Okay Sony, where’s the catch?
Written: Sep 28 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Picture; sound; SACD replay; speakers size; DVD performance.
Cons: No Scart out; Sound is less great with CDs.
The Bottom Line: The S500 has all the credentials small home cinema requires.
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| MichaelHatton's Full Review: Sony DAV-S500 Theater System |
Product Overview
Brimming on the edge of your seat while you’re dazzled by high-sounding special effects, isn’t commonly associated with these all in one systems. In late ‘99, Pioneer came about with the concept. Later the other brands followed suite, including Sony, Panasonic and Hitachi later. Sony brought us the Sony DAV-S300, including DVD-player, amplifier, and six speakers for around £600. This was the original concept for all-in one systems. They are all in about the same category, and it wouldn’t be long before the other brands brought their effort, Samsung, Bush (UK brand – poop) and JVC also had a good go at it. Each brand brought out their efforts with a number of sacrifices in their carte du jour. And Sony’s system was becoming indistinct.
So one whole year later they have come about with two systems the DAV-S500 and DAV-S800. The first comes at £600, and the latter around the 800 to 900 mark. The first system on review here, is one which probably has one of the most unpopular but very exciting technology in its feature list. I’ll leave that till later.
Firstly it is exactly the same as the S300, except for one major inclusion. It will play DVD-Vs, CDs, VCDs, and even the illusive CD-R and CD-RW formats. It also includes an RDS tuner, Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, a six channel amplifier and six speakers. The six speakers are five satellites and a subwoofer. The whole package is neatly finished in platinum silver. The main unit has a glass or Perspex cover over the single DVD transport tray, and over the LED display. It has a small volume controller to the right, and a number of common buttons accompanying them. It is the smaller in size to a standard DVD player. The satellites are cube sizes in around 10cm. The subwoofer stands about 39cm tall and 20cm wide. The subwoofer is finished in the same silver and has a base that deflects the sound for dispersion.
The remote – leaning away from traditional Sony style – is finished in transparent green with pure white buttons and black text. The lower base of the remote is bright silver – very stylish and very usable. The whole system follows the green tint found on the remote. You’re given about all the cable you could ever need, about 15m for the rear, and 5m for the front, which is very nice. The cables all fit into special colour coded sockets, same found on the S300.
The rear panel of the S500 is laden with sockets. The antenna input for the tuner, an optical digital in and output. An S-Video socket but no component and no Scart output. There isn’t much to learn during set up, simply plug the appropriate connection to the TV and the speakers and away you go.
What the Sony has for its special feature is the ability to play – SACDs. This SACD is Super Audio CD developed mostly by Sony to improve CDs sound and to have it in multichannel sound too. Now, a standard SACD player costs in excess of £300 alone. And you get one, plus DVD player, plus speakers plus amplifier, plus radio, come on where’s the con?
Well I’m happy to say there are no cons to this system. It might be acceptable to state there are sound sacrifices, but there aren’t. It sounds remarkably able to produce big cinema sounds, despite its tiny components. Now, I knew it’d never beat the Denon DVD-2800’s picture quality, but it is quite impressive to what it can do. Certainly CD playback and DVD playback fall short of the Marantz DV3100 at £300. But what it does most definitely beats the Toshiba SD210E in many ways. During routine tests, playing the obvious Saving Private Ryan and Vertical Limit for picture, it works tremendously well.
It would never beat a separate system, but then such a system would come in at around £1000. The surge of energy and basically the initial impact during the beach scene are quite almighty. The raw power of blast and explosions come through with equal aplomb. The rear panning is stable, and offers enough mix of separation and integration. The centre speaker seems able but never provoked. The bass comes forthright, but never coloured. It appears as a separated mix of effects and sheer energy. Vocals and effects are separated well, and never seem to be under controlled. Volume levels are often not exceedingly high, but respectable for the size of the speaker. The picture quality remains on par with the Toshiba SD210E, colours are neat and tidy, and not overpowering. Detail remains talented, and overall contrast remains controlled and focused. The overall impression leads to believe it is a £300 DVD player with a £300 receiver and £300 speakers system.
What comes next; music. I inserted my new favourite album Muse Origin Of Symmetry, and was impressed but not stunned. It came through with just a tad too much bass, although the disc is laden with too much of that anyway. However, treble is a little fazed, especially at high volumes, where it becomes a tad bright and confused. But cymbal crashes seemed crisp and focus. I then had to come to the SACD part, which I have yet to actually test, still no SACDs in town yet. But if it does as good as it can with DVD surround sound, then I’m sure it will do wonders for big fans.
Operation and functionality are very decent, the menus are clear and easy to navigate, and however they are a little sluggish. It offers a number of Sony founded sound features, like the DCS or Digital Cinema Sound that offers a number of sound settings for different environments.
All-in-all, you’ll need to consider whether you want SACD or not, the elder brother, the S300 is a cheaper system – although not sounding as good. However this system is the same price as the S300 was on its release. It also includes better features and specification than that too. SACD might not be released fully world wide in the next few weeks, but when it does, the S500 will be able to play them. It’s hard to comprehend where Sony have cut the costs at, it has the right list of features, speakers which are bigger and more complex than before, a subwoofer which has a special chassis and driver, and it all looks and feels superb. If you don’t want huge boxes clogging up shelves and huge speakers around the room, the Sony is all you’ll ever desire.
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Features Review
Details
--Model, Make: DAV-S500, Sony
--Price Range: £550-£650
--Type All-in-one home cinema
--Tuner: 20 presets on FM, 10 presets on AM, RDS.
--Dolby Digital: Yes
--DTS: Yes
--CD-R/CD-RW?: CD-R & CD-RW
--Coaxial in/out | Optical In/Out?: No | Optical In/Out
--S-Video: In/Out
--Colour: Silver platinum
--Weight: 6.3kg Sub | 850g Satellites | est. 10Kg main unit
--Accessories Included: Cables, remote, batteries
--Colour Systems: PAL (UK) Region 2 DVDs
--Rear Terminals: Composite in, audio in, S-Video in | Composite out, S-video out Audio out | Digital optical in/out
--Front Terminals: Headphone socket
--Sound System: Amplifier: 40w x 5 into 6ohm @1kHz 10% THD | Subwoofer 80w 10% THD @ 100Hz into 6 ohm
--Warranty: 1st Year Manufacturer’s Guarantee Sony.
--Special Features Notes: [ SACD play Stereo & Multichannel | Can also decode Dolby Pro Logic | DCS has three presets: A, B, & C. | Satellites are two way including 7cm woofer and are quoted as 100mm x 100mm x 110mm | Subwoofer is passive including 7” (17.5cm) woofer downward firing | 10bit DAC | Main unit’s dimensions are 355 x 70 x 370mm ]
Performance Review
--15% Facilities: 5/5 ●●●●●
--10% Installation: 5/5 ●●●●●
--10% Ease of Use: 5/5 ●●●●●
--10% Manual Readability: 5/5 ●●●●●
--15% Build Quality: 5/5 ●●●●●
--15% Sound Quality: 4.5/5 ●●●●○
--25% Picture Quality: 5/5 ●●●●●
[Percentage = Importance]
Summary
Facilities, installation and ease of use are exceptional hanks to a handy leaflet to setting up the system, which takes around five minutes. The manual states how the remote can be used with multiple sources which use the DIRECTV system so you can commence a CD player or DVD player which are other brands from this remote and are set when the amplifier input is selected. Build quality is excellent, the remote feels like a glass sheet, and the unit and speakers –however light they are – are solid and robust.
Sound is very good, only let down slightly in the treble with music. It is rated at 10kHz so it doesn’t do terrible well in that area. In movies it is much better, SACD play are undetermined as yet. Picture is very respectable, as is the whole units performance. It works best with movies, and only good with CDs (hence the 4.5/5).
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Score Mark-Up
--50% Features Review: 4.92/5.00 ●●●●●
--50% Product Overview: 5/5 ●●●●●
Overall:
4.96/5.00 ●●●●●
Highly Recommended▄
Recommended:
Yes
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MichaelHatton
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Location: Darlington, England
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