I've owned my 825 for about a year now (bought as an open box buy at circuit city for $389) and it's my first digital theater reciever. As I've read other reviews I see that others have had probs. with open box buys - thats too bad cuz it usually leads to a bad reviews. Maybe the previous owner abused it and the store took the product back for resell without fully checking the unit out.
Anywho, in my case, I'm quite satisfied the 825 (yeah even though it's an old model now). The only odd problem I've seen is that sometimes (4 times/yr?) when you power it up, everthing comes on but there's no output - like its locked up. I had to unplug it for a couple of mins. and the next power up everthing was ok. It does get rather hot with a healthy twist of the vol. knob - but i've never had it shut down. (will probably add a fan/filter setup when free time ( yeah right) permits.

There are alot of features to tweak and play with but after awile it gets old and you find most of the soundfields are basically worthless (who would ever watch movie or music in chuch mode - the echo effect is rediculous.) As far as music goes - I think the 825 does a great job. I dont see where people think it's weak in bass, I'm bouncing stuff off the walls with relativly inexpensive speakers. Unfortunatly, I'm not using the unit to its full potential (no dvd or even hi end vcr - yes I am stuck in a closet, have been spending too much $ on car audio!!)

So, all in all, it was money well spent. It's got to have one of the coolest remotes on the planet (station titles and i think cd info with s-link cord show up in the palm of your hand on a backlit display!) With this remote I've even been outside in the yard some 40 ft. away (line of sight through glass) and been able to control it.

Oh yeah, the one thing that would be nice to have is bass and treble knobs (didn't think that it was important at the time of purchase!)

For the price (if you can find one still for sale) and especially for a first reciever - it's a great choice

Excelent sound reproduction. Plenty of audio inputs, lots of selection. Dual subwoofer ouptuts.

No DTS. No S-Video Inputs.

This is the first reciever I have bought for myself, but I did he help my dad pick out the Pioneer receiver. I did pair it up with a nice set of Bose surround sound speakers (5-single cubed speakers with dual 5 1/4" bass box). I was not able to appreiciate the true power of it until I was able to get a DVD player for it and WOW! DVDs sound so much more impressive in DD 5.1! But if I were to get another receiver now, I would stick with Sony, but get a better model (but this one was great for what I paid for it!), possibly, but doubt at this point of time, get a Sony ES model.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer VSX-546

I love movies. My husband purchase this unit a week ago. I must say that I am thrill with the sounds. I can honestly recommend this unit to everyone on a budget. Three optical, one coax and 8 inputs. 100 watts x 5.

Go to your nearest retailer and audition the unit. You will love it.
I'm going to see Gone with the wind now!

I must say that I am quite please with this receiver. I am using this receiver mostly for Dolby Digital. My DVD movies have never sounded this great. On music I find it quite apealing. I have a Harman Kardon that is being moved to the bedroom.
This unit has plenty of inputs, and well worth the money. The remote controls all my componets without problems. Needless to say this was a great purchase and serves it's purpose great.

You will not be disapointed. Try it out!

Nice unit - when it worked! There was a disclaimer inside the box warning about the DSP circuit getting confused. They claimed a power down reset would clear the problem. It actually required unplugging the AC for ~5 minutes. Not a big deal if it's once a year, but once every other day - get real and finish the engineering!!!! The clerk at Circuit City said she knew I'd be back, "they'd been having a lot of trouble with those".Oh well, still looking....

Bought this unit 3 weeks ago.Actually i was looking STRDE925, since DTS is gonna boom for at least may be a year or two so i decide to go for 825 which cost me 375, and i think it is a good deal, fisrt i listened to the sound quality, the quality is good but not the best, i had Califonia Audio Lab DAC and CD transport, the sound is better that my old receiver(yamaha,it was an old model anyway), and very crispy.
Noise filter is good too. The remote is very cool, you can customize it the way you like it, also i try it with my old DVD player, the sound is amazing compare to my friend's DE725,
overall this receiver is worth buying for its price

DSP modes. Equalizer. Dolby Digital indicator. 2 subwoofer pre-amp outputs.

No DTS. No binding posts. No S-video switching. No center channel pre-amp output.

I bought this unit almost 2.5 years ago. The first unit I bought would, after the first week of use, shut off all output to the speaker after about 1 minute of use. Sometimes after power-on, there would be no output at all. This started as an intermittent problem and then became frequent. After a week of this, I returned the unit to the retailer for a replacement. The second unit has worked flawlessly. [Recently, I've seen posts that some of the new Sony V333ES and V444ES receivers are exhibiting the same problems I had with the 825 over 2 years ago.]
At the time I bought this receiver, DTS receivers were not on the market, yet. So although I list lack of DTS as a weakness, it was not a weakness that was apparent at the time.
I really like the Dolby Digital 5.1 indicator light on the front panel of this unit. At first, I thought it was a marketing gimmick designed to show a potential customer that "Hey! Look at me! I do Dolby Digital!". But after using this unit for a while, I realized the value of the indicator. It provides immediate, easily visible feedback that tells me the 5.1 audio track on a DVD has or has not be selected. This has saved me from watching many a DVD in Dolby Pro Logic because that is what the DVD Navigation would default to.
It's hard to comment on the sound quality of this unit because in my current setup I only use the unit for cinema and not for music. I would expect sound defiencies to be more apparent with music.
The amp in the receiver is more than adequate for my setup, easily 'filling' a 20' x 12' room.
The DSP in this unit provides simulation of a large number of sound stages. When I first got the unit, I used its cinema modes when watching DVDs. However, in the last 6 months, I just use the Normal Surround mode as it seems to provide a better listening experience than the processed sound from the DSP.
Overall, I got what I paid for with this unit. It provided me with a low cost entry into Home Theater. After 2 years, I've decided that HT is more of a necessity than a luxury and I'm ready to upgrade to something with more capability.

lots of power nice remote

little noise from right rear speaker and does not have dts

well i got to tell you is a good damm reciver it has all the goods ,the only problem is that its making this noise on the right rear speaker that seems to be like static or something like that .but everything else is good i have boston acoustic speaker an it sounds great,i also have a dvd player dvp-s530d,and sattelite with dolby digital ouput.and it sounds great i think that is worth the money that i paid for it .

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yamaha

Dolby Digital, lots of digital ins for the $$ ('98), remote, *one* of the DSPs

reliability, remote, no DTS

I've owned the 825 for over 2 years, but it just fused out for the second time and I've replaced it with a Denon 3801(the upgrade!). Not to compare a $450 AVR with a $1000 one, but I had no idea how lousy the Sony sounded!

When it worked, the 825 was a fairly reasonable entry-level HT unit. For those of you who plan to stay at the entry-level, this unit would be just fine (except for the flakiness with even fuses.. the "Protector" comes on and you have to have it serviced.. ridiculous).

But I've decided that I'm serious enuff about this stuff to look up.. and there's a lot better stuff out there. LOTS better. This is akin to me thinking that my Celica was fast. It's all relative, my dear.

I bought the Sony back when I didn't think about things like, "What kind of sound does this thing produce?" It was just a features/wattage thing. And Sony certainly delivers on those for the $$. But in the end, features are maybe 50% of a receiver.. sound is the other 50%.. and as others have said, you get what you pay for. This is not hi-fidelity sound here. It's adequate.

The Live House DSP is the only one worth trying out.. good for rock.

The remote is pretty cool, but sucks batteries like nobody's business. Go thru 3 (yes, 3.. how annoying!!) about every 6 weeks (!!).

To conclude, I think Sony has overall gotten a little too big for their britches. They suffer from Microsoft syndrome: don't worry about making a high quality product that will last, just make sure it markets and sells well. So they advertise a ton and put lots of "back of the box" features on their products.. but stack it up against an Onkyo, and it'll fall flat on its face. For the same price!

Don't buy a used one.. get something newer. That's my advice at this point.

Price, DD, Optical and Coax inputs, Decent Remote

Fuses tend to blow quite often, Shuts down intermittently

This receiver is a good buy for the money, if it works as advertised. Mine has been in the shop for fuse repair. The warranty is quite good though. I've never had to pay anything to get it to work. Small concellation though. In my opinion a low level Onkyo or Kenwood with DD would be a much better buy than this. This does work very well with a Pioneer DV-414 as an input source, but with radio it has a tendency to shut off once then needs to be turned off and on.

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Different ONKYO products