Plain & simply THE BEST Pre-Amp I have ever seen or heard. Unfortunately, I purchased this TO BE USED as a receiver, NOT as a pre-amp!! As a pre-amp this unit would get 5 stars!!, but for "MUSIC" (cd's, vinyl, tape, etc.) this unit has to be the WORST sounding piece of garbage I have ever heard!! I purchased this through mail order last week, and, unfortunately I'm returning it. I'll Probably exchange it for the Yamaha 995. Normally I would have purchased the HK avr-65, but, since there's been so many problems w/it I'll be getting the Yamaha. Too bad that Sherwood DIDN'T put 1/2 of the configuration & design in the amplification stage of this receiver as they did in the pre-amplification stage. If they did, it would be one of the finest receivers EVER made. Unfortunately, THEY DIDN'T!! My 29 year old Fisher & my 14 year old Onkyo "sonically" put it to shame, and THE MUSIC IS WHERE IT COUNTS.... Do any of you folks use these av-receivers for anything other than home theater? You really have me wondering....

I just bought a Sherwood Newcastle R-945 recently. This was done after auditioning many A/V receivers (including H/K, Denon and Yamaha). The reason I settled for the Sherwood was easy. For its price, nothing beats the performance it can muster. Even my wife, who does not care whether the music she is hearing comes from a $50 boom box or a $5,000 mid-fi set-up, was impressed enough in blind tests to pick the Sherwood from the H/K, Denon and Yamaha units. Now, I am happily watching movies and yes, listening to music, with my B&W 302 main and rear channel speakers, my CC-6 center speaker and my PSB sub-sonic 3 sub. With that set up and listening to the Eagles DTS DVD, I am as close to my version of a budget dream sound as I was gonna be. For the price and the performance and the satisfaction that I gained from this unit, I would have to give it 5 stars out of 5.

I bought a R-945 after looking at many systems . The unit was the best value for money as far as features and power go.
The most interesting feature must be the unit's capability of functioning as a pre-amp/decoder. This allows me to increase the power in each channel to whatever I want AND to use Valve based Power Amplification in each channel.

For the person who thought that the 945 was a fantastic pre-amp , let him add external power amps of his choice to get a great system at a very affordable price. I am adding external 120 watt Hybrid valve power amplifiers to each channel of the 945 . This is because I find the sound of the built in power amplifiers not quite as good as my stereo Hybrid Valve power amplifier.

Built quality is great and the remote is great though it takes a while to get used to. I think that Sherwood has done a great job and this deserves a five rating .

I RECENTLY PURCHASED THE R945 AND AM VERY HAPPY. THE MUSICALITY OF THIS RECIEVER IN STEREO MODE IS THE BEST I HAVE HEARD. I COMPARED IT TO THE DENON 3300 AND VARIOUS NADS,YAHMAHAS, AND SONY RECIEVERS. THE SEPERATION IS OUTSTANDING AND POWER PLENTYFULL. THE HIGHS ARE VERY DEFIND AND CLEAR. THE MIDTONES IS THIS RECIEVERS STRENGTH SOUNDING AS THEY SHOULD NOT HOLLOW LIKE ALL THE OTHER RECIEVERS I LISTENED TO. THIS 945 IS AS CLOSE TO A COMPLETE HOME THEATERE AND STEREO RECIEVER IN TERMS OF QUALITY AS YOU WILL FIND AND IT SELLS FOR 900 AS APOSSED TO ITS ORIGINAL 1300 STICKER PRICE. THE REMOTE IS QUITE GOOD HAVING A LIGHT ACTIVATION WHICH ILLUMINATES ALL KEYS. IT RUNS MY ENTIRE SYSTEM VIA PRE PROGRAMMED CODES AND MACRO SETTINGS. THIS IS TRULY A VALUE YOU WON'T FIND IN DENON OR ANY OTHER RECIEVER FOR THIS PRICE. I AM RUNNING B&W 602'S ,B&W CENTER SPEAKER AVERAGE REAR DIPOLE,BIPOLE SPEAKERS AND A POWERED DEFINITIVE 12 INCH SUBWOFFER. ITS DD,DTS AND PRO LOGIC RUN VERY SMOOTHLY WITH SONIC EXCELLENCE.

HAVE NOT FOUND ONE

THE BEST 900 DOLLAR DD,DTS HT RECIEVER FOR THE MONEY WITHOUT QUESTION.

Similar Products Used:

DENON 3300 SONY ES555 AND NAD T770 ALSO VARIOUS YAMAHAS

I was one of the first purchasers of this unit,buying it direct from Sherwood. Strengths: outstanding on movies in
Prologic,DD,or DTS. Great AM/FM tuner. (AM for ballgames!)
Elegant looking and solidly built. Excellent remote.
I bought the Sherwood for $1200 and thought it was an excellent value. At its current $850 to $900, you will be hard pressed to find a recever this good from anyone else.

The stereo mode is good but not as good as the 5 channel modes.
Slight tendancy to overheat in a cabinet, but this has never been a problem for me.
All the DSP modes,except maybe one, are phony sounding
and are worthless.

Performance rates four stars
Value is five stars

I had the Marantz SR780 and then returned it for the R945 MkII. The Sherwoods sound is cleaner and crisper on movies and esp. for music. It easily beats the Yamahas,denons,sonys and the marantz. The MkII has a new remote a beautiful aluminum finish and a few other minor differences. Also the people at Sherwood will answer any ? by e-mail usually within a few hours, definately within a day. Besides all that you can have it for $899 and it has dts which the sr780 did not. Also check out Sterophile guide to home theater and you will see it won budget product of the year.

hot damn that thang sure doez sound perty. I hooked it up to these 25 year old pioneers with fifteens in them . Man it is so loud it shakes the deer head off my wall , it is a 25 piont buck i shot a few years back and had mounted . I broke a window with it once , so i can only turn it up like 15% of the way up . when I am watching nascar it sounds like I am a driver in the race. Sometimes I get a little excited and piss myself. The distortion is very low for this unit something like 20% thd. If I touch the antenna to the wall of my trailer it will turn the whole house into a big antenna and boy does it sound good . It almost sounds like one of them HDTV's .

one time a big ol spark came out of it and cought my window shades on fire.But after that it worked fine . it will shock you If you touch it while being grounded to something . So if you touch this fine peice on machinery make sure you arn't touching anyhing else.

More fun then going cow tipping

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa minisystem 109.99 . Ge 9 in tv 89.99. southern bell telephone 29.99 .And one of them littlr frigirators to hold some budwiser in . These are some other things I have in my double wide . But sound wise I would compare it to the sound of one of them rocket moon ships taking off.

hot damn that thang sure doez sound perty. I hooked it up to these 25 year old pioneers with fifteens in them . Man it is so loud it shakes the deer head off my wall , it is a 25 piont buck i shot a few years back and had mounted . I broke a window with it once , so i can only turn it up like 15% of the way up . when I am watching nascar it sounds like I am a driver in the race. Sometimes I get a little excited and piss myself. The distortion is very low for this unit something like 20% thd. If I touch the antenna to the wall of my trailer it will turn the whole house into a big antenna and boy does it sound good . It almost sounds like one of them HDTV's .

one time a big ol spark came out of it and cought my window shades on fire.But after that it worked fine . it will shock you If you touch it while being grounded to something . So if you touch this fine peice on machinery make sure you arn't touching anyhing else.

More fun then going cow tipping

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa minisystem 109.99 . Ge 9 in tv 89.99. southern bell telephone 29.99 .And one of them littlr frigirators to hold some budwiser in . These are some other things I have in my double wide . But sound wise I would compare it to the sound of one of them rocket moon ships taking off.

I bought the Sherwood Newcastle R-925 for $677 at The Happy Medium in Madison, Wisconsin's only dealer. This I learned from the helpful people at Sherwood. One E-mail gave me three replys from three different people in the company; all with lists of dealers in IL and in WI. Of all the companies I contacted via E-mail they were the only ones that bothered to get back to me.The unit has a great tuner, slightly better than the one in my ten year old Onkyo 2 channel receiver which had a great tuner. My Onkyo was 60 watts and the Sherwood sounds a lot more powerful. I have big old Radio Shack Mach 2 speakers with 15" woofers and this amp drives them much louder and cleaner than the old Onkyo. I don't have surround speakers yet so can't comment on the theater sound yet, except to say it is a lot better laid out than others I looked at.

I am using a sony 7000 DVD player for CD's and DVD's. With CD's I like the sound with the RCA jacks (using the sony DAC's) better than when I switch to the optical cable I have hooked up (for all the good it does me until I buy a car full of speakers- such is progress) and use the Sherwood DAC's. Its just slightly different but you can switch back and forth while the CD is running and the Sherwood sounds brighter- which I don't like as much. But the unit on a whole is clean sounding and has a great back lighted programmable controller to boot. I give it four stars which I think is fair, Its not as good as 3 or 4 thousand dolor separates or anything, but for the price it is a well built, well thought through unit,I don't have any complaints at all.

Excellent amp for the price. (i would say that coz i got it so cheap, i used to be a QC Technician for them. Any one with scratched units then its probably my fault)

None for the price

Not a bad amp for the price, Sounds good. Looks good. Only problem is it lacks loudness. I prefer my Yamaha. For all you fans of Sherwood Newcastle, they no longer exist, factory closed in 97, never mind

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Sherwood 725RDS Yamaha DSPA595A