My Onkyo has just turned its toes to the sky - went out with one hell of a crack this afternoon, and now won't come out of standby, so I presume that an output transistor or two have failed.

I may investigate repairing it at some point in the future, but given that it also doesn't fit just as well in this new house as it did in the old one, we are leaning toward going for a one-box system to tide us over for now.

Two have caught our eye, both of which are Panasonic, and they are the SC-BTT490, or the SC-BTT560;

From what I can gather, the 560 is a newer model than the 490, and it appears to have better speaker and amplifier technology?

Any opinions on either or both would be appreciated.

Well, never thought I'd see the day that DS would be beaten! I'm arriving at the conclusion that the 560 is so new that very few of them have been sold yet.

In all honesty, that's like saying a Yugo has a better engine than a Trabant. Would you really want either?

If you shop around I'm sure you'll find a decent deal on a proper AV receiver and 5.1 speaker package. Probably less than £500. Add in a budget blu-ray player, say £50 - £80 and you'll have a set up that will be streets ahead of the Panasonic all in one offerings.

Depending on which Onkyo kit you have (which would have been really useful info to include in your OP), then surely you've already got a stand-alone Blu-ray player and 5.1 speaker package??? Why not just replace the Onkyo amp with something more slim-line such as the Pioneer VSXS300 or one of the Marantz NR1304 or NR1504 receivers. Just seems like a backwards step to go with an all-in-one

Sorry Chris - the Onkyo is a TX-SR577; known issues are with the HDMI board which can prevent them coming out of protection, however given the hellish crack that it went off with, I suspect that its eaten a output transistor or two.

The plan now is to use the Panny as a stop gap for now (got a 560 being delivered on Thursday), whilst getting the Onkyo repaired - then, I want to look at changing the speakers, transplanting the Onkyo back into its rightful place moving the Panny on to the spare room / man cave (purely because it will be infinitely better than the speakers on my LG telly).

Things are completely radio rental at work at the minute, so I don't really have a lot of time to be looking for new speakers and arranging a repair on the amp, hence my short term solution.

Well you didn't need to look at new speakers... That's my point. But it matters not now. You've bought the Pana, and combined with the new info that you plan to move it to a second room later on makes the thread pretty redundant.

Sort of spur of the moment thing yesterday - thanks for the input though