Good receiver with a few minor shortcomings
Written: Oct 23 '01
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Pros: many sound fields, plenty of inputs, DTS, optical in and out
Cons: not enough s-video inputs, remote hard to use, hard to program without manual
The Bottom Line: A good receiver with decent audio performance, lots of inputs and outputs and high quality connectors such as binding posts and S-Video.
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| vidfreaky's Full Review: Sony STR-DB840 Receiver |
Sony does make some quality equipment. This receiver is quality equipment.
It has 5 video inputs, 4 of them with S-video. Why they wouldn't include s-video with the video 2 input I don't know, but they don't. It has 3 audio inputs, which is a little low in my opinion, especially if you have many different audio formats that you like to use(vinyl, cassette, cd, minidisc). I have all of these formats, and I had to shelve one of them. It wasn't a hard decision to shelve the cassette player, but it would have been nice if I didn't have to.
All 5 of the speaker outputs are binding posts instead of spring loaded clips, which is nice because I can use banana plugs on all of my speakers now, not just the front mains. It has 3 optical inputs and one output. Again, I would like to have seen more of these, but 3 should be enough for the average user.
The video throughput was quite good. The picture looked about the same when run through the receiver as it did when run directly to the TV. Some receivers have problems with the power interfering with the video signal, but this one didn't seem to. The picture was crisp and clear, with very little color bleed.
The real reason people buy a receiver of course is for the audio. This amp performs pretty well in that department as well. I like to use Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to test all my gear, and I did so here. The sound distorted a bit at the top end of the scale. Not to a huge amount, but enough so a regular person would definately notice it. The bottom end was a little strange as well. There was very little low volume adjustment possible. It seemed to go from off to 1.5 on the volume knob, without much in between. This is something I've noticed on almost all amps that I've owned, but is not a problem on higher end Integra and Adcom amps/receivers. The mid range of the volume knob though was very good quality with no distortion and overall, I'm quite happy with it's audio performance.
The receiver has sound fields galore, around 30 if I counted right. While this does not appeal to me, it will to some people. Various soundfields like Hall, Stadium, Club, Small Room(I don't understand this one though, because isn't your system likely to be setup in a small room anyway?), church and various others sound fine, but I prefer to listen to my music and movies the way the engineer mixed them. It has both Dolby Digital and DTS decoding onboard and both sound just fine to my ear. I prefer DTS whenever possible so I was happy that this receiver had that option.
The remote is a complete atrocity as far as I'm concerned. It looks cool at first, with the lcd display at the top, but unfortunately you have to navigate a menu to do even the simplest of tasks, like changing inputs. Heaven forbid you may want to play with the e.q. a bit. You're going to be navigating menu for longer than it will take you to tweak the sound. Do not buy this receiver for the remote. I'd recommend buying a programable remote like the Sony RM-AV2100 and leaving the receiver's remote in the box it came in.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 500
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Epinions.com ID:
vidfreaky
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Reviews written: 5
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