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Guess what was waiting to greet me when I came home Friday night! No, it wasn't the Hor dressed as a French chamber maid. That was Thursday night. It was THIS:


That's right, ladies and germs! It's the ONKYO TX-SR505S 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver!! I know what you're thinking right now: "Dyckerson, that must have set you back a pretty penny!" Well think again, Copernicus! I ordered that baby last week from the good folks at Amazon.com for a paltry $219.99. That's a savings of $79.01, or 26% off the list price! Retail is for CHUMPS!! I invested in this versatile piece of hardware to replace my aging stereo receiver, which I never even bothered to hook up when I moved last year.

Now without further adieu, behold for yourself...the TX-SR505S in all its unwrapped glory:


Isn't it beautiful?? It's also available in black, but I went with the silvery finish because it's shinier, and everybody knows shinier is better. (If you get one for yourself, just make sure you avoid the lead version from China.)

Now you're probably wondering exactly what the TX-SR505S is all about. Allow me to put it in layman's terms for you simpletons. The TX-SR505S boasts 75 Watts per Channel Minimum into 8 Ohms, 20 Hz-20 kHz, 0.08%, FTC (2 Channels Driven); 100 Watts per Channel Minimum into 6 Ohms, 1 kHz, 0.1%, FTC (2 Channels Driven), DTS-ES Discrete/Matrix, DTS Neo:6, DTS 96/24, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic Iix, 2 HDMI Inputs and 1 Output (1080p Pass-Thru to HD Ready Displays), and Color-Coded 7.1-Multichannel Inputs (Receive 7.1 Surround Sound from Compatible Blu-ray and HD-DVD Players).

Impressive, ain't it??! And it's a cinch to install! All you need is a few common household tools...such as scissors, a flashlight, wire cutters, needle nose pliers, a flathead screwdriver, a crimping tool, vice grips, a soldering iron, cable ties, a blowtorch, an air compressor, a hacksaw, blasting caps, adhesive tape, a staple gun, at least 10,000 feet of assorted cables, and a heating pad. Actually, the heating pad isn't required, but it sure is relaxing after you've spent three hours on your hands and knees hooking up this piece of shit.

The TX-SR505S comes with a big thick user's manual, but being a man, dependence on any kind of instructions is a sure sign of weakness. Instead, I rely solely on my gut. I mean, how hard could it be?? Here, I'll walk you through it.

You start with the speakers. We're talking surround sound here, so you'll need about 50 speakers of various shapes and sizes. And make sure you get the expensive speaker wire. You know, the kind where the insulation is all ONE COLOR, so you have to trace the positive and negative leads all the way across the fucking room so you don't get the wires crossed and end up blowing up the goddamn TX-SR505S, sending shards of silvery shrapnel deep inside your flesh. Once you have your expensive speaker wire laid out, rip the insulation off the ends and jam the exposed wire into the speaker holes. If you find you have more holes than speakers, simply shove paper clips in the unused holes.

Now it's time to hook up your components. This too is a breeze. Let's start with your cable or satellite box. If you have the HDMI, you'll want to use that connection. If you don't have the HDMI (or don't know what the hell it is), you'll have to settle for component and/or composite cables. If you don't have those either, you'll need some more paper clips. Once you have your cable or satellite box hooked up, it's time to connect your VCR or DVD recording apparatus. The beauty of the TX-SR505S is that it accepts component OR composite input from your recorder, but it only provides composite output back to the recorder. And because the TX-SR505S can't convert the signal, you're pretty much forced to go composite in to your recorder. Now you're ready to hook the receiver to your TV. I hope you still have plenty of cables, 'cause you'll need a set of output cables to match every kind of cable you have going in to the TX-SR505S! Component, composite, HDMI, S-video - you got an empty hole, you better shove something in that motherfucker! How about audio? You got a CD player or DyckPod? You better stick that in there too. And unless you're a complete jackass, you'll want to use the fancy schmancy optical cables. After an hour or two of this bullshit, your living room floor will look like R2-D2 threw up on it.


Let's talk about remote controls. By now you probably have 83 of them. Each one of them is "universal," but not quite "universal" enough to control all the advanced functions of all your components. So basically you have to keep them all within reach. One time I programmed my DVR remote to send a power-off command to the TV remote. Then I programmed the TV remote to echo that command back to the DVR, which in turn sent the signal back to the TV. They've been fighting it out for two years now.

OK, so now you're ready to watch some top-quality video entertainment. Piece o' cake! First, turn on your cable or satellite box. Then turn on your TX-SR505S. Then turn on your TV. Select the channel you want to watch on your cabllite box. Then select the appropriate input on the TX-SR505S. Depending on how you connected your cabllite box, you may also have to change inputs on your TV. But then again, you may not. Now adjust your volume settings. What's that? You say you can't hear anything? Dumbass, you probably forgot to assign your audio to the proper input when you configured your components. The TX-SR505S isn't a mind reader, you know. You'll need to unhook everything and start over again.

Perhaps by now you're sorry you purchased the TX-SR505S. Perhaps you'd like to return it and get your money back. But because you bought it online to save your cheap ass few bucks, you're pretty much STUCK WITH IT. My recommendation: Take your TX-SR505S to the roof of your house and drop it on your neighbor's retarded kids when they're playing in the yard. Now THAT'S what I call entertainment.