Power,sound quality.

None

This amp is superb! It has a natural sound quality to it. It's all there with a warm balanced feeling. The power on board is incredible. I can only use but a small potential of its output ability with my Forte II's. I have some electronics background and a look inside shows me this thing is built! That's why I bought it,and was I right.

I'm not surprised of the few unhappy reviews written on this component,because I know you can't satisfy all the people all the time. That's why there are so many different types of stereos out there after all. We're all wired up differently ourselves. I do see the main audience of owners of this amp are very happy with its performance.

For me I'm quite happy with my M-504. Paired with the P-304 Preamp. They function superbly together. I'm sure I'll have many pleasureful hours of listening to them do their thing. Rocken I will be! Believe me. Along with all the others out there who are fortunate enough to own one of these bad boys.

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I finnally have that elusive soundstage. Detail retrieval is wild, much more smooth than my Yamaha, read less bright,Build Quality, size of transformsers(3) wood panels are beautifull. Meters are very cool looking in the dark. Very heavy at 50 #'s Musical even at low volumes.

Product Weakness: Wierd speaker connectors. It's Japanese, oohh, scary! NOT!

I purchased this amp to add to my Yamaha RX-V2095 because I want to be able to run low impedance speakers at higher levels without damaging my receiver. Currently I'm using a pair of Paradigms for the mains. My next purchase is going to be a pair of Maggies. The amp surprised me last night when listening to Pink Floyd. I heard some footsteps that were previously obscured. On Eric Clapton's "Unplugged" the first 40 seconds of track 1 contains a great test for subtle details. There are drum stick test taps and cymbal taps that can be obscured by the crowd noise. You should run out of fingers before 40 seconds if your amp is "doing it"! I got an improvement from roughly 7-9 taps to well over 15, WOW! Detail retrieval is much improved over the Yamaha without being etched. The thing weighs a little more than my receiver which is supposed to be a flagship model. It(the Onkyo),weighs 22.5 kg(49.5 lbs). I'm going to have to buy another equiptment stand or just build one myself with all thread and shelves from home depot. One quirk with the amp is the speaker connectors. They look like 5 ways upon brief inspection but accept only bare wire, no bananas or spades. :( I got around this by using a set of Pheonix Gold connectors that attached easily to my MIT icon ends. I'm getting better soundstage now and believe this is due to the Dual Mono design(?). Note that to you purists this isn't a true dual mono with 2 power cords but I'm not complaining. Without getting into a bunch of "audiophile terms", this amp sounds very good to me! Fantastic detail and soundstage and looks stunning to boot! I was concerned about being able to listen to this large amp at low levels and still sound musical, well no worries here! There are three very large transformers inside. For those interested they are not of a toroidal design but very large nonetheless. The sound is very smooth and enjoyable to listen too. The heatsinks are healthy looking aluminum fins that are robust. The M-504 doesn't get very warm although it will run at around 100 with the wick turned up with my digital temp guage on top which is comparable to my Yamaha. Note that the frequency range is very wide!! This amp is harder to find now that they were discontinued last month(been in production from the 80's!) Home theater is killing 2 channel audio in some ways. I think the Yamaha 2095 will serve as an excellent pre/pro which would be hard to beat without spending high end money! I'm not interested in getting the new and improved format of the month game with EX ES THX whatever! I eventually want to get 2 more of these amps to complete the H/T side while concentrating on 2 channel music. H/T is nice but I still like plain ol stereo! The amp puts out 165 watts into 8 ohms 20-20. I don't know about the 4 ohm rms,(I would like to know if anyone does) output but the beast seems to have a lot of headroom. Does anyone know of tweaks for this critter? Here's the specs for those that care.
Power Output - 2 x 165 Watts

Dynamic Power
2 ohms - 530 W/ch
4 ohms - 350 W/ch
8 ohms - 210 W/ch
THD - 0.003%
IM Distortion Rated Power - 0.003%
Damping Factor - 140
Frequency Response - 1Hz - 100 kHz (+0, -1.5 dB) VERY WIDE dynamic range!
Signal-to-Noise Ratio - 120 dB (IHF A)
Dimensions (W x H x D)
Inches - 17-1/8" x 7-1/4" x 16-5/8"

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier: Onkyo M-504
Preamplifier; Yamaha RX-V2095
Sony DVP-S330 w/ updated firmware
Paradigm studio 20's
Cables/Interconnects: MIT Digital Reference 1, MITerminater 5 speaker wire, MITerminater 4 interconnects between the amp and pre
Music Used (Genre/Selections): Jazz, classical, rock and metal
Other (Power Conditioner etc.): Monster HTS800
My System Yamaha RX V2095
Onkyo M-504 dual mono amp
Sony DVP-S330 dvd player
Paradigm studio 20's
Boston CR6 center
Paradigm titan rears
Boston CR6 front effects
Paradigm PS1000 subs
Sony MDS-JE 520 MD deck
Techniques RS-TR575 Cassette
MIT speaker wire and interconnects all around!
Monster surge HTS800
El Cheapo equiptment rack

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Prior owner before theft in the early 90's! Multiple receivers.

Solid design. Retro design.

Amp/speaker terminals. It seems only pins or bare wire will work. Won't take a rmote

This is the only mid to high level amp I have used. Other than the speaker terminals I have no complaints. I see several posts stating that the sound isn't deep. Maybe that's true but it seems that the depth would be from the preamp. The solid power that this amp delivers make my speakers sound great.

Set up:
NAD 515 CD player
Onkyo 504 Amp/304 preamp
B & W Nautilus 804

Price performance ratio; high end sound qualities; aesthetically just beautiful with the dual green-lit meters

Plastic feet. This amp is quite heavy and Onkyo should have provided milled aluminum feet. Otherwise, no other shortcomings.

This amp is very detailed and neutral, and suprisingly so for the money. I am not going to repeat any of the positive raves already mentioned in past posts. Totally blows away anything similarly priced, and even sounds better than the more expensive Rotels. A good preamp is highly recommended, as this amp will sound only as good as your sources and what they're going through. My 504 is used with an Audio Illusions preamp, a Cambridge Audio 500 CD player, and nOrh 6 speakers. Cabling is all Kimber and Straightwire. Fantastic job Onkyo! This may be one of the last 'non-watered' down amps produced today, considering the trend towards cheaper, generic, black box junk coming out of most mass audio manufacturers these days! Buy one while you can, you won't regret it at all!

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dual mono design,good looks,build quality and the distortion free sound

speaker binding post ,the fake wood side panels and the poorly made owners manual. but these are very neglegible, because it doesnt affect the sound quality and reliability of the amp itself.

I bought this amp brand new and is only a month old.i just ordered this from a dealer and waited for more than one month for it to arrive from japan,because the distributor of this country ran out of stock of this amp. i dont know what year it has made but the packaging has never been opened when it arrived.
this is a very heavy amp, it made me sweat carrying it from my car to my room (thats not a bad thing).when i opened the packaging, i was surprised to see the poorly made owners manual, so poor that even some japanese toys and all japanese video game computer has an order of magnitude better manuals. i did'nt find any wrong spelling or wrong grammar though. the plastic feet dont bother me for
they dont crack or break under the amps wieght. I dont like the binding posts for i cant connect spades lugs and banana plugs with it. but it's safer because there's no exposed conductor to acccidentally short its output when bare wires are properly connected to it.
I built several amps before and i know what im talking about regarding amplifier construction. true, this could'nt even qualify as a lower high end amp, it does'nt use glass epoxy pcbs and 1% metal film resistors. the input plugs and binding posts too are not even gold plated. but i could comfortably rank this in my book as an upper mid fi amp.
The construction of this amp is very good, the pcbs for the left and right channel are mirror image of each other and are symmetrically wired. Using a total of 72,000uf filter capacitor value is not bad at all for this amp. the three big power transformers does'nt produce any mechanical hum or noise (and that's a good thing). the heatsinks are big also. i wish they use bigger power transistors though.
I use this in the hi pass side of a biamp setup powering my b&w cdm1se,so i could'nt say anything regarding the deep bass of this amp.
Its may be true that most far eastern amps sound somewhat harsh in the treble,but the m-504 is an exception. As a matter of fact, I replaced my older and supposedly higher quality using glass epoxy pcbs and high quality parts inside american and made in usa amp, because i got tired of it sounding so two dimentional and grainy in the upper octave. compared to it, the m-504 throws bigger, higher and deeper soundstage and the highs are clearer without any trace of harshness and unnatural grains. the mid is more liquid and the midbass is just right. imaging is about the same though.
Aside from the qualities mentioned above, i find this amp to be very good looking. unlike others, this one seems to have life, especially when those two beautifully implemented meters move with the music. on or off , this amp is never boring to look at. with its looks, one would'nt want to hide it or put it in the lowest shelf, i put mine on top of my lovan classic two audio rack so that it would vent properly.
Regarding sound quality, i find this amp to be faultless, distortionless and colourless. regarding value, i could'nt find any amp around its price range that is better looking and more massively built. if looks and fun factors are included in the rating of this review, i would give it five stars and five stars respectively.
I highly recommend this amp to anyone who is looking for an amp in this price range. if you find one, buy it , you wont regret it.

Above average power for the price, aesthetically pleasing design

"Smallish" capacitors, speaker wire binding posts, spec sheet provides limited information on product's true performance capabilities.

You folks need to lay off the crack pipe...who are you trying to convince anyway, us or yourselves? While I would not rate this product poorly, I would certainly not endeavor to defend its sonic qualities by suggesting that it is a low-"hifi" amp. It is what it is...the best that circiut city has to offer and that is all it is! Admit it folks, that is where you purchased yours. Next time walk into most "audiophile" retailers that carry the Integra product line and what will you find missing off the selves...you got it, the M-504 and its accompanying P-304 preamp. Ever wonder why Circuit City carries this part of the product line, but not the rest? Because these two pieces are MIDFI...end of story. While the M-504 is fairly neutral throughout the audible frequencies it is not "warm" and certainly not "tubelike." This amp, as is idiosyncratic of most "far East" amps, tends to exhibit a certain degree of harshness or brightness in the upper frequencies. Combine that tendancy with a set of horn loaded speakers and you will certainly not mistake the M-504 for any tube amp. The fact that some people in this forum have such a set of speakers who still maintain that the M-504 is warm and "tubelike" is particuliarlly disturbing. Are you really listening to the music or are you trying to minimize the post-purchase dissonance you are feeling about buying this product. This forum should be a source for objective reviews of these products to educate and inform not propogandize.

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