I have just received my new Onkyo T-4555 today and am listening to it as I write. First impressions are that it is heavy and appears to be well built. The faceplate came with some funky stuff on it but that came off with some soap and water. Hope it wasn't TB from some distant land.
The functionality of the tuna is a little strange to me. First the panel doesn't quite match the manual as there is no dial indicator that says "Stereo" or "Mono" as it should. Insted it now says "SPS" which I quess may stand for "Stereo Program Source", but ya got me. I called them, but that was a waste of time. Here is a message to all the companies and their call centers: Train your people so they know the product lineup!
Output level is slightly different that the old tuna, but may be also from a different impedance, which I haven't found a spec for yet. Functionally, it is pretty basic with a couple of odd twists. For the tuna to be in the stereo mode, it must be in "Auto". This is linked to the tuna's tuning mode as it will only land on a stereo broadcast with enough signal strength to put it in an acceptable stereo mode. Defeating the Auto mode allows manual tuning every .2 steps. When you land an a station (AM or FM) that is broadcasting in HD, the "HD TUNED" light will activate and it will switch to the digital mode. If you want to hear the analog mode, you have to hit auto scan button and put it into "blend:analog" and it switches to the analog broadcast. With some stations, there is a delay between the digital and analog versions so that seems kind of weird. Then in HD some stations have multiple channels of broadcast (like with HDTV) so with the category selection button, you can choose the different programming from the same station on the same frequency. Folks, it's just not like the old days anymore. The AM section out here sucks anyway, but good old WCCO comes in in HD but stills sounds abit crappy.
As far as the sound of the unit, it is a bad day here for radio in the Peoples Republic of Minnesota (very hot and humid), but I have 99.5 (KSJN NPR CLASSICAL) on and it sounds pretty good so far. No hiss at moderate levels, but it will hiss at higher levels. Fairly good stereo separation, but I think the old tuna was a tad better, we'll see as I get used to it. It seems to be a nice piece. It can thump out some bass and the digital broadcast does not seem as sterile or shrilly as I have heard from other people, perhaps their HD tuna was not as good.
I'm not ready to endorse this product yet, but it doesn't seem to be the worse, so far, and I think I can live with it as a replacement for the old tuna for the time being.
Wayner
