I just got my 50es last night. I am impressed. It sounds great, is easy to use, and is a great value. I initially bought the 30es, but it was DOA, so I got the 50es. I actually like the remote (i'm sure the novelty will wear off). It can be difficult to read, you just to have to angle it towards the light sometimes. It'll make a great conversation piece anyway.


I'm using the A-link with my sony mega-changer cd player, and it lists all the cd's on the remote, so you can choose through the list, it's pretty cool. I watched a DVD movie last night and I noticed a nice difference between my old pro-logic receiver. I have also come to this conclusion... I listened to many recievers at various audio specialty stores, and firmly believe that it's tough to hear a significant difference among high-end receivers unless you are hearing them a/b at the same time...



Bottom line: for the value this receiver is I give it 5 stars, but nothing is perfect, so to truly earn the 5 stars, it would have to have a slightly better remote, 96khz cd decoding, and 6ch input for the future.



Good luck to all!

Steve

I purchased both the Yamaha 995 and the 50ES at the same time. For home theater the 50ES had much better highs and impacts. The 995's center channel did sound slightly richer. The 995 didn't allow me to hear all the sword action in Zorro. Where the sony was significantly better. As far as 2ch stereo they were pretty even. I don't care for either the Sony or Yamaha remote. My wife did like the Sony better since it was easier to operate. It sounds like Sony will have some remedies for the remote. The Good Guys matched Uncles price of $650 on a open box on the 50ES and with the 5 year warranty it was a no brainer. I returned the Yamaha.

I had a chance to listen to this receiver this past weekend and found it very satisfying. Overall sound quality of 5.1 surround and 2 channel stereo during CD playback was very nice.

I have used the Sony 50es for 3 months and have compared the sound to the Yamaha 2095 and the Yamaha 995. The Sony is Clearly the Stronger receiver in DTS and AC3. They are about even in the other enhancement Categories. The remotes for both the Yamaha and Sony are not the best but will get the job done. The 5 year warranty and the overall sound quality make the Sony a great buy.

I first bought a Kenwood VR209 just to get a feel of DD. Then i knew it was time to move on to a better and powerfull receiver, my first choice was a Yamaha 995 for it had good reviews except for the remote. But i wasnt willing to shell out $800 so i decided to go for the ES50 for $650. Tried it out and Dammm the receiver rocks it has a lot of POWER some good DSP settings,made my old kenwood sound like a baby, the remote is really cool cuz of the touch screen but very fragile and has no macro's on it.But overall the receiver was built like a tank weighs about 32lbs for the price and features u get DD and DTS u cant go wrong especially wit the 4 optical and 1 coax even S-Video. Sony has done a great job with it.

Great Sound, S-Video and Optical switching apleanty

Remote is worse than having none at all

If you like soundfields, this is the receiver for you! You can tweak this thing any which way 'till Tuesday. I might post another review if I can ever figure it all out.

Sound is just fine without signal processing, however. No extraneous noise whatsoever with any digital source.

Minor note - It would be really nice if all of the inputs/outputs were user assignable. The fact there is only one coax digital input assigned to DVD only tends to create confusion, since my CD player has no optical out and I have to use it for that.

Special note for BGlock, don't waste your time or money on a revised Sony remote. I got one with my refurbished model and you'll never guess how they solved the battery problem. They made the thing go to sleep automatically after only 3-5 seconds of use. (you can no longer change this) This is INCREADIBLY ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!! Also, the functions available to run my Toshiba 3109 DVD don't even include select buttons. I'd really like to throttle whoever came up with this design. They definitely don't belong in the engineering field!

Receiver has pleanty of power, but I notice it tends to run much hotter than my Denon ever did.

Similar Products Used:

Denon AVR 90

Great sound with outstanding features and control.

Center channel cannot be set behind the fronts.

I have had this receiver for 1 year now and I love it as much as when I bought it. This is an update to my reveiw 11 months ago. I complained then about the remote eating batteries and being dark.

As of 6 weeks ago I received a new remote from Sony with an Avia DVD test disk free. It included a note saying that they had noticed my remote had been in for repair and that they had performed a temporary fix only and hoped I had not been inconvienienced.

The new remote and test disk is great and I get to keep my old one as a spare.

I was so impressed I went out and bought a new Sony 650 DVD 5-disk player to go with it. Wow, I was not disapointed the 650 is another great machine. My future gear will be ES products. By the way this remote is still on its first set of batteries and though it does not seem any brighter to me the sceen is easier to read and seems to have better contrast. Thanks Sony!

Plenty of power 120 watts across the board,About 30 different sound fields

The remote

I had chance to go out an listen to a lot of differet receivers i felt this was one of the better receivers I heard. The only one I liked better was one of the high end yamahas I didnt care for the sound of the onkyos even though that is what I first wanted to buy after listening to the three with out knowing which was which I picked the yamaha 1st the sony second and the onkyo a distence third. I was going to buy the yamaha for 900.00 but accidently found this one in the close out section at united audio for under 500.00 I could'nt pass it up. if you accidently run into this receiver for under 500.00 dont pass it up its well worth it!

Similar Products Used:

Sony 530D DVD

I too received my "repaired" remote back from Sony. The screen contrast and brightness hasn't changed. The constrast wheel on the side appears to be "less sensitive" but overall not much of a fix. The batteries in the "fixed" remote only last two weeks -- the same time before I sent it in. I've put over a dozen AA batteries in that thing since I purchased the receiver a few months ago.
I don't feel alone after reading some of the similar posts. I'm going back to Sony and see if they'll fix it right this time.

I can't believe a receiver in their ES line has such a bad remote...

I'm going to have to downgrade my rating based on this last incident.

hello,I'm not here to discuss about the da50es because i don' have it but i want to buy it. I have already listened it with bc-acoustique Araxe and it's feel great.
but i want to know if the remote is not able to drive the other products from my installation ! ! ! does sony check and solve this problem ? please keep me informed because in france, we don't have information about that.
please excuse my english !
best regards
pierre auler