Sherwood Newcastle R-972 Review
January 15, 2010 By Chris Boylan

The A/V receiver market may be progressive in many respects -- each year's new models upping the ante in terms of features, formats, inputs, and overall bang-for-the-high-interest-credit-card-payments-to-follow -- but in other ways the market is a sort of an old boys' club, dominated by the Denons and Onkyos and Yamahas and Integras of the world. And breaking into that old boys' club isn't easy. It requires an offering of sorts: some new feature that consumers need that they didn't even know they needed yet. And that's hard to pull off when the old boys tend to incorporate the latest gee-whiz features before most people have even heard of them. It's even tougher to learn the secret handshake when you've been around in the background for a while, making just barely enough noise to get noticed. Such is the case with Sherwood Newcastle -- a brand pretty much everyone knows, and nobody really knows what to make of.

Sherwood Netboxx Home Theater Receiver at CES 2010
January 20, 2010 By Robert Silva


Although 3D TV and Net-Connected TV seemed to be getting all the attention at CES 2010, there was a lot more to see. One example is the increasing incorporation of Net-Connected features into home theater receivers. One such receiver on display was Sherwood's Netboxx, which is a full-featured multi-channel home theater receiver that also includes direct access to a variety of Web content from providers such as Hulu, Vunow, YouTube, and a full array of internet radio and TV offerings. For more details, the user manual is now available for download.

Sherwood America’s NetBoxx Included in Custom Retailer’s
“EXC!TE Awards” Found in the October 2009 Issue!

Please See Attachment to View Sherwood’s Mention.

Sherwood delivers R-972 receiver with Trinnov Optimizer room EQ
September 10, 2009 By Steven Kim

All right, traditionalists -- if Sherwood’s NetBoxx AVR with all its internet streaming is too radical for you, the R-972 and R-774 might strike chord with your “the receiver must have a volume knod” sensibilities.
The 7X100_Watt R-972 has been awaited mostly for its 3D Trinnov Optimizer room equalization, which has made some pretty big promises--we’ll have to see how it fares when paired up with Silicon Optix REON video processing, three zone support, and compliment of 4XHDMI inputs, which seems like a negative in the current crop of $1,500 AVRs. Rather than just scale things down for the $850 R-774 model, Sherwood keeps the power at 7X100-Watts, but touts Anchor Bay video processing, two zone support, and optional pairing with the BT-R7 Bluetooth receiver so you can send tunes wirelessly to your receiver.

Sherwood Rolls Out NetBoxx Internet A/V Receiver
September 10, 2009

Who needs a PC to tap into streaming audio and video? Sherwood's NetBoxx Internet A/V Receiver taps Netflix, Cinemanow, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon, and more.

Folks who are deep into Internet media often find they have little choice but to hook up a PC to their home audio or home theater rigs to get to the online streaming media they require—and, while all the technological pieces are readily available, media fans usually have to go throuhg seemingly endless contortions to get things working the way they want. Sherwood is looking to solve that with its new NetBoxx Internet A/V Receiver, which combines all the bells and whistles of a high-end A/V receiver—Dolby TruHD, Dolby DTS-HD, HDMI 1.3, 100 watts of 7.1 sound—with the capability to tap into Internet content from Cinemanow, Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, Rhapsody, Shoutcast, Hulu and more.

"Use of physical media is declining and being replaced by content obtained through streaming or downloads," said Sherwood senior VP of product development and marketing Jeffrey Hipps, in a statement. "This led to our taking a fresh look at what an audio-video receiver should be, from its function to its form factor. By combining an ability to access content in cyberspace with superb performance and sound quality reflecting Sherwood's over-50-year standard of audio excellence, NetBoxx is an audio/video component that is truly 21st-century ready."

The NetBoxx features three HDMI 1.3 inputs, one HDMI 1.3 output, two component video inputs, plus Toslink topical and digital coax audio inputs, as well as USB ports on both the front and rear panels for connecting additional storage or devices. As one might expect from an A/V receiver, the NetBoxx supports Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS 96/24, Neo 6 Cinema and Music, Dolby Digital, and Dolby ProLogic IIx—and that's in addition to a broad selection of audio and video codecs used for online content. Using an existing home broadband connection, the NetBoxx can tap into online content from YouTube, Shoutcast radio, Cinemanow, and Web sites featuring streaming Internet view and broadcasts. The NetBoxx platform also supports Hulu, Netflix, CBS, CNN, ESPN, and Amazon Video On Demand via MediaMall technologies' PlayOn media server—although that's an additional 39.95 for a lifetime license. The NetBoxx also features high-end digital signal processors, seven 100 watt audio channels, and a simple automated setup regime to help users get the system installed and running to their satisfaction. Users can optically set up music playback in a separate room via two separate stereo audio feeds, and the unit sports an FM tuner with 30 channel presets.

The NetBoxx should be available this month for a suggested price of $649.95.