6 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Finally, I realized what I have
Date of Review: Nov 12, 2006
The Bottom Line: If you want a receiver that costs less than $2k, XR55 is the one you must consider.
I was not so happy with my Onkyo setup for a while. Even with better speakers, I was missing something, at least that was my feeling. I mean there was nothing wrong with the set up, but there was lack of liveliness somewhere.
So suddenly, one nice day I saw a good deal on a receiver which costs less that 200 bucks. Now deal on a receiver from any reputable company is almost rare, and that too for below 200 dollars is kinda unheard off. So I immediately placed an order and started grazing thru the reviews, I must mention that there is one gigantic one at avsforum.com catches my attention. Lot of folks raved about Pansonic XR55 receivers in that long thread.
In two days, Amazon finally made the delivery of the receiver at my doorstep. First I did not believe that it is actually a receiver, it was so lightweight!
I unpacked everything, went thru the manual couple of times and start installing my speakers. Set up all my speakers as large, run TOSlink input from my PC for digital connection, hook up my tape deck and switch the receiver on.
First impression was, wow! Suddenly all my speakers jump on their full capability, with deep bass and fuller midrange with sharp highs. A lot of people termed the receiver as "too bright" but I think it is the right sound that they have mistakenly coined as over bright. What I found, variation in bass/treble is immense once you have the right speakers setup in the receiver, that is large.
Sound quality wise, this receiver is I think ranks among the tops. However, Panasonic decided to skim up in a different section a price reduction factor. On their infinite wisdom, you can change far too many things from remote, yet you will not be able to adjust bass/treble from remote. Receiver has a weired multi control button, but the remote does not have any, so a lot of setup has to be done on the receiver itself.
The remote is supposedly a universal one, sadly it can barely control my TV. At times, I feel the remote a bit sluggish in terms of response time.
Keeping in mind these small drawbacks I would rate it as 4.5 star receiver.
