Sherwood R965

They've done it so we had better too...

By Tony Davey

August 2005

Sherwood R965 AV receiver. $3299

It doesn't seem that long ago that I last had some Sherwood equipment at my house, but in reality, it was nearly two years ago when I auditioned a Sherwood receiver, the R963-T.

A lot has changed in that time, particularly in the AV receiver market, with the "big guns", Denon and Yamaha dueling it out their well priced / well spec'd $3000 AV receivers.

Somewhat left in the shadows is Sherwood, a North American company with its plant in Korea and over 50 years experience in the audio industry.

The R965 is (not surprisingly) an update of the R963 I previously reviewed. A quick run down of the basic stats shows not much has changed. The 965 retains a healthy 120w for all 7 channels and has all modern surround sound formats covered (including the new Dolby Pro-Logic IIx).

Looking down the tech specs, they have retained the bones of the old receiver, upgraded some features and added new ones. The processor has been updated to the 24-Bit CS-49400 Crystal Processor, they have added video up-conversion (although it wouldn't pass through a progressive signal from my Phillips Q50 DVD player) and the, now obligatory, auto set up microphone.

The mic is one of the first oddities I noticed with this receiver, as it felt like a bit of an afterthought. Rather than simply plug it into a dedicated set up microphone jack, you connect it to a (supplied) microphone "pre-amplifier", then plug that into the 12v trigger out and one of the line input connectors (maybe the designers haven't heard of the KISS theory?). Although hardly user friendly, the mic does do what it was intended to do, set up the size, level and time delay for your speakers. The R965 does not have any room equalization abilities like the similarly priced Yamaha and Denon.

Set-up mic aside, getting the Sherwood up and running is a simple enough affair. The (busy looking) back panel is well laid out and well labeled, making attaching all your speakers and components a breeze. Set up is completed via a straight-forward on screen display, and if that fails you, the manual is also simple enough to follow.

Once its all plugged in and set up via the OSD, you're good to go. Here's where we get to the other oddities:

• The amp is noisy with a very loud "click" each time you select a new input.  
• There no "auto detect" for an incoming signal (IE no auto selection of a surround mode; Dolby Digital, DTS etc).
• Select Dolby Digital as the surround mode, and that is all it will accept, a Dolby Digital signal, not DTS (forcing you to change surround modes on the amp when switching language options on a DVD) or even PCM (if you use a DVD player for CD's, you'll need switch surround and signal modes each time you swap between the two).
• If a digital connection is enabled on any input, the analog input will not function, no "redundant input" feature here either.

Reading this, you are probably getting the impression that I have issues with this receiver, and you'd be partially right. Where I don't have issues is where it most counts, the sonics.

Soundstaging on CD was brilliant, the sound was open, bass was very well defined (no sub required) and even high notes (which I thought were overdone on the 963) was detailed but not shrill.

With no fancy room equalization to fall back on, the 965 relies on the quality of its internal processors and pre/power amplifier stages to deliver the appropriate amount of wallop and slam from movies. I found Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon a joy to listen to, with a good mix of deep bass, a wonderful score and even though I didn't understand a single word of the Chinese dialog, it was presented clearly and captured the emotion within the voice.

This is a tricky one for me, the 965 tries to have all the right gadgetry to keep up with the Joneses, but falls short on several counts and it also is the most non-user friendly AV receiver I have come across so far. Conversely, the sound is very, very good. If you can get past its operational quibbles its at least worth comparing against the likes of the Denon and Yamaha.

For your nearest Sherwood dealer