Another Sony winner, same Sony story with a twist
Written: Jun 18 '02 (Updated Jun 18 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Lots of bang for the buck, another all-in-one winner
Cons: typical Sony mid-range timidness, inexplicably no CDR / RW
The Bottom Line: Give it 3.5 stars... 4 just because the price is down so low. Dollar for dollar this is a solid system with an unbeatable price. Another Sony Winner.
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| nick1326's Full Review: Sony HT-1300D Theater System |
Sony's mid-level marketed HT-1300D gets the job done and done pretty well... This is the normal story, however before I begin this review, let me begin with my usual disclaimer; Sony products are not intended to compete with audiophile grade, so if you're looking to replace you Marantz or Aragon compenentry please look elsewhere. The HT-1300D takes the mid-line Sony approach a step further, since it is their middle-range system. Unlike their other top-line systems, Sony has once again taken their all-in-one platform but this time they added a nice twist; they offered seperate AVR and DVD units, instead of the typical 1-piece unit Sony used to offer at this price. There are pros and cons, and we'll look at both in this review.
Out of the box the system looks mediocre - Unlike some of the sleeker packages Sony has put together, the 1300 looks a little dated, and the sub-woofer is hardly space efficient. Along the same lines, the seperate AVR (audio video receiver) and DVD are to me a wonderful asset - It is a fact that you cannot cram that same quality componentry from 2 seperate units into one tiny box one third the volume of both units together! (A la DAV-S500) However this may be a negative to some consumers, particularly those on a space-budget. It is for exactly this reason that Sony took this package to market - they now offer two types of mid-line solutions in the same price range: The S500 which is fairly miniscule and hardly obtrusive, and simultaneously they offer this 1300D which offers a notch above in componentry at the cost of more space (and a little less attractive looks).
The system has some decent bark, especially with the (much welcomed) addition of an active subwoofer -- Thanks for waking up Sony! However the satelites leave a little bit to be desired, as especially with musical tracks or music-oriented DVDs, distortion will become quite obvious at the higher volume levels. Nevertheless, considering the type and size room Sony has targeted here, I'd say the distortion levels were more than acceptible, and provided you're not looking to rattle your neighbors' windows, the 1300D will get the job done. As for clarity, once again this is where the sat's demonstrate some more weakness...It's ironic that Sony finally ponied up a nice active subwoofer (despite its size) but decided not to use satelites which could keep up....I guess this is what you get at these prices, after all you do get what you pay for. For that reason I still maintain that this is a great system for the cash, and will give you a bit more bark than something like the S500 for power reasons alone (along with the aforementioned componentry factor).
Home Theatre use
The system IS aimed at the home theatre market, and here is where it shines. As opposed to listening to music tracks, DVD movie tracks tend to hide system weakness nicely by the simply fact that they're not recorded in an audio-dynamic environment and therefore your ears are trained to expect distrotion and noise inherently just by all the movies you've seen in the past over the course of your life. The active sub really does its job here with nice booms and peaks for movie explosions and event etc - this is where you really appreciate the presence of the active sub. The receiver decodes everything smoothly and has a decent selection of listening environments tailored with a nice balance of movie and music listening...Despite the inability to really crank out ground shaking volume levels, the EQ modes compensate nicely for room deficiencies and the like, and provided you keep the volume well under the 'stratospheric' level, the system sounds quite respectable.
Flexiblity
The receiver has plenty of ins and outs - including the essential digital-optical in for surround sound decoding...If you haven't figured it out by now, the opti-dig is the best way to go for surround decoding and thankfully the receiver utilizes it - this would be expected at this point in time, but at these prices, this is where the system really becomes such a good value. One factor that really irritates me however is the inexplicable absence of CDR CDRW decoding ablility! Let's forget MP3 for a second - I know it would be 'nice' but let's not forget the price is way way low here....I can live without MP3s, besides, I much prefer the sound quality of real CD audio. However nowadays too many people have CD burners to NOT build in the ability to play CDRs!!! When I criticized past Sony packages many moons ago for not having CDR it was a valid complaint, but then again, burners weren't nearly as common or cheap. These days burners are everywhere and the only people that haven't heard the term 'burned disc' are probably living in a bubble!!! COME ON SONY - WAKE UP AND GET WITH THE PROGRAM - NO CDR IS UNACCEPTIBLE! I couldn't shut up about it when they built CDR compatibility into the S500 (Finally!!!) Now ironically they've brought a system to market in the same tier as the S500 (except configured with seperate compenentry) and they've omitted one of the best features of the latter!!! Sorry, that is just pain stupid.
All in all Sony is still on to something good here - I particularly like that they decided to split their mid-line offerings into both one-unit and multi-unit configurations (s500 vs 1300d for exmaple) Also consider that at this point in time the 1300D's price has diminished substantially from it's initial 799.00 retail price! Back when it came out, I thought in the 600s was fair just due to the inherently higher quality of circuitry and componentry as opposed to the one-unit package...(Provided of course, you could get past the no CDR factor).... However nowadays retailers are really getting price competitive and you're easily able to pick one of these packages up for under 450.00!!! THAT EQUALS VALUE. Provided you aren't looking to save space, you really can't argue with the 1300D especially at these prices, unless of course you want to spend the additional bucks to go for a better system in Sony's higher-end line. The only stumbling block you'll need to get past is the no-CDR factor, and for some this may be a non-issue. Now selling at virtually half its initial price, it would be impossible for me not to recomend the HT-1300D
Recommended:
Yes
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nick1326
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Location: Long Island, NY
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