With all the high end hullaballoo out there Sony does it again, consistent, user friendly, warm , good looking reciever that sounds excellent at its price bracket. Simple set up although Sony could explain their S-link better, perhaps a seperate manual. The remote is simple and effective although still not a substitute for a Universal like Marantz RC2000 MkII which I love. But all in all an excellent product. Full marks to sound, effective and plenty of DSP fields, intuitive memory for settings and a good tuner too!.The decoder is flawlessly integrated into the reciever. Highly recommended.

Decided to buy the 835 after reading reviews on this site. Tried in vain to find the June issue of Stereo review which suposedly rates this receiver against the pioneer and the Kenwood.
I went to Good Guys to buy it and they tried to talk me into buying the Yamaha (with out DTS) instead. However when we listed to an Audio CD, neither of us could tell the difference.

I decided to buy the Sony, however Good Guys, Circuit City, and Best Buy were out of stock. The guy at circuit city said he is turning away at least 5 people a day due to no inventory. It looks like an extreemly popular product. I finally found it at Sears for $399. I convinced them to match best buy at $347.99.

I hooked it up (2 speakers only, still shoping for my suround speakers) and it sounded great. I also did not experience the "very hot" problem mentioned in other reviews. I wonder if that symtom is only experienced in 5 speaker modes? I used the "large hall" effect for a concert video and it made it come alive. I am very impressed with the performance so far.

i purchased the 835 for my den and i will ask all who are searching for a receiver on a budgetto give it a try....it has everything you will look for in an expensive receiver....sound quality is not outstanding but great.considering the price...i bought it for $311.99 at my ocal hifi store.....digital inputs and out....100watts high power.....if you take the time to adjust the settings you will have a receiver that will last a long time....it gets hot as other posters have said....but get you a computer fan for $15.00 and you are set to go..only problem is that the remote does not control my philips dvd player

Absolutely the best receiver for the listed price. I'm highly enjoying it with a few exceptions. For example there is no S-Video input for the TV/SAT jack. This sucks if you have a Sony DSS system and would like to control it and your Sony TV with the AV remote. So you're stuck with the option of using the Video 1 (S-Video)jack for your DSS connection but it doesn't allow you to use the AV Remote to control it. The digital sound fields are great especially for sports and sport related video games. Other than that this receiver BUMBS HARD! Thumbs Up All The Way!

Look, it may not have the same sound as the Sony ES series or a Yamaha A1, but for pete's sake, it only costs $350!! For this price, I got three things that were important to me: (1) DD/DTS; (2) 5.1 inputs; and (3) money left over for more important things -- like good speakers.
At this price, it won't be agonizing to upgrade later if I want. In the meantime, the unit is fine for the average home theatre enthusiast looking for to take advantage of what his DVD player can deliver. I looked at other units that were more expensive, but I really couldn't be sure that the difference in price would translate into better sound in my home. Due to wifely contraints, I can't locate speakers where they necessarily sound best, etc..., so why spend the bucks for top shelf? I'll bet a lot of people fall into this category of enthusiast.

Lastly, if you stick to Sony components, the S-link cables are a real benefit. My wife used to complain about having to coordinate audio and video inputs and outputs every time the kids want to watch a tape. With S-link, put in a tape (or DVD, etc.) and hit play; the 835 will automatically switch to the proper source, output and decoding settings. A great marriage saver.

Maybe it only gets 4 stars for performance, but it gets 5 stars for doing it so cheap.

My system:
Sony 835 Receiver, Sony 7700 DVD Player, Mitsibishi 50703 50" RP TV, Klipsch SF-1 Front Speakers, SC-1 Center, SSB-1.1 Surround. It may seem like I skimped a little bit on the receiver, considering what I spent on the other components, but the only thing I have to upgrade now is the receiver, if I want to.

I found this unit to be easy to set up. There is a setup button for configuring surround parameters. You press it and navigate through the options with a pair of left/right arrow buttons, and make selections with a jog dial. I plugged in the cables, configured the surround settings, and popped in The Eagles Hell Freezes Over DVD.

I had a Pioneer 608, and I was not impressed with it's bass performance. The Sony out performed it in this regard. For instance, the Eagles DVD has that little DTS intro, with the CD and the flying words, The Digital Experience I think. At the end the CD shatters and there is a low bass rumbling. The Pioneer could not handle that, but the Sony played it without any problems. I also played some audio CDs and the bass response on them was better than on the Pioneer.

I don't have any compaints about the video inputs. Some people are botherd by the fact that there is no S-Video input on TV/SAT. You could just use one the the Video inputs. I don't use the video switching capabilities of the receiver, my TV has plenty of inputs to run everything direct. Plus, I'd still have to switch TV inputs because my Sat is S-Video and my VCR is RCA, and the receiver won't switch one to the other.

I don't plan on using the full capability of the receiver. I'm not real impressed with all this DSP, Digital Cinema Sound stuff that Sony has put in it. I already have a stereo setup, which at this point is going to remain independent of the home theatre. I did notice that the tuner isn't quite as sensitive as the one on the Pioneer. I was able to pick up some stations on the Pioneer without an antenna, but not on the Sony.

The Sony has a good tone control section. You're able to control the settings for each of the speakers. Mine are currently flat.

The speaker connections need to be improved. Instead of providing for a set of B speakers, Sony should have put the binding posts on the surround and center speakers, instead of those cheap spring clips. Does anybody use the B speakers anyway?

Personally, I think these home theatre receivers do too much. What I would like to see is a surround processor/integrated amp. Something that is designed for home theatre only. It should have several digital inputs, a digital output, and 5.1 inputs. This would allow for future encoding schemes, where you can throw another processor into the loop, and run it into the 5.1 inputs. The DSP stuff is unnecessarry. Since this doesn't exist, as far as I know, I chose the Sony. It does a good job.

Purchased this for $389 after returning the Onkyo tx-ds555, It was very hard for me to part with the Onkyo because it was reall a top performer for the $399 i had payed for it. Several DTS encoded discs had shown up at my local rental store and i was a little nervous about not having a DTS decoder on board. After reading the reveiws of the 835 here i decided to give it a shot thinking if worse came to worse i could go back to the onkyo ( they still had a few left). After hooking up the 835 i was very dissapointed at first. CD listening was horrible compared to the Onkyo, i was very upset. I found out hoever that my Kenwood EQ was enabled and the settings were all screwed up on it, this was giving me bad sound. I disabled the EQ and left the factory settings on the Sony alone. It now sounded much better, this receiver puts out a lot of bass, i had to turn my sub way down. It is almost too much bass output. After an hour or so of tinkering i got the sound i desired. About the same quality as the Onkyo. The dolby digital decoder works wonderfully. Only thing i dont like on movies is that i find myself turning the dial up to around the noon position to hear dialouge clearly. This appears to only happen on certian movies and i believe it may be the disc. Tonight i will ent my first DTS disc and see what that is all about. This receiver offers so much for $389 it makes me worry that it wont last long. Never have i seen so many options at this price point. 3 optical ins and one out?? Unheard of at $389. For performance i would give a 4 but at this price 5 stars all the way. My last receiver was a Sony GX-700ES in my prologi setup, this 835 is just as clean. If you are looking to spend around 400 dollars and want DTS, look no further, great job. One more note, as far as the unit getting hot as some have reported, i have not seen that, you need to give it some shelf space, dont put anything on top of it and give it about 5 inches of space on top of the unit and you should have no problem.

Wont even waste my time writing a reveiw. It broke after 2 days, tried another one and it broke the first time i hooked it up. Went with Yamaha now and havent had any problem. This thing isnt even worth $100. Wish i could give it negative stars

Im glad i own this receiver i have too many words for it all I have to say ===== cheep and very efective

I ALWAYS LOVED SONY PRODUCTS AND I CAN TELL YOU THIS RECEIVER WORKS GREAT WITH DVDS DOLBY/DTS MOVIES. OVER THE YEARS ALL I'VE EVER BOUGHT WAS SONY AND I'VE FOUND THAT YES SOME PRODUCTS COME WITH DEFECTS BUT ANYONE WITH A INTELGENT BRAIN KNOWS ALWAYS TO HAVE STORE WARRENTY ON ANY PRODUCT EVEN IF YOU BUY ANY OTHER BRAND BESIDE SONY + SONY HAS A FULL YEAR WARRENTY WHEN BUYING ONE OF THERE PRODUCTS==ANYWAY 835 HAS SERVED VERY WELL VERY GOOD RECEIVER BUT NOT THE GREATEST + I ONLY BOUGHT FOR $250. WITH 3 YEAR WARR AT A LOCAL STORE IT TOOK ME AN HOUR TO BRING DOWN THE PRICE