it switches over to the dolby Digital or DTS mode it seems to disappear. I am going to demo the Sony 333-ES now. Similar hookups and a higher end product than the JVC. Summation----JVC should stick to video!

Fully loaded receiver with a lot of power.

Yamaha, Onkyo and Denon have cleaner sound but cost at least twice.

I'm giving this receiver 5 stars not because it's the best receiver you can get but because for $349 you can't get anything better.
My receiver coupled with new JVC DVD player(3 trays changer) and combination is very good. Receiver handles almost everything you throw at it and doesn't have any hissing problem.

Similar Products Used:

ProLogic Yamaha

Price, number of s-video inputs, DD+DTS

Remote is awkward, cant control other DVD players

Purchased this unit at Costco for $299 (Wow). Couldn't believe they had it at this price since the cheapest I had seen it was $350 online. Had the unit a week and so far am very impressed. Haven't noticed any hiss yet from the rear speakers. Volume control does need to be turned up quite a bit to get alot of volume.

Great purchase overall.

Todd