Great Looks Sounds more than adequate

freezes during certain movies. Remote is terrible.

When I first got this player it worked great. Yes it was slow to load and the remote is basically junk, but the looks made up for it. My biggest gripe is that some movie CD's freeze for a fraction of a second half-way thru the movie. I have two dvd players in the house, I tried it on my toshiba and it worked fine. After about 5 different movies having this problem I sent it in for service. I got it back and it seem to work fine for a month or so, until it started happening again. For example movie "Out of Time" chapter 15, it would freeze every so often thru out the movie. I am so frustrated. I would not suggest this model to anybody, I am surprised that this hasnt happen to other people, maybe I will just send it into service again.

Sleek futuristic look Able to mount speakers high on the wall Great sound Holds five DVDs/CDs Easy on-screen menus

Default "level" settings are too low Sloooooooooooooooow to load and eject Worthless remote Proprietary receiver connectors Glitch in the reverse function

My wife selected and purchased this system for me as a Father's Day gift. Evidently the guys at the store told her that it was the most popular HTIB. I am a car stereo enthusiast but this is my first surround sound system. Overall I am very pleased with the DAV-C770. Of course my wife likes the fact that the speakers look good and don't take up too much space. We have small children and I was able to mount some shelves about 5 feet off the ground for each speaker. I first checked the manual to see if this would be OK, and it was not only acceptable but the receiver also lets you specify whether your speakers are mounted high on the wall (I assume some adjustments to the audio are made for this). The subwoofer is easily hidden in a corner. The sound is excellent and the bass put out by the subwoofer is more than enough for the room. My Family Room is 17 x 20 and movies sound really good on this system. I do feel like the volume maxes out a little low. If I was a bachelor and had no children or wife to complain I would probably want a louder system, but at max volume everyone else in the family is already giving me dirty looks. One tip that I definitely want to mention here: Crank all three (front, rear, sub) "level" settings up to +6. By default, these are all set to 0. This makes a ton of difference. For most movies I have to turn the sub level down to +3 or so, otherwise the sub tends to drown out the satellite speakers. If Sony would have shipped these with higher level settings there may be fewer negative reviews. Most people will never change the default settings and are not getting the most out of their system. The remote leaves much to be desired. It looks like it would light up, but doesn't. If I remember right it is supposed to glow in the dark but mine never has. It is not a universal remote but it will control your television. In order to switch to TV mode, you have to move a tiny switch from "DVD" to "TV" (can you say clunky). I have not programmed the remote to control my TV, but my two year old is constantly moving the little switch to TV mode. The first time this happened I though the batteries were dead and it took me a few minutes to realize what had happened. The print next to the buttons is very tiny and if the room is dark you'll give yourself a headache trying to read it. My system does suffer a glitch in the "fast reverse" function. Occasionally I will push the back button twice and for some reason it goes backwards very slowly. I work around this by pushing play (to get out of the slow-mo) and then back twice again. This happens about every third or fourth time. My biggest gripe with the player is in the loading time. It takes quite a while to eject and load discs, and just as long to read the disc and begin playing it. I have seen some Sony Dream Systems that use a carousel changer and if you have not yet purchase the C770 you may want to consider this option. As much as I change DVDs it would be nice to be able to lay all five DVDs down at once instead of loading them one at a time through the single slot. This annoys me on the weekends when we usually rent three or four movies. I have to baby-sit the player for what seems like an eternity in order to load all of them. The only benefit that I know of to having the one at a time loader is the small size of the player. Another thing I'm not crazy about is there is no way to tell which slot a certain DVD or CD is in. I usually stack the cases up in the same order I load the discs. That way I know which slot the movie I am looking for is in (until the kids knock the cases over). The proprietary connectors on the receiver also annoyed me. I guess this is nice for the people that don't have a clue, but for people that know what they're doing this can be a real pain. I had to splice Sony's connectors onto the wires that I have coming out of my wall. For me, splices in the wires means that I could have problems down the road. Sony should have made these proprietary connectors removable. You can tell that Sony put a lot of thought into the on-screen menus. I found it very easy to set the player up without the manual (I still read it). I only wish that there was room for more text on the screen when playing my MP3 CDs. Most of the time only the artist's name is displayed and the song name gets truncated. All in all this is a good player for the money. The sound is impressive and once I have the discs loaded I get to kick back in my recliner and enjoy without needing to get up and change discs between movies. Laziness is a beautiful thing.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba DVD player with horrible on-screen menus

Size Preformance Features

Sub is only so-so The special speaker wire connectors

I love my dav-770. The player is slow to load, but it can take that since it is in such a small package. I was really happy when I got it home, the guy at the store said it didn't have mp3 or vcd support, which I found out that it did.I live in an apartment with a roughly 15 x 20 room and it sounds awesome. The only thing sound wise I didn't care for was when the sub is driven hard, it starts to sound airy. Like you can hear the air puffing out of the enclosure. I had an infinity bu-1 powered sub laying aorund so I hooked that up and now it sounds great. I haven't had any of the skipping problems yet, and hope not to have. But I did get it on closeout for around 300 bucks so I am quite happy with it.

Similar Products Used:

none

Nice look.I use it for dvd, cd, mp3,no skiping freezing etc..Easy to find neon blue remote at night.Main buttons OK.

Slow disc load, and change.but I can deal with it.Remote has step by step disc change only!(no disc 3 to 5,or 4 to 1 etc...1;you must change all over, 2;walk to main unit )Little buttons a pain hard to memorize and find them.

Monkey can set it up. Works OK, no problems at all. I'm happy with it can't find a reason to buy a new one.

Similar Products Used:

First home sys.

-DTS 5.1, DPLII, and DD 5.1 -Sounds fantastic -Nice and small -Easy to setup -Cool remote despite microscopic buttons -Looks are a definite plus

-Subtitle problems persist on new models. -Loading really is slow -Remote is bad for people with no microscope -Proprietary speaker connections. -No Powered sub out -Skipping on movies and more so on SACDs (and isn't that Sony's own format?)

After hearing Darkside of the Moon was coming out on SACD I found myself seaching for the best inexpensive player out there. I listened to a few systems, but the sharp sound of the little grey speakers and the small size (this is for my bedroom afterall) of this Sony home theatre sold me. I got the box home and was disappointed to find proprietary connections for the speakers. I hadn't been careful enough on the store model when I was looking it over--my bad, but easy to overlook if it sounds so nice. Once it was up and running I threw in my shiny new SACD. The loading mechanism was slow like I had heard; my anticipation almost overtook me as every gear turned and grinded to let me load my disc. Finally I stuck Darkside in and was blown away by the new mix! Every speaker rung out crystal clear with its own part of the music to itself. And then 45 seconds into track two the sound cut out for a mere instant. I figured it was a small anomaly and continued on in musical euphoria. Then a minute later: another skip. Then more. Each skip being just far enough apart to let me slip into peaceful listening and then jar my ears with the sudden stop. Maybe it's my disc I thought. I checked it later in the store's SACD player and had no trouble. Well, I threw in a movie to check the quality. I don't have an HDTV, but my component cables and flat screen Sony still look alright. More skipping. Movies would freeze up just for an instance. Not as often as on audio, but enough. Also, the subtitle problem was still in effect. Every so often spanish readings for signs on screen would pop up. I played a regular CD just for testing and it worked fine. I traded mine for another one like it figuring I had purchased a dud. This next one worked better with SACD, but still would skip on occasion. The video situation also had less skipping but it happened. I took this back the next day and ordered a Pioneer DV655A player with SACD and DVD-A format support, which works great. I wanted to like the Sony, but it didn't make it easy. When it worked, it was great, but I couldn't be comfortable with the problems I kept having. It's a tempting model, but I'd recomend finding something else.

Sounds very sharp. It is supposed to play all the formats I like and has room for 5 disks. Was easy to set up.

My player would not read or play CDs, CD-Rs, or Mp3 disks. Had to return for an exchange.

SONY DAV-C770 Out of the box, it played the SACDs that were in the box as demos and my DVDs fine. Absolutely would not read or play CDs, CD-Rs, or Mp3 disks. Tried many, many new and old CDs (including a brand new CD) and made and remade CD-Rs with one CD that played an Mp3 song for about a minute than quit.

Similar Products Used:

None

Controlability of the speaker location, height, distance, and minimal time alignment(like my Premeer). Support for all disc formatting except for DVD audio, but so what I can already put 200 songs on one disc in MP3. Then of course theres looks and design and the small size and compactness. All my friends forgot about thier systems to come and watch mine now. More beer and pizza because of the extra visits at no cost to me.

Slow loading or changing... WHO CARES??!! How fast does one NEED to load a disc?!?! MY god have some patience people... More beer cans and pizza boxes to clean up due to more visits. Later nights, lack of sleep, peode neighbors.

Just got my system in the 27 of Mar and have so far ran upwards of 50 dics through it(was sick and needed something to do, thank god for the timing) and have yet to have any of the problems others have had. Must purchase after October to get the "non-glitched" one. Once while switching through the dics(without stopping the other one) it kinda siezed on me and I had to turn off the unit and power off/on the main switch and it is fine now. Probably my fault. I am a car audio enthusiast and have upwards of 7 grand in my truck(Premeer, MB Quart and MTX) and although the Sony doesn't sound like my truck it is still very pleasing to listen too in my 17ft x 23ft room. I haven't even hooked up the DTV yet to it, I have been buying too many DVD's to play through it. Yes the buttons are small but I plan to keep the system and I'll have it memorized before long.

Similar Products Used:

None... my first home audio experience. My friends Onkyo, Pioneer, and Panasonic, great systems, but not the feature packedness of the Sony

Large speaker sound, easy operation, great looking design

Only play 2ch. stereo not 4 ch.

Needed something small in size but needed to have larger sound, this unit was both of those. Easy installation and have yet to find any glitches as someone else had mentioned. Great looking unit as well.

Similar Products Used:

Have had many different units, but this is perfect for this specific need.

- SACD, MP3, CD/RW support - 5 disc changer (although a little slow) - 600 watts total power - good looking - progressive scan w/component out

- Subtitle, skipping glitch - Proprietary speaker cables - remote has teeny tiny buttons!!!

Very nice looking and feature rich unit with two serious flaws. This unit caught my eye with its sleek design, easy set-up, Sony Name and features. I like all of it's strengths and features, but have been annoyed with a subtitle and skipping glitch since day one. When you first play a DVD, the player defaults to subtitles on (regardless of you turning them off manually during the intro/previews. That alone would be ok, however the subtitles then RE-APPEAR around chapter 12-16 along with the player skipping (example in the new Lord of the Rings Video, the player skips the entire chapter called "The Passing of the Wood Elves" or something like that. I called Sony and they said that they had never heard of the problem (untrue, do a google search on DAV-c770 and subtitle) and that my solution was to exchange the player at my retail store or send it in for service. Trouble is, the display model at my retailer does the same thing! So I think it is a firmware problem with the player. Since Sony is less than helpful with support, that is the only conclusion I can draw and unfortunately I am going to return the unit and try out the Panasonic SC-DT300.

Similar Products Used:

The was my first home theater in a box purchase.