I used to be a hard-core audiophile but then I got married. Now I simply enjoy quality A/V equipment at "reasonable" prices.
This Sony receiver is all around excellent. The sound quality is very good and it has tons of inputs. The setup options are very flexible and the Dolby Digital / DTS decoders have worked flawlessly. The remote control is not a problem for me.

My TV has a couple of S-Video inputs but I would liked to have seen them on the receiver. I few people have mentioned overheating problems. I have a open style component rack that provides good ventilation so this has not been a problem for me.

I would give this 4.5 stars with the 1/2 star deduction for the lack of S-Video inputs. Not a problem for me but the receiver should have them anyway.

Fantastic Receiver!Great price, sound, and its built in decoders are very good!
Does tend to overheat a lot...

It get's four stars because of the overheating problem

I purchased the 925 February 1999 and have been using it for close to five months now. I am extremely happy with this receiver. It drives Acoustic Research 310 HOs for the LF and RF, an AR CS25 HO for the center, and AR Edges for the rears. I don't have a sub hooked up right now.
I use the system for music and home theater. DVDs encoded with dolby digital sound incredible. The sound is clear and clean, even at high volume levels, thanks to the 110 watts per channel amp. Music also sounds excellent. There are something like 30 different sound fields provided. You will probably use about 4-5 of those at the most.

Setup was a snap. Plenty of inputs and outputs are provided, making the system very flexible and expandable.

I cannot think of any good reasons to purchase a more expensive receiver. I paid $380 for mine and put the money I saved on the receiver towards higher quality speakers, which really paid off.

I havn't had a single problem with the receiver as of yet. I would highly recommend it.

I purchased this unit 6 months ago and have had to take it in for service twice.On the second time, Sony replaced the unit with an STRDE-935 . Guess what, the
new unit has S-video outputs. I highly recommend waiting for the 935. The
front panel has a few new features that make it much easier to use than the 925.
For example, they've added a shuttle control for settings such as eq and sound fields. The unit seems to run cooler also. Way to go Sony!

I have had the 925 for several months now and just want to say that the manual is easiest speaker/component setup I've seen, the remote is XCELLENT and if you have other components with the S-Link feature you are in for a treat. For those who don't know what this is, a small cable plugs from Sony components to the reciever and when you hit PLAY for example on the VCR it automatically switches the TV to channel 3 and the receiver to Video1 all from the remote, then when the tape stops it goes back to TV mode. NICE. The ultimate compliment was having the police show up at my house one day for gun shots being fired in the neighborhood, it turns out that it was just my Dances With Wolves DTS DVD playing so loud. BUY THIS BUY THIS you will love it

I got the 925 for Christmas. Like the other reviews, the unit does get hot, but never shut down and my unit is in a very confined cabinet. Went to Radio Shack and picked up a cooling fan and pluged it into the ac outlet in the back of the reciever. When you turn on the reciever the fan turns on and more over heating problems. I do wish it did have S-video inputs but will survive without them. The overall sound of the reciever is great. The AC-3 and pro-logic worked like a charm and it has a neat remote. The S-Link feature works well with my Sony DSS and DVD player.

wattage to spare, alot of input/ouputs,

no s-video out, remote = battery eater, A.F.D. = good feature but takes to long to define source

I've never had any problems with this reciever. I hooked up my Sony DVP-C600D(5DVD changer) through Optical input and compaired it to the component input and I can say that there is a HUGE differance. My only real complaint is that the remote eats up my batteries real fast and that this unit create alot of heat when left on for a long period of time.

Similar Products Used:

OLD SONY Prologic Reciever.. We are a SONY product family

Reliability, Clean power,

It does get warm, No S video

This unit has worked flawlessly. It gets warm, but it has never failed to work well. I use it to drive 3 Klipsch speakers in the front, and two epi speakers in the rear with a subwoofer. With movies its great. The sound is clear and powerful. Music is good too. I expect that in a direct comparision with a more expensive reciever that has discrete circutry the sony 925 would not sound so good. But, If you don't have the extra $500.00 bucks to get such a reciever, the sony 925 works great. At least mine does!

So, I bought the extended warranty - I suppose that if I didn't I would have had problems! Murphy's law.

I have used the DTS feature. WOW, it makes Dolby AC3 sound like an old transistor radio. Too bad DTS software is so hard to find.

I am now looking to upgrade to a different reciever that has a rating wider than 1khz. Look for the ratings fron 20-20000 at a minimum. In direct comparison, with a Yahama, the 925 shows its weakness due to this weakness. But if you must go cheap = its ok.

Similar Products Used:

Sony ES, McIntosh (old) Sherwood

I am also pleased with this one. Yest it lacks S-VHS jacks (why?????), but for $400 its really overloaded with features. if i had a thousand on a receiver -- i would spend it on a DENON, no doubts. Still, malaysian made sony delivers 110 watts per channel, it feels nice, neighbors are loving it! i am not sure about the remote: do realy need this talk back feature? this one gets almost 5 stars. priceclub used to have this one for about 400.

Well I just bought my STRDE-925 about 6 months ago and I am pleased. First off I like that is has a lot of power(something that is lacking in a lot of budget recievers). I am pretty pleased with it's sound quality but it is somewhat difficult to fine tune the sound because it is all digital and it would be convienient to simply turn up a little nob that says bass or treble. Never the less the factory presets were pretty close to my liking so I didn't have to mess with them too much. One neat little feature is the bass boost. I found for many DVD's this really needs to be off because of the dedicated LFE (low frequency effects) channel on the movies, I simply turned it off. For all other functions like cd, video games, VHS movies, tv, the bass boost is great. As for features this thing is loaded. Dolby Digital and DTS are truly necessities for any modern system (DTS is debatable but it's better to have it then not). The truly universal remote is a cinch to use once you have a little practice. It controls all of my components with ease, and they are all from different manufacturers. The only one that I really have to use my original remote is for the DVD player, since the Sony remote does not use the cursor funcions. Why the do this since there is a cursor on the remote I don't know but hey, 2 remotes are better than 6. Just don't throw out all of your old remotes just yet because the Sony can't handle many of the specialized functions. Also it can't learn any functions that the factory didn't preset in and there are no macros. On the other hand all of these things that I am talking about are qualities of a $300+ remote. The lack of S-Video inputs was kind of a shock to me since there are tons of other inputs and outputs on the back. Three Toslink digital inputs and One Toslink Digital output. Only One Coxail Digital input but almost all digital sources have at least one Toslink output so you shouldn't run out. The system even has an output for a pair of wireless rear speakers(I wouldn't trust these but it is a cool feature). The binding posts for the speakers are top notch and will accept bannanna plugs, however, only the front channels will accept double bannanna plugs which is kind of strange. Judging by the placement on the back pannel it would have been very easy to switch the ordering of these cables to accept these plugs. The only other thing that this reciever is lacking for features is 6-channel outputs on the back to hook up a DVD-audio player when they are available or any other products for the future. Also pre-amp outputs are missing but with 110 watts per channel and at $500 you probably won't find them(or need them)any where. As for sound this thing sounds pretty good. Movies sound great. There are tons of ambience modes to choose from, most of which you will probably never use but it is nice to know that they are there. I found no particularly annoying chestyness or brightness to this system, with the exception of the bass boost on DVD's. Over all the sound is good and is better than what you would expect from a $500 receiver.

If you are looking for a good inbetween system and don't have unlimited funds, the sony is a great buy. It has enough features to handle most of your needs now and into the somewhat near future. There is enough power to push those HUGE speakers and the option to have 2 subwoofers is also nice(just in case you needed more bass). If you do have small speakers, however, don't worry because there is a selection for small or large speakers in the setup process. I do really like this receiver and although Sony isn't truly audiophile quality there are enough cool features to keep everyone happy. (One I particularly liked was the ability to rename all of the components on the reciever to the names of my roommates or anything else you can think of)
In closing I'm sure that you can find a lot of similarly priced receivers out there but I don't think that you will be able to find one that has all of the features of the Sony with out going up into the $1000 price range.

I give the Sony four stars for overall performance and features.

I give the Sony five stars for value.