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basic design but throws in some
attention-getting new features.
Existing units are upgradeable with
the new auto-setup and lip-sync
functions at no extra charge; adding
room equalization costs $100.
The new feature most likely to
bridge the chasm between the old
model and surround newbies is
automatic setup and channel cali-
bration. As with several compet-
ing models, you can plug a small
microphone into the back of the
new model, listen to the receiver
spit out test tones, then marvel as
it adjusts itself.
The setup routine includes
seven-band parametric room
equalization that precisely sets both
center frequency and width. And
it provides lip-sync correction
for that awkward moment when
you realize that the fancy video
chips in your new projector are
causing the dialogue to be off.
The Gray Lady Is Beautiful
It would be hard to overstate the
attractiveness of the gray matte-
aluminum faceplate. Elegant and
understated, it puts black boxes
and excessively mirror-finished
products to shame.
Front panel controls include two
large knobs, one for volume, the
other for selecting surround
modes.You can adjust input selec-
tion and most other chores for
mundane daily use via the main
exposed buttons—which are
metallic, pointy, and fun to touch.
Sherwood felt that their Pure Audio
mode was worth emphasizing with
one of these more prominent but-
tons. It provides a pure analog
stereo sound with all video and dig-
ital audio circuits shut down.
Flip down a door, and you’ll see
that a bunch more advanced fea-
tures are adjustable, including
cinema EQ and the full range of
Dolby Pro Logic IIx controls.
You’ll want to adjust them right
away because the unit ships with
center width and dimension at
their minimum settings; I prefer
middle settings for both.
The rear panel is well organized.
Seven amp channels serve nine
pairs of speaker jacks. The dual
side-surround jacks let you place
one set of speakers at the sides of
the room for movie listening and
another set closer to the rear for
music listening.You can reassign the
BY MARK FLEISCHMANN
Cordero Studios
The great gray lady.
Consumer expectations are a
pointed stick.You can almost hear
manufacturers of surround receivers
going, “Ow, ow, ow! Do you really
expect us to provide seven amp
channels and a silicon forest of sur-
round modes—and make it all easy
to set up?” Yes, yes, and yes.
Most manufacturers keep up
with the ever-expanding wish list
by regularly turning over models,
introducing new ones as often as
once a year. Sherwood takes a
slightly different route with the
new R-965, and, by the way, I call it
that to distinguish it from the old
R-965.The old one had some qual-
ities and performance parameters
worth preserving. So, the new one
keeps the old model number and its
MIDRANGE $$–$$$
from the
test bench
Sherwood Newcastle R-965 A/V Receiver
Home Theater / April 2006 > www.hometheatermag.com
single set of rear-surround jacks for
second-zone use.
One new back-panel option is a
USB jack to accept input from a
portable music player. Conspicu-
ous in their absence are HDMI,
DVI, and FireWire jacks, so, if your
video display uses these newer-
generation interfaces, it’ll have to
connect directly to signal sources.
Sherwood is wary of the constantly
evolving HDMI standard and did
not want to ship a product that
consumers might regard as
“broken.” However, for $300, you
can add the HDMI-Link, a separate
component-to-HDMI transcoding
switcher with component in, two
HDMI ins, and one HDMI out.
The remote control is Sherwood’s
RNC-510, which bears an amazing
resemblance to a Universal Remote
Control product. It has a black-
and-white LCD, pleasantly rounded
bubble buttons, and a very logical
layout.The center navigation wheel
is one piece, which makes hitting
enter in the middle a bit tricky.
Power is rated at 140 watts
into one channel and 120 into
two channels.
The Gray Lady Is Amiable
Next, it was auto-setup time. I
mounted the supplied microphone
to a tripod in the prime listening
position and let ’er rip. She ripped
rather loudly—I literally ran for
my Howard Leight ear protectors.
The manual says to evacuate small
children from the room before
activating the launch sequence. If I
were you, I’d also grab the pets
and run for it.
Each channel got two pink-
noise tones, one with strong
high-frequency content—which
made it correspondingly more
painful—and a second duller one.
After the initial tones made the
rounds, a second set ping-ponged
back and forth between the front
left and right, then between the
rear left and right speakers.
Apparently, loud tones produce
good results. This was the first
receiver that measured my speaker
distances and sizes accurately and
consistently. My speakers are dif-
ferent distances from the side
walls, and that usually puts most
auto-setup receivers out of whack
in at least one channel, but the
Sherwood aced this tricky situa-
tion. It correctly identified my full-
frequency speakers as large by
comparing their low-frequency
response to the crossover:Anything
under the crossover is labeled
large, and anything over it is small.
You can set the crossover before or
> Five channels driven continuously into 8-ohm
loads:
0.1% distortion at 128.3 watts
1% distortion at 155.7 watts
> All channels driven continuously into 8-ohm loads:
0.1% distortion at 109.6 watts
1% distortion at 126.0 watts
> Analog frequency response in Pure Audio mode:
–0.75 dB at 10 Hz; –0.29 dB at 20 Hz
–0.07 dB at 20 kHz; –0.51 dB at 50 kHz
> Analog frequency response with signal processing:
–1.82 dB at 10 Hz; –0.65 dB at 20 Hz
–0.62 dB at 20 kHz; –59.01 dB at 50 kHz
This graph shows that the R-965’s left channel, from
CD input to speaker output with two channels driving
8-ohm loads, reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 134.0 watts
and 1 percent distortion at 167.1 watts. Into 4 ohms, the
amplifier reaches 0.1 percent distortion at 229.7 watts
and 1 percent distortion at 261.8 watts.
Response from the multichannel input to the speaker
output measures –0.59 dB at 10 Hz, –0.23 dB at 20 Hz,
–0.08 dB at 20 kHz, and –0.52 dB at 50 kHz. THD+N
from the amplifier was less than 0.013% 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 –92.89 dB left
to right and –86.76 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 –98.31 dBrA.
From the Dolby Digital input to the loudspeaker
output, the left channel measures –0.48 dB at 20 Hz
and –0.62 dB at 20 kHz. The center channel measures
–0.35 dB at 20 Hz and –0.65 dB at 20 kHz, and the left
surround channel measures –2.03 dB at 20 Hz and
–0.81 dB at 20 kHz. From the Dolby Digital input to the
line-level output, the LFE channel is –0.14 dB at 20 Hz
when referenced to the level at 40 Hz and reaches the
upper 3-dB down point at 97 Hz and the upper 6-dB
down point at 107 Hz.—MJP
HT Labs Measures: Sherwood Newcastle R-965 A/V Receiver
SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE R-965 A/V RECEIVER
AT A GLANCE
> CONNECTIONS
Inputs:
Video: component video (3), S-video
(6), composite video (6)
Audio: USB (1), coaxial digital (2),
optical digital (4), 7.1-channel
analog (1), stereo analog (8),
phono + ground (1)
Outputs:
Video: component (1), S-video (3),
composite (3)
Audio: coaxial digital (1), optical
digital (1), stereo analog (4),
7.2 preamp (10)
Additional:
RS-232 (1), 12-volt trigger (2),
IR jack (2)
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 IIx,
Virtual Speaker; DTS: DTS, ES,
96/24, Neo:6; Other: 12 DSP
modes, four-channel stereo, matrix
THX Certification: No
Audio D/A Converter: 24-bit/192-kilohertz
Number of Amp Channels: 7
Power Rating (watts per channel): 120, into 8 ohms, 2 channels driven
Frequency Response: –3 dB from 10 Hz to 100,000 kHz
Dimensions (H x W x D, inches): 7.75 x 17.4 x 17.75
Weight (pounds): 51.8
Price $2,000
differ from mine, and the auto EQ
might respond in an entirely differ-
ent way. Of course, you always
have the option to do what I did—
run the auto setup, listen to the
EQ, and then decide whether you
want to live with it.
Without EQ, the receiver
achieved a fine balance between the
leading edge of its midrange and
fleshing out the inner detail.Treble
was well developed but not hyped.
The lower midrange and upper bass
were clean, natural, and unsweet-
ened. This receiver doesn’t need
any fancy tricks to perform well in
a decent-sounding room.
The Gray Lady Is Sensible
In an industry infected with the
deadly featuritis virus, Sherwood has
made judicious choices, updating a
good chassis with features that make
a difference.The new and improved
R-965 delivers reliably strong sound
matched by superb looks. Its easy
setup should help this receiver play
with a broad audience, including
both surround neophytes and more
critical high-end users.
the overall volume level was sub-
jectively louder, although, with
EQ, it was more likely that just
some frequencies were louder.
Eminem’s movie vehicle 8 Mile
includes several electrifying crowd
scenes in which aspiring fictional
rappers put themselves on the line.
With the EQ off, I felt as though I
were listening to a recording of a
crowd scene. With the EQ back
on, I was in the thick of it, and each
heckling voice seemed to be just a
few feet away. Here there was no
downside—the EQ heightened the
emotion of every scene, including
both music and dialogue.
Moving to the opposite musical
extreme, The Chorus is a French
melodrama starring a squadron of
boy sopranos. The high voices
achieved better separation with EQ
but also took on a sharper edge,
which led me to drop the volume.
I achieved a more mellifluous and
unified choral sound and higher
volumes with the EQ off.
What would happen if the auto
EQ worked in tandem with
cinema EQ? Cinema EQ did soften
the edge, but not as much as leav-
ing the auto EQ off.
On the whole, I felt that the auto
EQ made my system sound more
vivid but also made it trickier to
use; changing volume as I changed
material took greater forethought.
Anyhow, my experiments may
not be entirely germane.After all,
your room acoustics are likely to
after auto setup, and, if you’re curi-
ous, you might even use the setup
routine to roughly gauge your
speakers’ in-room bass response.
Once the process is complete,
the R-965 stores the channel
levels, and the menu lists all of
them at zero. So, if you make fur-
ther manual adjustments, the auto-
set levels are your reference points,
not the factory-set levels.There is
no way to tell what the auto-set
levels are.You cannot inspect the
EQ settings, either. It may be pos-
sible to hear them being set by the
second round of test tones, but I
wouldn’t advise taking the risk.
The Gray Lady Is Up-Front
Since I could only gauge the EQ by
listening, I started my primary test
disc with the menu in front of me
so that I could switch the EQ in
and out.The first thing I listen to is
always a six-voice a cappella
chorus—“Stars in My Crown”
from Waterson:Carthy’s Common
Tongue.When I switched the EQ in,
all six voices seemed to take a step
toward me. I could differentiate
each one of the voices more easily.
The sound was brighter. Evi-
dently, Sherwood’s EQ circuit felt
that my heavily damped room
needed a little more emphasis in
the upper region. I could more
easily hear the faint tape hiss sur-
rounding Bill Morrissey’s vocal in
the first few seconds of “Time to
Go Home” from Night Train. And
[
HIGHLIGHTS
Old flagship sets sail with new
features
Now has auto setup, seven-band
room EQ, and lip sync
Sounds as impressive as it looks
98 Home Theater / June 2005 > www.hometheatermag.com
95 88 92 95 90
General information
R-965 A/V Receiver, $2,000 > Sherwood America, (800) 962-3203
www.sherwoodusa.com > Dealer Locator Code SHR
Sherwood updates thier top-line
R-965 with automatic setup and
equalization. Even without EQ, it
has a natural sound that should
appeal to listeners with high stan-
dards. While it lacks HDMI, in
every other respect, it’s every-
thing a great receiver should be.
> That gray matte-
metal finish gets me
every time
> Warning: Heavy con-
struction ahead!
> There’s auto setup,
and then there’s auto
setup that really works
> HDMI support is an
added-cost option
> Seven-band EQ with
adjustable Q and center
frequency
> Auto setup, supplied
mike
> Natural midrange
> Clean, unhyped treble
> Auto setup makes it
much easier to set up
> Remote’s joypad
enter button takes
some practice
SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE R-965 A/V RECEIVER
OVERALL RATING
Build Quality Value Features Performance Ergonomics
92
92
Sherwood’s RNC-510
remote (above) has an LCD
and bubble buttons. The
R-965 also comes with a
separate remote for a sec-
ond audio zone.
^
NUVISION NVX32HDU LCD HD MONITOR
from the test bench
SHERWOOD NEWCASTLE R-965 A/V RECEIVER
Posted with permission from the April 2006 issue of
Home Theater
® www.hometheatermag.com. Copyright 2006, PRIMEDIA Inc. All rights reserved.
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