Great sounding with great features at a great price

Remote is not user friendly. Manual could be written clearer.

The salesperson at my local audio store Tweeter etc. introduced me to the STR-DB930. He raved about the sound and features of this receiver which they sell for $600.

Being a happy owner of the older Yamaha Pro Logic Receiver RX-V-870 I was skeptical about the quality of Sony receivers.

Since I belive a smart shopper is an informed shopper I came
to AudiReview.com and read through mostly glowing reviews about this receiver. I felt that over 100 reviewers could not be wrong. I also checked out the reviews of this receiver and its predecessor the STR-DB925 on UK Web sites as www.homecinemachoice.co.uk and www.home-entertainment.co.uk. Then I got some additional detailed specs on the receiver from www.Crutchfield.com.

If the reviews on Audioreview.com don't convince you that this is a great receiver at a great price, the reviews on the UK sites likely will.

I ended up ordering the receiver through Onecall.com for $389 plus $30 for two-day shipping. Their price represented a 35% savings over what it would have cost me from my area retailer.

However, the receiver did not come with a proof of purchase receipt that is needed to receive warranty service should I have a problem. (I need to make a follow-up call to onecall.com on this.)

As promised, the receiver arrived in two days and I was thrilled with the sound and features as I expected I would. I need not repeat in detail what many other reviewers have said about the STR-DB930, since its been said many times before and I generally agree with most of the comments.

Overall, while the owners manual and remote could be a bit more user friendly, the STR-DB930 sounds great, allows much flexibility with customizing the sound for your room and is a value for the price.

What more could you ask for?

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Yamaha RX-V870

power, sound, facilities, looks, built....basicly everything except remote

remote control could be more intuitive

At a price you can`t make better deal. I tried several recievers but none of them satisfied me as much as this one. Plenty of power, clean articulate and powerfull sound, facilities you can dream of, built like a tank, and of course nice looks.

No hissing at all, however I had a sony 545 unit for a while, and with that one I had a hissing problem. It was so annoying, so I sold it after a month or so.

Anyway, 930 model has no problem at all with hissing and I can only higly reccomend it. In my oppinion it is a 5+ stars all around.

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similar priced recievers from JVC, HARMAN KARDON, SONY, ONKYO, YAMAHA

Good as a kids HT system

Not as good sound. Bad bass response, inaccurate mid.

To the person who can not find a better looking unit...
Try something like meridian, theta, perreaux (http://www.aslgroup.com/audsys/perreaux/style.htm)
there are heaps better looking units. Sony even makes them.
This amp i got for my kids, as its pretty cheap, and they don't have any idea about sound quality. True, its a good supermarket amp for money, but there is money better spent.
Personally, I would spend the extra money buying a marantz, as they dont over rate their products such as the sony. In fact, the marantz 600$ reciever is actually the same pwer as the sony ES series power amp, when it is rated 65W lower!!! This is why when at loud volumes, the sony becomes very bloated in the bass, and distortion occurs in the lower midrange. Compared to my system that is, but thats another story. This is a cheap amp. You know why, - they use lower grade components than the others, which is why the sound deterioates at lower volumes. Why not save for a bit longer and never have to upgrade?

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All of them

SOUND CAPABILITY AND DIVERSIFICATION AND QUALITY ELEMENTS INSIDE

I must say no. ýt is realy perfect for this money.

realy, ý feel ill on the "sound" and innovation inside of machine. According to me, quality begin with quality aparats for a machine.I researched (not looking9 to the receivers.(all of them9. Before I wanted to buy onkyo. but I seen there is no, gold platted jacks.And tip of onkyo is not nice and beatiful. Like a, cheap tape system (touch mechanism cheap (like a far-asian product).I looking sound engineering quality and form engineering quality with together. Because I will give money. I seen especialities of Sony str-db930 QC,. There tuning for 5+1 speakers tuning mechanism feet and eq. (seperated tonage and khz). And the sound is very clear. I'm giving up to hiss-omania. Because never, I can't heard hiss. up to max. Pardon. I heard to hiss. But this hiss sopund is not for sony, the hiss is related about bad-gay cheap cd and cable's effect. I put to the road to cd and cable. I did not heard abny hiss.(no hiss in the max.voice). I confused. . did you listen to Jan Gabarek and Agnes with spny STR-DB 930. Please close youreyes. and listen to sound. only to sound. Agnes calls to you to Norways mountains. If you have to quality ear, you will hear to mountains of norway. and I listen to turkish pop music (country enstrumental music). I must say I heard to "Baglama" like a vital. so, What is mysystem.
Amp:sony STR-DB 930
DVD:Pioner K-777
pickup:Dual (old style)
Speakers:Jamo cornet 195 (front)
center:Jamo 7.2
rear :bose 301
sub: jblsub.

I don't wannaa discuss bout home cinema and DB930. excellence.

result:excellent.

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onkyo 676,777. teac, aiwa, yamaha, 435

Inexpensive, good sound (when it isn't humming), remote.

Turned out to be a complete piece that hums and hisses and just overall sucks.

-Okay, so I purchased this about a month ago and posted a review of 5 stars for both value and overall. I loved it at first. The sound seemed crisp, and much better than my old receiver. The remote was really cool, and the sound fields were vast and very cool. All the inputs and outputs were amazing for the price, and it was DD and DTS compatible.

-----------------------------------------------------------

-With that said, it is time to talk about the weaknesses, which is everything below here! With this receiver, my Infinity speakers hum like a B#%CH whenever changing the function. Doesn't sound so bad, but this is how annoying it is. You are on Video 1, you change to DVD, hums for about 8 seconds, goes away. You go to the menu of the dvd, hums and displays Dolby Digital. Play the movie, hums and displays a different mode of Dolby Digital. I mean you have almost half a minute of humming when you are doing something like playing a god damn movie! Switch to a CD, hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, a game, hummmmmmmmm, back to tv, well you get the picture. This thing hums all the time. The speakers work perfectly with other receivers, so what's up with the Sony?!


-The inputs on the system are very annoying as well. I have a Denon CD player that has a digital coaxial output. The sony has a digital coaxial input that is labeled DVD/LD. No big deal, you just switch to DVD when listing to the cd and change the input mode from optical (which my dvd uses) to coaxial. Well, no, that doesn't work for some reason. There is no reason as to why it shouldn't work. It's ridiculous. There are plenty of inputs, but did they have to name them so that there is no CD optical in, and the coaxial seems to not work with CD, for me atleast.

-Ok, now I will talk about the hiss. With my 3 year old Onkyo piece, I never noticed a significant hiss in the speakers. Now, the hiss is noticible from across the room. The receiver can be muted and it still hisses! As I turn the volume up, the thing hisses and crackles, and is overall very annoying. When sitting on my couch listening to TV, I hear talking and I hear a hiss. You may think, ooh, a hiss, so what... WELL IT IS ANNOYING AFTER A MONTH.

-So after all of this crap I have had to put up with, I am returning it and I am going to get the Denon AVR-2800. Sure it is $100 more and the wattage is lower, but I want something that doesn't suck. I wanted to like Sony even though I knew they were the most overrated company next to Bose, I really did. I thought maybe they had changed, I guess I was wrong. My last remaining Sony product is my VCR, and that is still reliable, thank God for that or I would lose all hope in the future of Sony. Even though I know they will always succeed by luring poor saps into believing Sony is God just because it is a common household name for electronics. Denon, not so common, but far superior.

-So, with this, I will reevaluate my score for the Sony STR-DB930. A receiver that I tried so hard to love and fell short. A 2 for value because it really is easy to find for a good price, but a 1 for overall, because hey, a piece of s*#t that is cheap is still a piece of s#$t. For people looking in the $400,500 price range, don't bother, people seem to overhype this product to the point where when you see that like 300 people reviewed it and it is still in the upper 4's you think that it is all that and then some. It isn't. I am hoping the Denon will work out, or else I don't know what I will do.

-If you do buy it, I hope it works out for you, because if it had anything, it had potential...

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Older Onkyo

I retired my old JVC Pro-logic receiver after 8 yrs of admirable service. After doing extensive research online and offline, I found the Sony DB930. For the money, nothing can beat it! I've only owned this product for a week and I am fully satisfied. I couldn't believe the clarity and definition I was hearing coming out of my speakers. Audio tracks are more detailed, crisp and sharp. DVD movies are more dynamic and more dramatic with an amazing clean and clear punch. I highly recommend this receiver to anyone on a budget looking to get exceptional sound.

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JVC Pro-Logic

I recently received my DB 930 after purchasing a DE 935 and returning it due to a static hiss in the right rear speaker. I am very pleased with this new unit. The DB 930 has much better construction than the DE 935, it has binding posts for all speakers & gold plated inputs, the DB also has the the ES frame making it more sturdy and giving it a better feel. As far as the sound quality, I can hear a bit of improvement in the sound quality compared to the 935(excluding the hiss that I had in my 935). This unit is rated also at 110W X 5, but the THD is down from 0.8% to 0.09% at 8 ohms. The Dolby Digital sounds great as well. And most importantly I can't hear any hint of bleeding from any of the speaker outputs. Set up is easy, remote is good although it takes some getting used to. And by the way, don't every believe anything you read below from Harris as he makes it a habit to post multiple reviews of products he doesn't know anything about and only props up HK for some strange reason. Unit gets 4 stars for sound & quality, 5 stars for value (a lot to offer for just over $400). I highly recommend going with the DB's over the DE line.

I just purchased this unit today after having had the opportunity to do A-B comparrisons with the $1,000 units from Onkyo, Dennon and HK. I also compared the sound quality to the new STRD-A555ES. First, this unit is an incredible value. For $440 at oade.com, you basically get an ES receiver without paying the ES price. Frame and beam construction, larger power supply and discrete amplifier circuit design make this unit avoid the artificial tinny sound the Sony DE line is famous for. More importantly, this DB unit's sound quality is definitely on par with the more expensive Onkyo and Dennon. Personally, I believe it sounds far superior to the HK. The thing I found most surprising is that this unit sounded much better than the 555ES -- for $200 less. I have no explanation why this would be the case, however, my ears don't lie. The features in the unit are unbelievable. These units were originally only available in Europe but were offered as crossover pieces to ES dealers unitl the A555ES's were available. In other words, you should pick up this unit while you can.

Price, power, and flexibility.

Complexity, particularly of the remote

The receiver is growing on me, but remains a challenge for almost every function. I've been playing with audio/video stuff for over 30 years, and control of this receiver is different than any other A/V component I've had before.

Even turning it on and off is different!

If your vision is less than 20-20, you will probably not be able to read the LCD--essential to accessing virtually all functions.

For those of you who have questions, comments, or are willing to share their knowledge, I have started a list serve at [http://www.onelist.com/group/SonyHomeTheater]
Send an email to: SonyHomeTheater-subscribe@onelist.com to subscribe.

P.

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I haven't received the unit yet, so unfortunately I can't review it; but I thought I'd help others out by posting the price I paid, and where I bought it.

I paid $409 plus $11 shipping from Sound City 1-800-888-5343 EXT 714 (Rich). I tried oncall and they said they had changed their policy, and that now they would only match a price of a dealer who had it in stock. They said the cheapest they had found was $457. I saw in a previous post that somone had purchased from Sound City for $389, so I gave them a call. They said their price had gone up a little to $409. Still not bad compared with the outrageous price Crutchfield is charging ($600).

Good Luck!