Great Receiver but one Important thing to be aware of…, September 7, 2009

I know just enough about Audio to be dangerous but I’m not a true audiophile (or whatever they’re called). So I don’t know how an average person would figure this out when it took me an hour and a half on the phone with Sony support before THEY figured it out.

Now this is my second Sony receiver and I purchased this one specifically to go along with my brand new Sony BDP-S360 Blu Ray player. I used brand new HDMI category 2 cables into the receiver and then out to my Sony HDTV. This is suppossed to be the BEST way to get true no-loss sound decoding and picture. Well I was shocked when my receiver was NOT decoding DTS audio. All Dolby Digital tracks were playing in perfect 5.1 surround sound…the DTS tracks played back in Linear PCM stereo. So after I read the manuals, updated the firmware and set everything right then trying a few DVDs and Blu Ray discs I contacted Sony Support via email. Several exchanges later they asked me to call in to better troubleshoot my issue…

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Nice but no upconversion…, July 13, 2009

Don’t be fooled by the manual or by descriptions on other AV retailer websites… This model does NOT include analog->digital upconversion. If you have a mixture of new and older devices this will not allow you to use a single HDMI cable to your display. It provides input switching, but if you provide a composite or component video input, then you must use the corresponding output to view that source. Only HDMI inputs are routed to the HDMI output. The manual suggests that you do not need to connect all of the outputs. In a sense I suppose that is true, but but only if you don’t connect to all of the various types of inputs!

As long as you understand the specs, this seems like a nice receiver.

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Great sound but you need to make changes if you have a PS3, October 30, 2009

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Michael J. Scott (Tallahassee, Florida) – See all my reviews

  

I set up my new receiver yesterday, and it took over an hour, given Sony’s propensity for screw-in type speaker connections. The first surprise was not being able to control the PS3 and my Satellite DVR with the remote’s control buttons. I had to use their HDMI locations, i.e. HDMI 4 for the Satellite and HDMI 3 for the PS3. Keep in mind that the BEST sound is reproduced through the HDMI 3 location, so ignore the picture in the manual that has you putting your BD at HDMI 1. If you read the manual fine print you will see that they tell you to use HDMI 3 connection for the best sound reproduction.

It is a given that Sony’s product manuals are written by persons from other planets so you just have to stumble through when it comes to issues such as the PS3 BD Player putting out EVERYTHING in Linear PCM, including THX, DTS HD and etc. I did everything I could think of to change that. I confirmed the HDMI control was set to ON in both the 800 and the PS3, I confirmed…

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