Just Amazing...
Written: Jan 01 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: All-in-one system with a little size, DTS and a great price
Cons: Lack of input/outputs.
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| joan.coll's Full Review: Sony DAV-S300 |
A month ago, when I begun to look some home theater packages, I started looking at some big systems like Onkyo, Pioneer and Yamaha, all composed by the DVD reader, the AV receiver and the kit of high speakers. I asked for some demos of this devices, and I was very impressed by them.
One day I discovered this little wonder, the Sony DAV-S300, with an all-in-one solution packed in a small silver box. My first reaction was bad, so I thought that this was not a serious device. "This litle box cannot produce a good quality sound as the other systems I had seen before" I said. Then, I asked for the price. Here in Spain (Europe) it costs about 800$ (yes, my friends, here we don't have as good prices as you have in the USA), but it was a good start point, so the other biggest systems here costs around 1000$.
Next, I revised all the technical documentation and I was very impressed to discover that it already includes the DTS decoder, so there are other more expensive systems that only have dolby surround and dolby digital. The speakers are litle, but they belong to the Pascal family from Sony, so it means good sound quality.
The DAV-S300 also include an AM-FM radio tuner, and it can also play music CDs. Not CD-R's according the documentation. It has a lot of built-in sound modes, so you are able to create virtual sound environments and assign them to the diferent audio sources the device can process to improve the final sound sensation. The only negative thing I seen was the speakers power, so they only have 30 watts each, and the subwoofer is pasive and it's only 30 watts too, so I was a bit worried about it. But all of this was only theory, so I decided to test it in the real life and started a search on my city until I found a vendor who has a DAV-S300 with all the set mounted on their shop, and I asked for a demo.
Believe, guys, the acustic environment of the shop was not in the state of the art, but the sound produced by this litle marvel is fantastic. Even the theorically limited 30 watts, it sounds very well. Here in Europe most of us live in blocks with one or two neighbors on every floor and we never can put the volume to the max without starting a war with the neighbors. The subwoofer performs very well too, and if you have a larger room (or a house without neighbors) you can attach an active subwoofer, so the DAV-S300 has a connector for it.
Of course, I bought the DAV-S300 and in a couple of hours it was mounted on home. I tested it for the first time with the DVD of Matrix, putting the volume just until 50%, and it was amazing. I'm still impressed.
I checked it with some audio CDs and I can see that it is very good as Cd reader. And, surprise, I checked with some CDRs and I can see that someone is detected and played but it doesn't detect the others. This is not a serious problem if you don't have a big collection of CDR's.
The device hasn't a lot of inputs and outputs, but they was all I need to attach the video and the TV cable decoder.
I believe that this device is excellent for all average users and for all average rooms, and in cases as mine, it is perfect and enough to take the first steps in the home theater world and I recommend it for all of you. Of course, if you're a high-tech pro and you have a very large room, then perhaps you will need a more complex solution, as the Onkyo or Yamaha ones, with more inputs-outputs and more watts.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
joan.coll
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Member: joan coll
Reviews written: 1
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