Sherwood NEWCASTLE R-865 BROCHURE

www.hometheatermag.com •

EElleeccttrroonniiccaallllyy rreepprriinntteedd ffrroomm AAuugguusstt 22000044

EDITOR’S PICK: The

100

BEST DVDs EVER!

Kristin Kreuk

stars in Smallville,

Season 2:

See review inside

RECEIVER
ROUNDUP

>

Denon

>

Harman/Kardon

>

Pioneer

>

Sherwood

www.hometheatermag.com

Home

Theater

PLASMA

FROM

MITSUBISHI

HDT V

Made Simple

Are the Newest Antennas
Really Plug-and-Play?

Home Theater / August 2004 > www.hometheatermag.com

indicate either the presence of a
heavier power supply or a heav­ier, more-sturdy chassis—ideally,
both. All things being equal, with
conventional amplifiers, you don’t
need expensive test gear to figure
out that a 50-pound model is likely
to play louder and cleaner than a
15-pound lightweight, even if both
are rated at 100 watts per channel.

By that standard, the R-865 is
the heavyweight in our foursome.
At 49.4 pounds, it weighs a good

8.4 pounds more than the runner­up, a margin large enough to be
significant. The others fall into a
fairly uniform range between 37.5
and 41 pounds. In this case, is the
extra weight due to inefficient
design, added pig iron, or extra
power-output capabilities? Read
the HT Labs box to see how this
unit compares with the competi­tion on the test bench.

The R-865 also offers the most
complete selection of Dolby

RECEIVER ROUNDUP

Sherwood Newcastle R-865

from the

test bench

The heavyweight. BY MARK FLEISCHMANN

The most reliable guide to

power ratings isn’t the specs pro­vided by the manufacturers but the
measurements made by our techni­cal editor. He follows the mandates
of the Federal Trade Commission
in measuring power output and
distortion with all channels con­tinuously driven (along with a less­demanding two-channel spec).
When objective third-party mea­surements aren’t available, here’s a
quick-and-dirty means of sorting
high-power receivers from the
junk: Just feel the weight. Aside
from the nefarious inclusion of use­less lead weights, more pounds

processing modes in the group.
That includes not only Dolby EX
and Pro Logic II but also Pro
Logic IIx, Virtual Speaker, and
Headphone. The front panel’s
fetching shade of blue-gray makes
it quite handsome. It stands up to
close examination—of the four,
Sherwood’s fit and finish are the
best. The front panel has a row of
buttons above the flip-down door
that allow you to select video or
audio inputs and manipulate sur­round modes. Of course, you can
always use the jog dial or remote
to do these things, but Sherwood
is the only manufacturer to pro­vide all three options. When I
step up to the rack to load a disc,
I like to select the input and sur­round mode from the receiver’s
front panel, so the Sherwood
made my life a bit easier. Its
remote has the best set of naviga­tion keys, with large, blue trian­gles that are easy to find (even by

The R-865’s heavy construc­tion and pure, detailed,
unlabored sound may be
enough to overcome tradi­tional receiver ergonomics
for advanced users.

    

SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE R-865

R-865, $1,499

Sherwood America, [phone], www.sherwoodusa.com

Dealer Locator Code SHR

General information

> The R-865 is the

heavyweight champ of
this roundup

> The gray-blue front

panel has a distinctive
appearance

> Sherwood delivers a

whole lotta receiver for
the price, but competing
products have raised
the bar by adding auto­mated features that are
absent here

> Component-output

conversion and DPLIIx
are pluses

> At this price, we now

expect auto setup and
room EQ

> The airy, detailed

highs court compari­son with high-end two­channel products

> Lots of clean power

for full-range speakers

> This is a traditional

receiver, and tradi­tional receivers are a
pain to use

> The front-panel con-

trols are well thought out

Build Quality Value Features Performance Ergonomics





OVERALL RATING

The backlit remote
has an LCD and an easy-to­locate navigational key­pad with big, blue buttons.

^

feel)—plus an LCD and blue,
button-activated backlighting.

The R-865 is one of two
receivers in this group with com­ponent video conversion. Anything
that enters through the composite
or S-video inputs can exit through
the component video output. Most
receivers treat each of these analog
video interfaces as a separate path:
If you connect your satellite box to
the receiver using S-video, the
receiver can feed that signal to the
video display using only S-video.
Converting all inputs to compo­nent eliminates redundant wiring
(and multiple rounds of switching)
between the receiver and display.

Aside from front-panel design
and video hookups, the Sherwood
is more of an ergonomic challenge
to the user than the other three. It’s
a traditional receiver with no auto­setup routine. As a reviewer, I’m
used to punching my way through
setup menus—and had no partic­ular problems with this one—but
I’ve had years of practice. For a
consumer, especially a newbie,
punching through this receiver’s
menus, with the manual in your
lap, would take a lot longer than
it would to simply activate the
other receivers’ auto setups. To
match channel levels, you’ll need
to buy an SPL meter.

Your reward for all that work is
stunning sound with fairly power­ful dynamics and an unlabored feel­ing that lent an emotional edge to
musical peaks and movie effects.
What really made this receiver
sound different than the others,
however, was its high-frequency
extension. It was the cleanest and
purest of the bunch, with a degree
of transparency that resembled a
good stereo integrated amplifier
more than a surround receiver. A
slightly reticent recording like the

receivers is like wearing a ski cap.
Listening to various Telarc SACDs
with the Sherwood was like
pulling the cap off.

* Mark Fleischmann is the author of

Practical Home Theater (www.
quietriverpress.com).

Telarc disc of Brahms’ Symphony
No. 2 from the Netherlands Radio
Symphony acquired more tonal
color and better held my atten­tion. If your ears are calibrated to
high-end two-channel material,
listening to most surround

> Five channels driven into 8-ohm loads:

0.1% distortion at 71.1 watts; 1% distortion at

93.2 watts

> Analog frequency response in pure mode:

–0.54 dB at 10 Hz; –0.16 dB at 20 Hz; –0.06 dB
at 20 kHz; –0.40 dB at 50 kHz

> Analog frequency response with signal processing:

–1.61 dB at 10 Hz; –0.50 dB at 20 Hz; –0.64 dB at
20 kHz; –58.31 dB at 50 kHz.

This graph shows that the R-865’s left channel,
from CD input to speaker output with two channels

driving 8-ohm loads, reaches 0.1% distortion at

98.2 watts and 1% distortion at 111.9 watts. Into
4 ohms, the amplifier reaches 0.1% distortion at

126.5 watts and 1% distortion at 156.1 watts.
Response from the multichannel input to the

speaker output measures –0.37 dB at 10 Hz, –0.11 dB
at 20 Hz, –0.13 dB at 20 kHz, and –0.81 dB at 50 kHz.
THD+N from the amplifier was less than 0.014% at
1 kHz when driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm load.
Crosstalk at 1 kHz driving 2.83 volts into an 8-ohm
load was –76.87 dB left to right and –88.73 dB right
to left. The signal-to-noise ratio with 2.83 volts dri­ving an 8-ohm load from 10 Hz to 24 kHz with “A”
weighting was –99.57 dBrA.

From the Dolby Digital input to the loudspeaker

output, the left channel measures –0.35 dB at 20 Hz
and –0.62 dB at 20 kHz. The center channel measures
–0.31 dB at 20 Hz and –0.64 dB at 20 kHz, and the
left surround channel measures –0.31 dB at 20 Hz
and –0.65 dB at 20 kHz. From the Dolby Digital input
to the line-level output, the LFE channel is –0.15 dB
at 20 Hz when referenced to the level at 40 Hz and
reaches the upper 3-dB down point at 98 Hz and the
upper 6-dB down point at 109 Hz.—MJP

HT Labs Measures: Sherwood Newcastle R-865

SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE R-865

AT A GLANCE

>

CONNECTIONS:

IInnppuuttss::
Video: component (2),
S-video (5), composite (5)
Audio: coaxial digital (2),
optical digital (3), eight-channel
analog (1), stereo analog (6)

OOuuttppuuttss::
Video: component (1), S-video
(2), composite (2)
Audio: optical digital (1), stereo
analog (3), preamp (1)

AAddddiittiioonnaall::
Digi-Link (for Sherwood com­ponents), RS-232 (1), 12-volt
trigger (1), infrared jack (1)

<

These listings are based on the

manufacturer’s stated specs; the HT Labs
box below indicates the gear’s perfor­mance on our test bench.

>

FEATURES:

Processing Modes: Dolby: Digital 5.1, EX, Pro Logic II/IIx,

Virtual Speaker, Headphone
DTS: DTS, ES, 96/24, Neo:6

Other: 13 DSP modes
THX Certification: No
Audio D/A Converter: Analog Devices AD-1852
Number of Amp Channels: 7
Amp Power (per channel): 100, into 8 ohms
Amp Frequency Response: 10 Hz—100 kHz
Dimensions (H x W x D): 7.75 x 17.4 x 17.75
Weight (in pounds): 49.4

Posted with permission from the August 2004 issue of Home Theater ® www.hometheatermag.com. Copyright 2004, Primedia Inc. All rights reserved.

For more information about reprints from Home Theater, contact Wright’s Reprints at 877-652-5295

10

5

2
1

0.5

0.2

0.1

0.05

%

0.02

0.01

0.005

0.002

0.001

0.0005

0.0002

0.0001
25 20050 75 100 125 150 175

W

©2004 Sherwood America, Inc. www.sherwoodusa.com 800-962-3203 All trademarks and registered trademarks are of their respective owners

OVER THE LAST TWO DECADES WE’VE BUILT MILLIONS OF
RECEIVERS FOR OTHER MAJOR BRANDS.

NOT SUPRISINGLY, WE KEPT THE BEST ONE FOR OURSELVES.

At Sherwood, we’ve been designing and manufacturing high performance audio gear for 50 years—not just for ourselves, but also for many of the

world’s most highly respected brands. With the new R-965 we’ve taken everything we’ve learned and “kicked it up a notch.” Its features and per-

formance rival the “megabuck” models on the market. With seven high-bandwidth discrete 120 watt amplifiers and a huge toroidal transformer on

board, it’s a powerhouse. The R-965 decodes all of today’s newest formats including Dolby

®

Pro Logic IIx and Dolby Headphone; re-masters your

existing CDs to 192 kHz/24-bit; has universal video conversion between formats and A/V sync delay; uses relay-based switching for full-bandwidth

HD component video; is upgradeable via RS-232 or USB

™

; comes with a great learning remote to operate all your gear; and even has a pure analog

mode with a phono section. There’s more. Much more. To find one of our dealers to experience our very best, visit

www.sherwoodusa.com or call 800-962-3203.

True Room2 Advanced

Route and control any

source—even digital inputs—

to a second zone.

PERFORMANCE WITH PURPOSE

NOW AVAILABLE

WITH

AUTOMATIC

SPEAKER

SET-UP