Sherwood America RD-7106 Receiver

Rating:
Summary: Problems w/ RD-7106 but good support from Sherwood
Review: After dealing with mounting problems with this unit for months I called Sherwood tech support and received excellent service. Sherwood offers alot for a good price when it comes to their multimedia receivers. I'd definately buy from them again.

Rating:
Summary: Simple, Clean Sounding, Well Designed - Terrible Remote!
Review: First of all - I'm very picky on stereo equipment and have owned higher end separates. That ruled out a lot of "mushy sounding" and "all show - no go" units. I like this unit a lot and recommend it at least in my pre-amp only setup. Its very easy to run and lacks frills but works excellently.

If you value a good remote, look elsewhere. I knew going in these receiver remotes were not what I wanted so it didn't bother me. I'm going to buy a aftermarket remote. The sherwood remote doesn't control anything but sherwood stuff, so its pretty dang limited. But you can get a learning remote at wallmart for $15 so don't get too put out. I did find the remote useful side angles a bit limited compared to my VCR.

My system: Polk 12a Ref Monitors main Polk cs300 center crappy surrounds no sub Carver 5 channel 125x5 power amp DSS receiver w/optical out

Now that the bad news is out of the way, let me gush about this unit. I tried a Pioneer Elite THX certified receiver, but found that it sounded pretty terrible on stereo music. I took that one back. After much searching for a DTS/5.1 capable receiver that had pre-outs for my amp, I found this gem. It has 4 digital inputs, and full Svideo switching. The pushbutton source selector is better than the dials that many use, so you can go fairly directly to your source - although CD and FM are on the same button and requires a second push. The receiver does a lot of work for you, it automatically switches to prologic when I go to video, and to stereo on FM or CD. When I tune in a 5.1 movie channel, the thing switches automatically. I hardly have to mess with it. Oh yea, and the on screen display of everything is neat, that comes with the video out.

One other feature to mention is the bass management, which lets you use the sub with music on the stereo even with big speakers. Try that with a Sony or other unit. That is a big plus, although I have yet to buy a sub with my huge polk reference monitors and power from Carver doing pretty decent job.

The radio reception is adequate, about avg but a step down from my carver 2 channel rig with Shotz circuitry. The station tuning was awkward with having to page through presets instead of selecting them from a bank of buttons like many do. But since I listen to mainly 3 stations it was not a big deal.

The circle surround feature is also pretty cool for like parties where you want music out of all channels. Again, not found on many other units. The other echo surround effect modes I have no use for but seemed typical.

Besides the remote what's really weak? Well, I hate the new style volumes where you have to turn it about 3 times to get the volume to go up a lot, but besides that its a GREAT little receiver and a big bargin, lots of features.

I can't comment on thg amp sound, as I use a separate amp, I can guess that its probably not a barn burner but if you get efficient speakers you should be ok. And you can upgrade front channels to a separate amp with the pre-outs if you wanted to later.

The "sound" of the receiver is very neutral as it should be, and I found bass and vocals all well balanced. No, you won't trade a high end preamp for this unit but it is amazingly clear and well behaved across the entire sound spectrum. Many receivers seem to have bass that sounds weak and distorted, even through my aftermarket amp. Yes, I did back to back comparisons with the Pioneer and it sounded like a 50 watt 70's receiver, where the Sherwood didn't crimp the low end much at all.

I got mine for $299 at buy.com before they were carried here, and it is a great deal for that cash.

Long warrenty is excellent too!

Good luck

Rating:
Summary: Simple, Clean Sounding, Well Designed - Terrible Remote!
Review: First of all - I'm very picky on stereo equipment and have owned higher end separates. That ruled out a lot of "mushy sounding" and "all show - no go" units. I like this unit a lot and recommend it at least in my pre-amp only setup. Its very easy to run and lacks frills but works excellently.

If you value a good remote, look elsewhere. I knew going in these receiver remotes were not what I wanted so it didn't bother me. I'm going to buy a aftermarket remote. The sherwood remote doesn't control anything but sherwood stuff, so its pretty dang limited. But you can get a learning remote at wallmart for $15 so don't get too put out. I did find the remote useful side angles a bit limited compared to my VCR.

My system: Polk 12a Ref Monitors main Polk cs300 center crappy surrounds no sub Carver 5 channel 125x5 power amp DSS receiver w/optical out

Now that the bad news is out of the way, let me gush about this unit. I tried a Pioneer Elite THX certified receiver, but found that it sounded pretty terrible on stereo music. I took that one back. After much searching for a DTS/5.1 capable receiver that had pre-outs for my amp, I found this gem. It has 4 digital inputs, and full Svideo switching. The pushbutton source selector is better than the dials that many use, so you can go fairly directly to your source - although CD and FM are on the same button and requires a second push. The receiver does a lot of work for you, it automatically switches to prologic when I go to video, and to stereo on FM or CD. When I tune in a 5.1 movie channel, the thing switches automatically. I hardly have to mess with it. Oh yea, and the on screen display of everything is neat, that comes with the video out.

One other feature to mention is the bass management, which lets you use the sub with music on the stereo even with big speakers. Try that with a Sony or other unit. That is a big plus, although I have yet to buy a sub with my huge polk reference monitors and power from Carver doing pretty decent job.

The radio reception is adequate, about avg but a step down from my carver 2 channel rig with Shotz circuitry. The station tuning was awkward with having to page through presets instead of selecting them from a bank of buttons like many do. But since I listen to mainly 3 stations it was not a big deal.

The circle surround feature is also pretty cool for like parties where you want music out of all channels. Again, not found on many other units. The other echo surround effect modes I have no use for but seemed typical.

Besides the remote what's really weak? Well, I hate the new style volumes where you have to turn it about 3 times to get the volume to go up a lot, but besides that its a GREAT little receiver and a big bargin, lots of features.

I can't comment on thg amp sound, as I use a separate amp, I can guess that its probably not a barn burner but if you get efficient speakers you should be ok. And you can upgrade front channels to a separate amp with the pre-outs if you wanted to later.

The "sound" of the receiver is very neutral as it should be, and I found bass and vocals all well balanced. No, you won't trade a high end preamp for this unit but it is amazingly clear and well behaved across the entire sound spectrum. Many receivers seem to have bass that sounds weak and distorted, even through my aftermarket amp. Yes, I did back to back comparisons with the Pioneer and it sounded like a 50 watt 70's receiver, where the Sherwood didn't crimp the low end much at all.

I got mine for $299 at buy.com before they were carried here, and it is a great deal for that cash.

Long warrenty is excellent too!

Good luck

Rating:
Summary: this reciever is [not good]
Review: I have had nothing but problems with this reciever - I read lots of good reviews before I bought it but now regret that I did. It has been 1 thing wrong after the other and the quality is not really any better than my old Kenwood KR-A46 which doesn't have surround sound capabilities or any of the features that made the Sherwood so appealing.

Rating:
Summary: Problems w/ RD-7106 but good support from Sherwood
Review: Overall this receiver turned out to be a very good buy. It has just about all that is needed to get started on your home theater system and then some. It doesnt have all the bells and whistles but then again it doesnt cost the extra bells and whistles either. The ins and outs are adequate for most home theater systems. I like the fact that this receiver has a tape monitor input---lets you listen and fine-tune your tape recording if you wish. I just use it to hook up my EQ so I can easily enable or disable my EQ simply by enabling/disabling the tape monitor. It also has an on-screen display so you can easily set it up via a TV and not by using those terrible LCD displays on the front of receivers. It has S-video switching--nice feature on a low cost receiver, 5.1 channel direct pre-inputa, and pre-outs for all channels. These last 4 features are very difficult to find in lower cost receivers. There are a limited amount of DSP settings and they aren't adjustable but these DSP's never sound correct to me in any case so I never use them (except Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro Logic of course). There's speaker delay for surround format and speaker level for each channel.
There's only one gripe that I can think of at this time and it is that you have to turn on your TV on to set up certain parameters of the receiver that should really just be a simple push of a button to enable/disable the parameter. It's just my preference that way. Also, some might be confused at the way the buttons work. A lot of the buttons are multi-purpose. For example: pressing the Audio button cycles through the different audio inputs instead of having a single button for CD, a single one for Tuner, DVD, etc. The tuning and memorization of radio stations can be a little tricky if you don't disable auto memory scan. BTW the remote is of no use if you're trying to control anything but Sherwood equipment. You'll probably end up with at least 2 remotes with this receiver.
Other than these small gripes (which shouldn't be too big a deal) the receiver sounds just fine with no added character of its own---just the way a receiver should sound. All in all this receiver has a lot of bang for the buck and you can't go wrong for a receiver this price. You'll definitely get more options than any other receiver I know of in this price range. I give it 4 1/2 stars.

Rating:
Summary: good no frills receiver
Review: Overall this receiver turned out to be a very good buy. It has just about all that is needed to get started on your home theater system and then some. It doesnt have all the bells and whistles but then again it doesnt cost the extra bells and whistles either. The ins and outs are adequate for most home theater systems. I like the fact that this receiver has a tape monitor input---lets you listen and fine-tune your tape recording if you wish. I just use it to hook up my EQ so I can easily enable or disable my EQ simply by enabling/disabling the tape monitor. It also has an on-screen display so you can easily set it up via a TV and not by using those terrible LCD displays on the front of receivers. It has S-video switching--nice feature on a low cost receiver, 5.1 channel direct pre-inputa, and pre-outs for all channels. These last 4 features are very difficult to find in lower cost receivers. There are a limited amount of DSP settings and they aren't adjustable but these DSP's never sound correct to me in any case so I never use them (except Dolby Digital, DTS, Pro Logic of course). There's speaker delay for surround format and speaker level for each channel.
There's only one gripe that I can think of at this time and it is that you have to turn on your TV on to set up certain parameters of the receiver that should really just be a simple push of a button to enable/disable the parameter. It's just my preference that way. Also, some might be confused at the way the buttons work. A lot of the buttons are multi-purpose. For example: pressing the Audio button cycles through the different audio inputs instead of having a single button for CD, a single one for Tuner, DVD, etc. The tuning and memorization of radio stations can be a little tricky if you don't disable auto memory scan.
Other than these small gripes (which shouldn't be too big a deal) the receiver sounds just fine with no added character of its own---just the way a receiver should sound. All in all this receiver has a lot of bang for the buck and you can't go wrong for a receiver this price. You'll definitely get more options than any other receiver I know of in this price range. I give it 4 1/2 stars.