Loud!, full sound, looks the part

None so far (except having to return a model with HISS).

I was most upset when I had set up the this receiver. I had read a lot of reviews (many of them on this website) and I was aware some units had very bad hiss. But it seemed that it was only a US problem so I was not expecting to hear it.

My European model had really bad hiss - I could here it clearly within 0.5m and I could still here it 1m out if the room was quiet. This was even with the volume turned down to absolute zero!

I took it back to the dealer and they started of saying they couldn't here it, then proceded to say that it was normal - just "electrical noise". I said there was no way it was normal - my Marantz cost half the price and there was no hiss what so ever (unless you jammed your ear right up to the tweeters). They then hooked up the demo model - and suprise suprise there was absolutely no hiss. So I took that one.

I would advise anybody who has a hissing model to take it straight back. Demand to hear this receiver before you purchase or exchange it.

Apart from that, I am really glad I upgraded from the Marantz. I was runing the Marantz as a stop gap until I could afford something a bit more beefy so I was just using the decoding on my DVD player and the 5.1 amplification on the Marantz. It was quite a good sound but was not terribly loud - if you pushed it too far the sound started to become a bit harsh and thin.

The Sony has got far more depth - I am also running with the digital coax which sounds sharper than the existing 5.1 from my DVD player. I can not push the volume beyond 5 without my ears starting to hurt. Even at those kind of levels the sound remains full on.

Haven't quite got to grips with my remote - I would like to be able to operate other devices without changing the sound source on the receiver - I think you can do this my hitting the mode button but I'm not 100% sure.

Similar Products Used:

Marantz SR3000

Lots of features, analog direct, good overall sound

Not very intuitive, you really have to read the manual thouroghly to get the most out of this one

A lot of "bang for the buck". If youre only gonna listen to stereo, this one is not for you...

Similar Products Used:

None

looks, remote.

tweaking intuition

I have just recieved this reciever after using the strdb 840 (loved the idea of getting a learning remote and on screen tweaking) I have the energy take 5 speaker package and am having difficulties tweaking the settings to make my small speakers sound better. When I emailed the cust serv dept they simply replied that it was up to user preference. i guess what i need to know is if there are any general guidelines for me to follow in terms of tweaking smaller speakers. feel free to leave me an email at buyfromjohn@home.com

Similar Products Used:

strdb840

Superb Kick Ass as far as the Home Cinema side of things and first class musically when partnered with my new Sony DVP-S725 DVD Player.

None so far

I borrowed this amp from a local retailer for a weekend trial and was thrilled with the performance it gave when partnered with my Limit JDV300 DVD Player. I had not bought a sub at the time but the amp is equipped with a setting that asks if a sub is to be use and if not adjusts and increases the bass through the fronts. I was still amazed at the bass exhibited when playing the Matrix. The chase scene at the start of the film across the tin roof's was incredible. The ability to set the distances and the heights of the speakers was a nice touch and the whole unit was very easy to set up and control. The remote is easy to use and fairly comprehensive.

An important aspect of the amp's performance for me was it's ability to play music. I was not disappointed. I listened to everything from Mozart to AC/DC and was amazed to find that an AV amp was graced with the ability to play music and keep you wanting to listen to CD after CD.

Took the unit back to the shop only to go out the following week and purchase one at £80.00 ($120.00) cheaper. With my savings (and a little more) I bought a Sony DVP-S725D DVD Player and a Sub. What can I say............absolutely awesome. Got to go, U571 has just started !!!!!!

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Mordaunt Short Decoder one.

I purchased this unit after installing one for my brother in law and seeing how it performed in his house. I was very impressed with the build quality and the features. I shopped audio stores locally and was unable to fid anyone willing to come off of the 600.00 price mark. I checked online and saw several good reviews of Sound City. I ordered this unit and a Sony 5 disc dvd player on Friday afternoon and it was delivered double boxed on the following Tuesday.The remote takes some getting used to and it helps to read the manual thoroughly. As for the Hiss mentioned by some respondents I have not encountered this at all on my unit and on any of the ones that I have listened to. This is truely an amazing receiver for the money. I would strongly reccomend it and Rich at sound City to anyone considering this purchase.

Similar Products Used:

None so far

Outstanding performance at all power levels, integration with other Sony products, and I/O capacity

I got a great deal through a friend at Sony. This system is fantastic. The front panel controls are clean. The sound quality remains consistently high regardless of volume. I plugged my other Sony components into the designated connections and everything was recognized.
Setup was quick and easy, even for a novice audiophile like me. I've had a blast programming the remote. Within a day, it not only operated my Sony components, it was also controlling my Mitsubishi TV and my GE VCR. The key strokes required to operate everything however, make it somewhat unreasonable to use. Perhaps setting up macros in conjunction with a control line between Sony components will simplify things.
All in all I am extremely impressed with the quality, style, and performance of the unit. It's a definite step above Sony's DE line while avoiding the complexity and cost of the ES line. It's everything I expected. I highly recommend it.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-S360 DVD player, Sony CDP-CX450 CD Mega-Changer

in remote: subs, macros, "users" cannot be renamed

after the above mentioned pieces, finally there is NO hiss. i can recommend it. it is just cool.

Similar Products Used:

STR DE445, STR DE545

none, yet

Had a demo at Rodney's, Uxbridge, watching The 5th Element (Dolby Digital 5.1) and The Eagles (DTS). Absolutely breathtaking. So I bought one.

It's now set up at home driving B&W P4's at the front, JBL Control 1X centre and rear, & JBL Digital10 sub-woofer.

Sound is crystal clear (no hiss) with mighty performance in DTS & 5.1 (Gladiator & Snatch), and music through Marantz CD67 is well defined with tight bass in analogue direct mode.

I'm happy,

Dave

Suffers from an extremely serious S/N ratio.
Serious batch problems are apparent.

Upon investigating the options for an AV amplifier and looking at what was available, it came down to either the Sony STR-DB940 or the Yamaha RXV-596. Each amplifier was set up with the NAD T-550 DVD player and Mission 77 Series speakers (If I remember correctly). A variety of CD's was used, from classical to Pink Floyd to Yello to The Rock soundtrack and others to gauge which unit it was to be. A Fleetwood Mac DVD was also used.

First, my impressions on the sound. The units were listened to in 2-Channel Stereo with equalisation defeated, but not direct bypass. The Sony sounded a touch crisper than the Yamaha. Imaging was a little wider as well with the sound seeming to have its source a little to the outside of the speakers. This was a little irritating when listening to the Fleetwood Mac DVD in 5.1, where some instruments sounded as if they had migrated off the stage and were somewhere behind you. This may have been a fault of the recording or more likely a bad set-up in the surround parameters. Bass was no problem either with the Sony having plenty of reserve at decent listening levels (i.e. realistic listening levels, even if they require the ceiling to shake, as for pedal notes on the organ!) Pushed too far though, the bass would become a bit rough at the edges, probably more the fault of the speakers pushing the limits of linear excursion. All-in-all, any reason for complaints on sound quality would probably lie with other components in the system. The Yamaha, in a word, sounded more precise. Imaging coincided with the loudspeaker positions well and the sound fields in 5.1 modes sounded more realistic than most. Bass and upper mids sounded a little understated, yet they were always there when required. Power was good but clipping seemed to set in almost unexpectedly on material with a heavy bass content when the main channels were required to bear the brunt with the subwoofer disabled.

A difficult choice to make as far as sound quality issues were concerned, the precise signature of the Yamaha against the slightly larger-than-life Sony, I decided on the Sony to try and complement the rather shoddy imaging of my speakers at home. So much for the subjective stuff, now for getting down to the features of my new acquisition.

Impressive, to say the least. Despite the protestations of the audiophile voodoo practitioners, the variable frequency tone controls were excellent in adjusting out minor dips and peaks in frequency response, due to speaker imperfections or room acoustics. By cutting or boosting a bass, mid or treble range by a few dB and then sliding the frequency, one can quickly discover where the imperfections lie. The bass boost button is helpful to give a little extension in the absence of a subwoofer where some speakers start to roll off. Setting up the surround parameters was straight forward with the time delays conveniently converted to distances in 0.1m or 1ft increments. Various surround programs are provided, some of which provide more parameters to play around with than others. One program even allows various wall damping levels to be emulated! Particularly useful was the separate record source selection which allows one to record a program from cable TV, for instance, while watching a DVD. Controls were intuitive with the remote requiring a little more studying. Opening and closing the flap became a bit of a pain after a while, as the main functions don't work with the flap open, but after the novelty has worn off one would probably find that you no longer need to access the concealed buttons as often. The remote control is bi-directional and teachable, but I unfortunately did not get around to delving into all its intricacies. The rear panel connectors are well laid out with gold plated RCA sockets and banana/screw type LS connectors for all five channels. The unit was heavy and solidly built and a peep through the slots showed good quality components and a large E-core transformer, even though I suspect that most 5 channel amplifiers on the market will suffer power supply fatigue if all channels are called upon simultaneously. And that's where Utopia ended…

Having built some of my own amplifiers as a hobby when I was a student, I knew where to look for a few common weak points which are easy to detect and can be avoided with a little care and which one would not expect to find in any vaguely hi-fi commercial system: mains hum, inter-channel cross-talk, cross-talk between inputs and signal-to-noise ratio, otherwise known as hiss, or in the case of this Sony, the ROAR of the ocean. Hit pause on your DVD, wind up to 10 on a quiet dark night, and the neigbours will start complaining. This is NOT restricted to analogue channels as the DVD player was connected to the digital input. Put it on Prologic mode and the rear speakers join in the fun with some breaking waves and other interesting scratching noises. Seriously, the noise was clearly audible throughout the house and outside as well.
The unit went back the next day where the salesperson had also called in the local Sony representative to discuss the problem. Sony apologised profusely and we hauled out another unit and gave it a try. It was substantially less noisy, probably by more than half, but the test room was far from quiet with an air-conditioning duct overhead. Took No.2 home and tried it that evening. In Direct Bypass mode, perfect. In 2-Channel mode with the equaliser defeated, not too bad but not good. With a little cut and boost on the equaliser, BAD. And hit the Bass Boost button and the ocean was back. Bugger! So, time to get quantitative. Sony claims a S/N ratio of 96dB in their technical data. I popped the unit on the bench and made some rough measurements, using the conditions specified, the details of which I will not go into here. These were the results obtained for the S/N ratio in different modes:
Direct Bypass 94dB (Excellent)
2CH Mode (No equalisation) 53dB (No comment)
Equalisation 48dB (Compact cassette
quality)
(+5;-3;+3dB for bass, mid, and treble respectively)
Equalisation and bass boost 34dB (If you like listening to your music with the bath running)

Incidentally, my crappy home built 100W amplifier had an equivalent S/N of 81dB for the equivalent of 2CH mode, an improvement of 28dB!!!

Let's put this in perspective. The sensitivity of the amplifier is about 16dB higher than the output of a component, i.e. maximum volume lies at about 5, not 10. So the worst case S/N that could be realistically experienced is 50dB. This is similar to the quality of a good compact cassette player.
Typically without the bass boost engaged, this becomes 64dB. This isn't bad but it meant that during the soft passages of a good digital recording of classical music, I would hear amplifier-induced hiss before the hiss inherent in the recording. Definitely not what can be considered hi-fi, clearly way out of spec, obviously not what one would expect of a flagship product.

What to do?! I liked the product and its features, but it had more noise than an el-cheapo bookshelf blaster, and if I wanted to use the pre-amp to drive an active speaker system which I was keen to embark on as a project, I could just as well have given up before starting.

So No. 2 was also returned, this time with full details of the measurements I had made. I requested (on suggestion by the dealer) that my report be forwarded to Sony South Africa, that the measurements be checked on the unit which I had returned and that, if possible, the unit be repaired or replaced with one which conformed to specification. I did not believe that the task would be impossible, as a number of reviews indicated that the hiss problem was not common to all units. At the time I also visited some shops in London and upon enquiring, one dealer indicated that he had had a number of returns and confirmed that the problem was not common to all units. A month later I called my dealer again. He very apologetically explained that Sony did not at all seem interested in noticing, let alone solving the problem and that they would arrange a refund with the dealer. Both the dealer and I were most disappointed as it clearly appeared as if Sony were trying to hide a cock-up of spectacular proportions - "Shh! We know about the problem but rather than do a recall, just flog the rejects to the unsuspecting buyer. Why, the average hi-fi salesperson is more than capable of making even the most objective buyer believe that O-F speaker cable will solve any problem imaginable." What BS!

In conclusion, this is a FIVE STAR product, if it works. If you hit a string of duds, your money would probably be better spent on the cheapest product you can find. So before taking the unit out the shop, hook it up to any component, enable the equaliser and hit bass boost, pause the disk and crank up the volume. If you hear the ocean despite all the ambient noise, it WILL sound a lot worse in your living room. Do the world a favour, and with the dealer's permission, apply a sledgehammer, many times, to protect the next guy from being fobbed a Sony approved reject. I now have the Yamaha, and although lower on features and power, I feel it is the best buy in its class.

Similar Products Used:

Yamaha RXV-596

Ample Bass. Good DTS Sound as well as 5:1.

None thus far.

Being a South African it is difficult to purchasing a good av amplifier at a good price. My experiences with the "other" proudcts was not mind blowing like this Sony. I was trully taken aback by the power and good sound that this amp provides.The first time I used this amp I blew my centre speaker(Yamaha) with the volume level at 4 which say's alot about his amp.I have not even tried going past level 5 as I am scared that my other speakers would blow as well.

When I watched the DTS version of Gladiator it was totally incredible.The first scene in the movie was already convincing to me that I bought the right equipment and that I was in for trully good experiences with my amplifier.I have already impressed some friends of mine whom are true audiophiles(me not) with this amplifier.Some of my audiophile friends are already planning to sell off their much top name branded equipment like, Onkyo,NAD and Yamaha to settle in for this Sony.

After reading some of the reviews on this page I was however concerned about the infamous "hiss" but i have to be honest that i have as yet not heared anything.

I personally think that Sony has totally given alot of the other av amplifier makers a run for their money.

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Technics SADX930 and Pioneer.