This is a great receiver. Lots of options and easy to use. The remote is excellent and it worked great with my Pioneer components. There are lots on inputs/outputs to work with too. Bought it with the Bose Acoustimass 6 speaker system and it sounds great.

This is a great receiver. Lots of options and easy to use. The remote is excellent and it worked great with my Pioneer components. There are lots on inputs/outputs to work with too. Bought it with the Bose Acoustimass 6 speaker system and it sounds great.

I brought this unit and have not had a problem yet. I have had this unit for 3 months. Have not had to unplug once. Steve must had purchase a lemon.
AC3 works great. My DVD movies sounds perfect. I'll never go back to pro logic.
Try the unit and you will like it.

I WAS SEEKING A NICE INEXPENSIVE UNIT WHEN I MEET THE DE825 SONY.MY WIFE AND I LOVE MUSIC AND SHE ENCOURAGED ME TO COME WITH IT.
WHEN LISTENING TO HIT IN ALL OF ITS' SOUNDFIELDS THE UNIT IS SO IMPRESSIVE.
THE BASS IS SWEET. SO IS THE HIGHS. WHEN LISTENING TO OUR FAVORITE
GOSPEL CDS. YOU GET INTO THE SONGS AND PRAISE GOD EVEN MORE. YOU FEEL THE SINGERS ARE IN THE ROOM WITH YOU. AND NOTICE ONE OF THE SOUNDFIELDS IS LABEL
CHURCH. HAVING PURCHASED THIS UNIT I HAVE NO REGRETS.
AND TO THINK I WAS GOING TO BUY THE TECHNICS X720 .

The Sony STR-DE825 is a wonderful budget priced AV reciever. I've owned this receiver since August 1998, and have had no problems with the unit whatsover. I auditoned many brands, and for price and features this Sony is truly the best. It has great features, including 3 optical digital inputs and one coxial digital input, plus an optical digital output (for recording onto mini disc or DAT), excellent build quality, and incredible Dolby Digital sound. I auditioned a Yamaha right along side the Sony, and the Sony sounded just as good as the Yamaha, at half the price. The 825 puts out plenty of low bass info in both stereo and Dolby Digital, as well as Pro Logic. The onboard Dolby Digital decoder does a splendid job-voices sound natural, explosions have all the punch you could ever hope for, and every subtle sound effect like the detectives footsteps in the motel scene of L.A. Confidential sound great. I highly reccommend this Sony. If you want DTS and s-video inputs, Sony is coming out with two new recievers, the STR-DE 835, and 935 which will have these features. You can't go wrong with this receiver! Please email me with any questions.

I just purchased this reciever a week ago and I think it was a good buy for $389. The one thing I don't understand is why my front speakers don't have the same bass as they did with my old cheap reciever. If anybody with this model has figured out all the correct cut-off points e-mail me. 3 stars for the reciever 5 stars if I ever figure it out.

upgraded to this unit from the 725 for additional $ 40. i wanted the 3 extra digital outputs and better surround features. i previously upgraded from 425>525>725 and had no problems. closeouts on these models made upgrading easy within 30 day time frame and expense of around $ 100. got this unit home , hooked up , and my powered sub didn't work - then it did - then it hummed. i was $%#@* off. hooked up my son's reciever and sub worked perfect. all my other recievers worked flawless. since this was floor model closeout it is the last one. i am going to ask for new one or for the new 835. if not , get my $$$ back. thinking this was an isolated problem ( i hope ). due to factory defect right from the start - a solid 2

Bought this unit back in December of 1998. It was an open box sale at Hi-Fi Buys for $289. It has been a good receiver with only one noticable bug. When playing from a digital source, the receiver drops back in to normal surround if the movie is paused or scanned. Input modes will have to be changed to get it back on. I also encountered about a 60hz hum playing full throttle at about 100db from my sub one day while listening to music. It wouldn't go away unless the tuner was switched off and back on. After seeing this three times in a month, I found the screws which mount the RCA jacks on the rear panel to be slightly loose. Tightening them seems to have repaired the problem. I can only assume the loose termnials allowed a bad ground loop and the sub picked up the 60hz frequency from the input power. Other than that, everything has been great. Good power, weaker than normal bass on the front channel but the remote is superb. Can run anything in the house with it.... Great bang for the buck...

I have been purchasing sony because they have cheap products and they are more reliable than technics or teac. i also went with sony because all their receivers seem to lack in bass, so i could have a system that could run my speakers without breaking anything. I purchased the 305 in 1995 and used it until it cooked itself because it was short of a very important part, an internal cooling fan or two. then i bought the 825 and it is the crappiest receiver I have ever touched my speaker cables to, but the remote is so damn cool. most of my problems were with the fact that it would overheat in the middle of a movie or party. I recomend going to garage sales for your audio needs because people dont know what they are selling, you can always refinish a speaker box. go yamaha or onkyo for your home receiver.

I bought the 825 at Circuit City for $260 open box special. Apparently you get what you pay for. After I hooked it up, I noticed the lack of bass, even compared to my crappy 55 watts per channel Pioneer, which just died after only 1.5 years. Anyhow, the 500 watts sounded a lot like the 185 from my Pioneer. I popped in Jurassic park on VHS, and turned the volume half way up. After 5 minutes, the LCD screen went blank and the sound shut off completely. Some of the lights and buttons made nice little sounds when I pressed them, but otherwise they had no effect.
What I think happened is that a) this unit might have been returned for this exact reason and b) the environment that the reciever sits in tends to be quite hot, and it overheated.

So I will take this back for an exchange tomorrow. I knew in the back of my head that Sony made crappy stuff, but the $260 is about as cheap as I've ever seen a digital reciever, so I couldn't resist.

One speaker for the nice remote!