Connections, sound, design (ease of use)

The 930 look a bit better

First of all, I too have experienced problems with the sony recievers, my 930 had a broken processor and could not seperate channels so I bought the 830 model which sounded very good. A couple of days later, my dealer called me and told me that I could get a good deal on the new 940.
I got the reciever home and hooked it up..
It sounded great both in DD and DTS but also in 2 ch. stereo.
I payed around $600 for the reciever (wich is cheap in denmark) and for that kind of money I think it would be hard to find a reciever with this kind of sound and options.

I can fully recomend this product to anyone...

Thumbs up.

Similar Products Used:

Sony str-db930, str-db830

Impressive Home Theater reproduction. More inputs than I have components to hook up to it.

Not able to independently adjust subwoofer level in Dolby 5.1 mode

I read many of the articles here and decided to see for myself. I must say, I am very impressed with this unit. It did everything everyone on this board claimed it would do.

It is MUCH better than the unit it replaces.... I just wish I had waited a little longer to see the previous tip on the low price at Soundcity, but I got it a Oade Brothers for $440 plus shipping... so I guess that ain't too bad. Considering it is a $600 + retail unit.

Overall... a very good home theater receiver.

Similar Products Used:

Sony STR-AV1070

Excellent sound, acceptable remote, nice look, easy set-up, good connection with other sony material, good value for the price

Digital inputs limited to 48 kh, except DVD input, no analog/digital converter, no s-video/video converters, no composite video (see Kenwood). And no s-link connectors on European models (why?)
Button-functions on the remote cannot be renamed.

I am a very satisfied user of this receiver, which is my first 5.1. amplifier. It was installed and tuned-up in less than one hour, works perfectly with my other components.
Stereo sound is perfect and so is the sound on 5.1 DVD's.

One disappointment: the limits on the digital inputs, and the fact that the cd-text data are not shown in the display (they appear on the remote display however).

And one detail: I bought this receiver together with Sony's last 400 CD changer. They communicate through a control A1II port. But no connection cable is included nor with the amlifier nor with the CD changer. A shame!

My material:

Sony STR DB940
Sony Wega 32FX60 TV
Sony DVD 725
Sony 400 CD-Changer 450
4 Tannoy Revolution 3 + Tannoy center
Sony Video recorder SF99

features

hiss in any DSP mode

I am reviewing this product after upgrading my supposedly defective unit STR-DB840. Like the DB840 I recieved, this one also has considerable hiss in ANY DSP mode, even at moderate volumes. I am positive it is a problem with the design of the DSP board, because if I used the 5.1 inputs,
which bipass the board, the unit is very quiet. Since this has happened on two units, I would consider it a design defective rather than myself being unlucky. Again, the 5.1 inputs are whisper quiet, meaning that my set-up (speakers, cables, power conditioner) are not the origin of the noise.
Very, very dissappointed. Seeing the good reviews, I now wonder how discerning other people are about this sort of thing. I must admit, if you are watching a movie and not listening for it, it isn't that noticeable, but in a quiet testing situation it is really significant.

Similar Products Used:

STR-DB840

DTS Sound, Cleanness of sound

Lack of documentation, response time of remote

What a year it's been. First, I decided to get a Sony DVD player. Cool. But it made my system look inadequate. So I spent the $$ to upgrade my speakers. Cool, but that showed off that Dolby Pro wasn't as cool as it had been a few years ago.. I started pricing receivers, watching for what I figured was a good deal. I'd had my eye on the Sony 930 and Pioneer 607 for a while. Based on an overall feel from this site, I'd pretty much settled on the Sony receiver. After listening to the Pioneer at a friend's house, I wasn't all that starstruck.

Finally, I had the money, and went with the 940. The prices were actually lower than I'd seen the 930, and the extra few features sounded good. When it arrived, wow! I stayed up until 3:30 am hooking everything in. And it sounded cool. Much more power than my old receiver.

After a few changes in how I had it set up, I started experiencing problems. First, I wasn't able to get DD or DTS working. Sony's manuals weren't any help, it was by chance I found that my Sony DVD was set to default to downmixing the DD signal. Once that was fixed, I was able to listen to DD and DTS. Cool. But anytime a loud effect would come through, the sound went out, and the Protector signal would come on. I tried various changes to correct this, but nothing seemed to work. The problem got worse, to the point where it wasn't possible to watch a DVD at a reasonable volume, without it kicking in. I scanned all of my Sony manuals constantly, searching for any information what the heck Protector was, and why it wouldn't let me watch the movies. I knew it wasn't the speakers. The video channel came in much louder, without a problem.

I was finally able to trace the problem to a short that was occuring in the center channel cabling. I switched to bananna plugs, and all was well with the world. But why couldn't they have a simple troubleshooting section? It would have saved about 2 weeks of agonizing over whether I'd gotten a bad device.

Similar Products Used:

none, last receiver was Pro-Logic Pioneer 454

Price,Number of inputs,Clear Sound,Quality.

Remote

For that price it´s a excellent choice for anyone in the market for a new A/V Receiver. The remote is nice looking but it seems a bit unnecessary to have to jump between the dvd,tv,stereo. But overall a excellent product.

Similar Products Used:

Sony Str DB830.

Overall quality for $$

Lacks CD optical in.

What a great receiver. I'm not going to talk about the remote because if you demand the quality of sound from a receiver like this you will go to Ebay and buy a Marantz universal remote...

The only thing that is a disappointment (can't believe I missed it) is the lack of CD appointed optical in. DVD has optical and coaxial digital, but no digital for CD. You can work around that however, just use your imagination.

Overall an AWESOME receiver. Using with Sony DVP-c660 dvd changer and SAV-E815 speaker package...

Similar Products Used:

Aiwa stuff.

It looks the part (in silver), feels good and sounds superb. I did not think it would be able to replace my Marantz as a stereo amp, but it has...easily. Looking forward to DVD joys over Xmas as the British telly selection will be useless (as always). Pro-logic VHS recordings are sounding much better than my previous Sherwood processor/Marantz combo.

The remote is sexy but complex and sluggish to respond. I use the Cambridge Audio Multimedia explorer, but cannot find a way to program the Sony source selection from the remote into the Multimedia. Although the Sony remote can control, my TV, CD, MD etc. it's not a sweet as using the Multimedia remote.

Richer Sounds in Britain are chucking these out at £380 (UK pounds) at the moment which looks like cracking value. It's sounding great as stereo amp too.

So far very impressive, but I can't give it 5/5 yet because I'm still using some unbranded rear speakers.

Similar Products Used:

Sherwood Pro-Logic processor + Marantz PM44SE stereo amp.

Powerful amplifier, lots of inputs, very tweakable, doesn't look like a "toy" amp.

Great remote, but layout could be better. They don't even admit to making it on their USA website!!!

I first bought this amp when I was considering buying the STR-DE945 that I saw listed on their website. My goal was to do a total upgrade to an obsolete Pro-Logic system at home. Before anyone begins to insult my choice of amps, understand that I don't have the financial means or intent to spend over $1000 on a Sony ES receiver or on separates. Now to the review - I'm going to go point by point:

This amp is of a very good build quality. You can notice this the second you take it out of the box. It is very solidly constructed, and there are absolutely no rattles or any physical defect apparent to me. The aluminum front panel is a nice touch - more than you get from the retail store type of products. I also like the fold-up front door. It makes the amp look very monolithic with the door up, yet provides nice controls and a set of front A/V inputs with S-Video. The heat sink inside is quite sizable and appears to be very solidly mounted to the power amps.

The number of inputs is excellent, and I especially like the fact that *all* speaker inputs have binding posts. This is a nice touch. For anyone that cares, there are 2 AC outlets on the back of the unit, good for a VHS tape rewinder or other small accessory. There are a whole mess of inputs - quite more than I need, including Sony's proprietary Control-S and Control-A1-II jacks. People have complained about a lack of optical input for the CD player, but really, who is going to be using all 3 of the other optical inputs? I think that you can find a way to fit it in. Worst case, Radio Shack sells a 4-way Toslink switch for $40 or so. My dad also likes the inclusion of a Phono input with grounding post, so he can listen to all his vinyls. There are also 2 subwoofer outs, 5.1 power-amp inputs, and 5.1 pre-amp outs.

The amplifier performance is very good to excellent. I have used this unit for 2-channel, Pro-Logic, Dolby Digital 5.1, and DTS format signals. 2-Channel mode is quite good, and the inclusion of the "analog direct" mode to bypass all the DSP circuitry is welcome, especially when listening to things like HDCD's. The hiss problem I have heard of is present, but at an **extremely** low level - barely even there at all. You have to kill the input signal and turn the knob up at least 6, and then you will only hear anything with your ear next to the speaker. So, no problem there. The DTS decoding is absolutely great. Crisp, clear channels with great separation and excellent imaging. There was no bleed between channels at all.

The tuner works great, but I must agree with others who recommend getting a better (powered) antenna. This is pretty much common sense, though. I like the remote being able to download all the station presets from the unit, so I can flip thru them all while I'm sitting in my recliner.

The tweakability factor of this unit is excellent. You can specify all speaker distances from the listening position. For rear speakers, you can pick side or rear placement and you can choose high, mid, or low placement on the walls. This is done to help the unit calculate delay times and additional processing for the Cinema Surround EX modes. The DSP Soundfield modes work quite well, and can generate quite a nice feeling of ambience in the room, mainly for movies. Audiophiles will not use this feature when listening to audio, since it does "cook" the data somewhat. The dynamic range compression works fairly well and listening at night becomes possible. [A tip for others, you can specify speaker distances in feet or meters; use meters, since you can specify to tenths of a meter.] You can also choose to listen to the audio from one source and watch the video from a different source - great for copying a videotape and adding background music from CD. Of course, it also has a 2nd audio output for a second room.

The remote is great (if people would stop being lazy and read the other manual). The only issue with it is that it's a flip open type unit and the cursor keys are inside, and the volume keys outside. So, sometimes, you have to keep flipping it open and closed to accomplish something. Plus, when you go to operate your DVD player, you have to tell it to route the cursor keys to the DVD and not the amp each time you use the remote - that can get annoying. But, the learning capability is great, and it can also execute macros.

Overall, an excellent unit - I just wish they put all the remote keys on one panel and didn't have the flip-open business. In case you all want to mock my setup, I have:
Sony STR-DB940 Amp
Toshiba SD-3108 DVD Player
Cambridge Soundworks New Ensemble 2's, Surround 5.1's, BassCube 10.
Cerwin-Vega Dual-6" Center.

Similar Products Used:

Various mid-level Sony amps.

Options, Flexibility, Second pre-amp output

HISSSSSSS

I recently purchased the STRDB940 receiver from Onecall. They accidently sent me a returned open box model, but agreed to replace it at their cost if I had any problems. After several days, I have noticed quite prominently the hiss problem that has been written about. It does not occur at all in 5.1 mode, less but definitely noticeable in AFD mode, and quite loudly even at moderate volume in any of the DSP modes. I gather from this website that this has been a raletively frequent problem with this model. My question is whether any one knows if Sony is aware and fixed the problem with the more recent versions of this model. In other words, should I replace the receiver through onecall with the same exact receiver (since I like almost every thing else about it), or am I going to have the same problem no matter what with that annoying hiss?

Similar Products Used:

None