Outstanding Features. HEAVY (Good sign of quality) Pleanty of Power!
Great expandability.

Power supply hum (getting it fixed)
Gets kinda warm at volume level 3 (on digital)
No Digital Input for CD
Digital processing section gets hotter than the heat sink!

Okay, I ordered this monster from Victor's Electronics on Orlando, Fl for about 450 bucks.

After turning it on, I heard a buzzing sound - it was my power supply. I called SONY and found the nearest repair center (this was 1 week ago) and they said they would fix it under warranty conditions.
Other problems include the left-rear amp, which picks up interference from EVERYTHING.

I was surprised when I looked inside> Big guts! A huge transformer and 15000 microfarad filter capacitors (BEEFY!!)

Overall, this reciever packs a punch for your buck.

Execellent reciever from Sony- something i haven't seen in a long time

Similar Products Used:

Sony Str-d2020 professional edition
Old Fishers, Denons, Technics, and other brands.

Plenty of clean power, remote is not as bad as people make it out to be.

None so far.

I have yet to hear any of this hissing sound that people are complaining of, guess i got lucky. However, I have an all sony system that I have been building on for several years now, and have yet to have one problem with any of the components. As with all my experiences with sony products, I would expect this receiver to live up to all my expectations and so far it has. Therefor, I am giving it a 5 rating.

Inputs, features, versatility

limitations of valid parameters

Well I will just try to talk about something that has not been said before in the review of the DB-930 and other things that I have found. I hope it will help. Yours helped me.

-Ground Hum
First of all, the receiver does not use a 3 wires power cord. This is common with many appliances. This means that all devices are "floating" and subject to 60hz hum if they are not linked together with a strong common reference. The shield of the RCA cables provides this reference. Some RCA cables are builds with two unshielded small wires that are not strong enough to "hold" the devices together. Try a good coaxial audio cable or even a video cable and the hum will go away. If you got loud HUM check first by disconnecting all source and add them one by one. In the manual there is a note: "Do not hook up the ground connector to anything else than the phono ground". That wire is to add an even stronger link between the phono and the receiver. Of course with Optical cables there is never any hum and the devices stay floating.

I got bad Hum coming from my audio card of my computer. These audio cards are connected with small headphone plug with small wire. My video card had a TV output on a RCA connector. I used that plug to connect a good RCA cable to an unused video input of the 930 and the hum disappear.

By the way, if you turn volume at maximum you will eventually begin to hear anything you want from any home theater systems. They incorporates DD/DTS Decoder, Video Switching, multiple audio/video source selector, DSP for Cinema effects, auto mute circuitry that turn off the output when you switch input and other protection circuitry that I don't know of. If you want "Zero Noise" for fanatical music lover, go buy a STEREO AMPLIFIER and don't forget to put the volume down before flipping any switch.

-Video/S-video switching with DB-930.
There is no link between the s-video and the composite video circuitry. If you hook up video equipment of one kind, you must use that kind all the way. I have paid my video recorder to do that kind of conversion job anyway. I don't want my receiver to include such circuitry. There are less S-video connectors than composite. Video 1 got in and out. TV, DVD and video 3 (front) got input and receiver got a monitor output. Nothing found on video 2. This suits most needs I think. On the composite side, video 2 got in and out. There is no control-S (for remote control) on video2. There is an Control A-II port.

-Analog and Digital sound input with DB-930.
There is also no link between them. I got a numerical TV decoder that got a SP-DIF output. When I use the numerical source for the sound (which may contain more than 2 channels), there is no analog audio output to the VCR. To record a film I must select the analog input and also hook up the RCA stereo output of the TV decoder. I can live with that.

This tells us about how the DB-930 is build. The Video / Audio source selector is completely apart (read before) from the DSP/Digital sound decoder and the amp circuitry. This may help reduce the noise feedback that may occur but also reduce the versatility of output connections. The Tape output can record all analog input but not any numerical input. Only a Minidisk can record digital. The second audio output can be link to all analog input except phono. You can feed the audio from video inputs as long as the main selection is there also. One good thing, you can select Video from one source and Audio from another.

-Digital vs Analog input quality.
Use digital input whenever you could because you will end up having far better quality of sound. Read my lips "FAR BETTER". It's not a joke. The D/A converters found in most low-end equipment barely reproduce some sound, so you better go using the D/A in the DB-930, which is a lot better. My Digital TV setup output both in analog and in SP/DIF. I was surprise when I compared it. I know it was supposed to be better but not by that much. And it's not by subtle difference, even my red fish could hear it! I got same difference using Digital output from a CD player.

Because of this, choosing a CD player can be very difficult. A cheap CD player with a digital output link to the DB-930 may sound real good compare to even a higher quality HDCD player using analog output! The result depends a lot on the quality of the D/A process in the player. Using digital output on a CD player means that the data stream of the CD is barely send to the SP/DIF output unchanged. The rest of the D/A circuitry found in the player is not used when using digital output. By doing this, you end up using the D/A process in the DB-930 which is very good as I can tell. I am now using my CD player of my computer!!!

HDCD recorded CD already sound better because they use far better Analog to Digital process. Even if you don't have an HDCD player you get better sound just because of that. But there is a bad joke about HDCD player. If you don't use the analog output, you don't use the supposed better filter and 20bits re-sampling reconstruction of the HDCD player. Same jokes may apply to the future DVD Audio player. At some point, if you got a pricier and higher quality CD player, you may have a better D/A process in the player but you will have then to switch to analog output to get the expected better results. This may change if they resample the digital output to 96khz (not seen any) or if the receiver include HDCD decoder inside (like the Harman Kardon 7000). Let me just say that the DB-930 sounds really good when used in Digital mode and anyway if good HDCD player and DVD audio get out there you will be able to hook them up with no problems.

In the manual of the DB-930 they mention that if you have both optical and coax output, they recommend using the coax (there is two more signal conversion in optic). What I don't understand is the fact that there is only one coax and 3 optical input. Anyway, comparing both I can't hear the difference. I found that cheap optical fibers work as long as light is passing but don't use cheap unshielded RCA cable or receiver will refuse to play if there is too much noise. Cheap optical cables are just easier to break and may not go as long. If you don’t have a cat you will be ok with cheap cables.

DD decoding on the 930 is good but so far very few film used them at their full potential. When they use it, you hear sounds that are around you but I have not seen (heard) any film where you feel the kind and the size of the room. It is still hard to produce maybe. The best I have heard is Saving Priv. Ryan where you have explosion around you and in the background. I recommend taking time to place your speakers correctly and remove any obstacle in your room. Placement is important to respect the spatial recording of the sound in respect to the image and any obstacles destroy the sound really fast. Try the first part of Apocalypse Now where there is an helicopter passing buy. It is only a stereo recording but you will get an idea of what I say. I am still trying to find equivalent effect recorded on 5.1 ch.

The point is that you better tweak the room than the receiver. Use the setting on the receiver as fine-tuning. I have found that pushing level too much on the 930 often introduces distortion (any parameters). My personal feeling is that the correction of levels apply to the numerical signal and not to the analog gain. So maybe I end up chopping sound or rounding it when applying too much correction. After I tweak my room I end up with no need of any corrections and sound was really good. I found it a lot better than the 20 or so real theaters in my area with supposed DD/DTS quality. I have heard NEW sounds and feelings that I had never heard before. I am really happy about that.

-Theater effects and sound fields
Do you remember the crappy sound when you assisted a spectacle that is presented in a place that was not design to present a music show? Let me say that the 930 can be really good to reproduce that if you wish! When inappropriate sound field is selected and parameters are badly tuned, it simply sounds bad. But this does net means that they are bad.

Chose a well recorded classic pipe organ music (Ex: BACH). Select CHURCH environment. Turn the EFFECT to zero. Close your eyes. Then turn slowly the effect up to 1/3 or 1/2 of the range (you may peek with one eye to do it 8-). Your are now transported from a cold absorbing studio recording to a warm and nice church that sound really good.

Chose a studio recording of classic guitar with an artist that has a good voice (Ex: Tracy Chapman). Select small hall. Close your eyes. Try again of slowly raising EFFECT up to 1/2 max. You are now transported to a warm place where you can actually feel the size of the place.

EACH recording is different and those sound fields may or may not be suitable for them. Some recording even already include some echo effect that sounds bad when trying to add more (Ex: Pink Floyd).

I have found on the 930, that EFFECT past 2/3 distort the sound to much and all sound field then sounds like your are outside the show room when you didn't have the cash to pay the darn tickets.

What I think is that the EFFECT work by progressively lowering level of the direct sound and progressively adding indirect/reflected/absorbed sound defined by the sound field. So again we me have the effect of cropping/distorting the sound by applying to much level.

If all the time you listen to cold studio recording then those sound fields are useless to you. If you want to appreciate the quality of the recording, then select Auto Format Decode (which means no effects) and then DB-930 won't disappoint you. If you don't listen much to DVD or film, you may better be with a STEREO Amplifier that as superior quality for the same price with less unnecessary electronics but only 2 ch.

There is no 4 ch stereo and sound fields keep the level of the back speaker low so you don't loose the image of the instrument that are in front of you. If you have 8 ohms speakers, try instead to plug your back speakers in the B setup and select A+B. Do not forget to switch to 4 ohm in the back of the receiver. You will loose the natural spatial image of the sound but you will hear more level from the back speakers. In a party, try also to flip the left and right back speakers. Every one will then hear stereo wherever they are on the room. This sound weird but everyone is drunk anyway...If you return to a normal setup with your back speakers, don't forgot to switch back to 8 ohms.

Equalizer settings on the 930 are mainly a bass/mid/treble with the possibility to move the corrected area of bass and treble where you want. Settings are memorized by input selection. This permits me to have different settings for the stupid FM and TV and no correction for the rest. Again I feel that equalizer work in the digital space and do not like extreme settings.

Setup permit to adjust balance R/L of front and rear speakers and level of rear again in digital space. If you have a good room with well placed speaker you won’t need any of this. Selecting small speaker (less than 4") means that low freqs will not be send to them and will be send to Sub Woofer if present.

Pro:/Cons: Lots of tunable parameters, parameters work in digital space.

I may be wrong but I think this receiver is build around a simple (hence good quality, less noisy, less costly) amplification stage. All pre–amp effects are done in digital space with less noise but with some limitations. Those pre-amp effect (Ex: Bass/treble/fields etc..) would need a much complicate and lot costlier circuitry if implemented in analog. If we don’t use lot of digital corrections we end up using a good amplifier. This may explain why the db-930 has so good review and so good sound for the price tag. This may also explain why some people hate it!

So, after one month, I am very happy with my DB-930.

Excellent multi-purpose receiver for the money.

Manual

Excellent receiver for the money. Sounds beautiful when teamed up with my newly-bought Energy Encore speakers. It takes time to really understand and utilize this receiver to its fullest potential, and I have not had the time to tweak and optimize all the adjustments. Some of the sound fields sound a little artificial, but otherwise the effects are pretty good. Even the old pro-logic movies sound so much better than before.

Since the difference between the Sony 830 model and the 930 model is only about $35-50, I found it is better to spend the extra money on the 930 since it gives you more flexibility. While I do not use the 2nd audio output to connect to another amplifier in another room, I was able to use this function to rig the receiver for four-channel stereo (thanks to the excellent tip from Ross of New York, 2/18/00). The extra sets of audio inputs give you so much more connection flexibilities.

I do not found any hiss problem with my receiver as some of the other reviewers have reported. There was no hissing sound at any level of listening or during any quiet passages of music. Perhaps it was an isolated manufacturing defect or quality control issue.

Since I live on the West Coast, I bought mine from Onecall.com (They are from WA state). Onecall is an authorized Sony dealer (although not authorized INTERNET dealers like Crutchfileld.com or Hifi.com). They have a 15-day return policy, which I found better than that of Oade.com (also authorized dealer). I did not need to take advantage of this policy, however. Just make sure you have all the equipments (speakers, cables, components, etc.) to fully test out the receiver within the return period. Plus, they seem to be better stocked with this particular model and only ship 2-day FedEx (better than most other places). Onecall will match the price of an authorized dealer like Oade but not from an unauthorized source. I do not think it’s a good idea to buy from an unknown internet source just to save a few bucks. $420 is a very good price for this receiver if you know the true cost to the dealer (there are sources on the internet where you can find this info.) Buy it with your gold or platinum visa card and you get the extra warranty on top of the regular 2-year Sony warranty.

The manuals are somewhat inadequate and the remote is non-intuitive. However, with a little patience these shortcomings can be overcome.

Thanks to all the postings from this site, I was able to make an informed purchase. I hope to have contributed a little more info by sharing my experience.

Similar Products Used:

Sony ES receiver.

Good power, Great clean sound, Alot of bang for my buck.

None, not even the remote.

I got this receiver a little over a month ago and I have to say it is great. I had a problem with hiss at first and got a Panamax MAX500DBS line conditioner. This helped some. I then hooked up a ground wire from the DB930 grounding post to the ground wire on my electrical pannel and man what a difference. If you are thinking about getting this BAD BOY do it, it is an awesome receiver. Purchased from Sound City.

Sony DB930
AR-9's Hi Res front speakers
AR-2C Center
AR-15's for rears
Infinity BU-12 Sub
Pioneer C320D DVD player
Toshiba 785 VCR
Older RCA 46" rear projection TV
Alot Of Hard Work

Similar Products Used:

Sony 1011s

Power and Features, Remote has potential

Remote is slow; cannot use both coaxal and s-video

I have had this unit for about three weeks now and am very happy. There is plenty of power, and I have not noticed the hiss that many on this site are complaining about. Although it might be there, it is not apparent at any volume I am listening to. The remote is slow if you do not have the reciever on, i.e. using it to control the t.v. without the reciever on. Then fact that you have to open the cover to enter numbers directly is also bothersome. Otherwise, it is very useful. I am powering a pair of Energy e-XL-26 speakers, and this unit does a great job. I got the unit delivered from onecall for 399 plus 40 shipping. For this money, no other unit can touch the power, features, and sound quality that the sony delivers. I had done quite a bit of research before buying this unit, mostly comparing it to similar models for Denon, Marantz and harmon kardon and I would recommend this unit to anyone. Capitalize on the work I have put in.

Question-- Does anyone know the best way to bi-wire this unit, and is it safe? Pleas e-mail me at mchernev@state.de.us if you have tried this and let me know how it works.

First off, thanks to everyone in this forum - I appreciate your candor and feedback. I bought my DB930 on the strength of the reviews here. I hooked up my unit yesterday and was both impressed and disappointed.

Impressed: This is my first digital receiver and I was blown away by the DTS sound. Contrary to many, I like the remote control and look forward to customizing it.

Disappointed: I hear the hiss that many are talking about. However, it's only at much higher volumes than I'll ever listen. I also have the "signal leak" that's been mentioned before as well. Does anyone have any solutions for this? It also happens at higher volumes than I'll listen, but it still bugs me.

Also, I tried to hook up my Infinity BU120 subwoofer to the sub pre-out and got nothing!! Has anyone had any problems with the sub pre-out on the 930? I've seen reports of problems on the 120 but I'm not sure what to blame here, yet.

Overall, I'm sure I'll be happy with it, but it's a little bothersome to have these issues with a brand new product. Anyone with any tips or thoughts that could help me, please feel free to email.

Similar Products Used:

Considered Yamaha HTR-5150

Bang for the $$

NONE!

I'm doing this as to try and offset the score that Greg gave it. What kind of self proclaimed "Audiophile" purchases a $400.00 receiver??? I for one couldn't be happier with my purchase and I challenge Greg to point me to a better receiver for the $$.

I'm sure there are people who spent over $1k on a Denon and have had problems with their stuff.

Again, there isn't a better receiver for the money...

If you're considering an STR-DB930, you'll probably be very happy... I am.

Oh yeah, Sound City sold me mine for $389 + 10 S&H. Yep, $399.00 for this bad boy and I couldn't be happier. I deal with Matt M.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR-D460z

Great sound, great value, numerous inputs and outputs. Generous number of S-video ins and outs.

The remote - labeling is poor and it won't operate some common functions on a Sony KP-53V80 big-screen! WHYINHELL Sony could not make this remote programmable I don't know. however, the remote does operate a surprising number of devices, even if the number of functions per unit are minimal. Front panel display is not very bright across a room even when set to max bright.

This receiver offers great value for the money. Inputs are numerous and can easily be re-labeled on the LCD screen so you know what input you're selecting from the front panel. the input labels cannot be re-named on the remote, so there is a bit of a disconnect there.

Sound quality: I have had ZERO hum, hiss or other noise from it. The system sounds superb and the receiver can overpower the Titan speakers if driven hard. The speakers were chosen so the system would acceptable sound quality for audio, even though the primary use is home theater.

Design: Front panel - this unit sits at 90 degrees to the user in my configuration. This makes the front panel pretty much impossible to read, as it's not bright enough to overcome the distance. This is more an effect of the 20 feet between me and it than a shortcoming of design. No problem controlling it with the remote, though.

Inputs - plenty of inputs, composite and S. Same for outputs - no complaints there. I also plan to add DVD and wanted the 5.1 inputs for that, but currently use laserdisc. The unit processes video from my Pioneeer laserdisc player so beautifully that I'm almost re-considering whether I want the DVD.

This is a solid, well-made unit that performs well. jut don't expect to abandon all your other remotes.

Similar Products Used:

Other A/V equipment for more than 20 years.
Receiver is driving Paradigm Titans front and rear, with a Paradigm center channel speaker. Using 8-inch, 80-watt Klipsch subwoofer for low end.

THE AWESOME SOUND FROM A SONY UNIT. VERY IMPRESSED WITH THE
AVAILABLE HOOK-UPS

THE REMOTE BITES AND THE MANUALS SHOULD BE BETTER WRITTEN
AND EXPLAINED.

I WAS NEVER A REALLY BIG SONY FAN BUT AFTER READING THE REVIEWS I FIGURE I GIVE IT A SHOT.THE 930 WAS VERY IMPRESSIVE AFTER THE 2 DAY HOOK-UP. I RECOMMEND THIS UNIT TO ANYBODY WHO DOESNT WANT TO SPEND OVER 500 DOLLARS.

Similar Products Used:

PIONEER/