Customer Reviews

Sony STR-DA6400ES 120 Watt 7.1 multi-room A/V receiver with internet connectivity (Black)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I purchased this receiver and performed the initial hook-up, I was duly impressed with what Sony has done with speaker calibration with the microphone and OSD. Setup was relatively easy due to having purchased numerous Sony ES receivers in the past. The features on this receiver are enormous and would take a considerable amount of time to work through; fortunately, initial sound quality was excellent--I'm sure tweeking the settings would result in additional gains.

I purchased this Sony STR-DA6400ES (120 wpc) receiver to replace my aging Sony STR-DA7100ES (170 wpc) receiver for my theater room's 7.1 hook-up. I performed the routine hook-up process of this receiver to my speakers and other components. I programmed my remote and fired up the theater system to enjoy "The Eagle"--the receiver went in protector mode and shut down at normal listening levels. I then went through the normal trouble shooting processes to verify if something was incorrectly adjusted, but could find nothing set incorrectly.

All my tower speakers are Infinity Composition Overture 3's and my subwoofers all (4) are Sunfire True EQ subwoofers with 2700 watts per subwoofer. The center channel speaker is also Infinity.

At this stage, I pulled the STR-DA6400ES and hooked up the aging STR-DA7100ES. Then, I loaded "The Eagle", adjusted the speaker volume to normal listening levels, and the receiver played perfectly. I then turned up the receiver's volume to a much higher than accepted listening level, but still no problems with clipping.

At this point, I got on the internet, and started to review what others had said concerning the Sony STR-DA6400ES receiver--the reviews were a mixed lot, some great, some good, some bad. Once this review process was complete, I then started to review the internet for the trade magazines' reviews and the wattage output in 2 channels, 5.1 channel, and 7.1 channels. What I found here completely caught me by surprise.

The Sony STR-DA6400ES when ran in 2 channels, clipped, and went in protector mode @ 160 watts per channel. When ran in 5.1 channels, the Sony STR-DA6400ES, clipped, and went in protector mode @ 64 watts per channel. When ran in 7.1 channels, the Sony STR-DA6400ES, clipped, and went in protector mode @ 45 watts per channel. The last number is what really surprised me. Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer Elite, Onkyo, NAD, and Sunfire had much higher 7.1 channel output.

Several other items of interest concerning the Sony STR-DA6400ES, the remotes provided are a much lower quality than the ones supplied with my previous Sony ES receivers. The shear weight of the Sony STR-DA6400ES compared to my aging Sony STR-DA7100ES, is much lower as would be expected.

Due to what occurred, I purchased a Sunfire Theater Grand Receiver for the theater room--I now do not have to worry about clipping the receiver at normal listening levels; unfortunately, the Sunfire does not have the feature set the Sony contains for decoding sound tracks.

The Sony STR-DA6400ES was boxed up and was given as a gift to my sister. Her theater room hook-up with 5.1 was perfect for this receiver and the sound quaility coming through the speakers was spectacular.

Unless Sony comes out with a much higher rated receiver in wattage, I will have to look else where in the future.

One thing I may do in the future is use a receiver similar to this as a pre amp, using the pre outs on the back of the receiver to hook up an external amplifier which was more wpc and will not clip at normal listening levels when in 7.1 hook-up.

The Auto speaker tuning works great. On screen menu and setup is very well done. One thing they could improve the unit with is Wireless Ethernet, current model required wired internet.

I'm posting this review because I have seen no information on this product. I only have about two days experience with it, and I'm not an audiophile, so your mileage may vary: as such this review will mainly discuss the functionality of the receiver, not the quality. I will update as more information becomes available.

Connected this receiver to a Sony XBR6 52" LCD, model KDL52XBR6, Sony Blu ray player BDP-350, and a Dish Network Vip-722, with a Sony SA-W3000 12" subwoofer and 5 Polk Audio TC-80i speakers tucked neatly behind the drywall, 10' up, aimed towards the couch, in an 8000+ cubic-foot tiled living room (20' x 20' x 20'). I expected a lot of echoing, which I got, and like I said I'm not an audiophile, so I'd best stick to functionality and features, not quality.

One of my functionality concerns was the DLNA feature. The product manual found online mentions nothing about this feature, but the product in fact contains a second manual outlining the features. Prior to connecting the receiver I had installed TVersity on a Windows XP box. The television (which I believe had a DLNA sticker on the box, but no DLNA certificate on DLNA.org) failed to connect with TVersity (claiming TVersity was not a DLNA compliant server - and TVersity claims vice versa, though neither is certified). The 6300 receiver in fact has a DLNA certificate on DLNA.org and happily connected to TVersity. Hmmmm!

So the auto-calibration is totally cool - it happily picked out the distance of all of my speakers, and set the attenuation, and massive-echoing aside, this system totally powered the 8000 cubic foot volume (plus adjacent kitchen, dining room, etc) to my novice ears.

The dish-network receiver connected ok, though I noticed a video/audio mismatch (I think can be corrected via. 6300 setting) and the Blu-ray player connected ok, again an audio/video timing issue, and also a volume problem that was corrected with a setting on the blu-ray player (pass through HDMI audio).

Shoutcast radio stations came through flawlessly, though the UI throughout is painfully slow (what processor is in this beast?)

I noticed the Bravia-Link (aka HDMI-CEC aka AV-link) doing its magic, e.g. the TV turns on when you push the GUI button on the receiver, or if you take the TV remote and point at TV and do volume up it forwards the command to the receiver. Or if you play a Blu-Ray disc it powers up the TV and sets receiver to right channel. I had seen some early reviews saying the Dish Network VIP-722 would interfere with this, but apparently they have fixed it.

Big disappointment is that if the mp3 CD is put in the Blu-Ray player BDP-350 it doesn't work, even though it works on my motorcycle stereo, on my car, on my sister's car, on my colleagues [...] Emerson. Come on Sony, if I spend over [...]
on your top-of-the-line stuff, the CD written by ITunes should work! But that's a gripe on the Blu-Ray player, not the item I'm reviewing! Through DLNA and TVersity, audio files played fine (and they will also play through a USB memory device on TV by the way).

I haven't spent much time with TVersity, will report back and update this as I do.

I am a 56 year old woman and had no problems setting things up.
This is NOT a plug and play item.
I took the time to read the manual to hook up my stuff,
Sony ES CD player, Roku 2 XS, Black Wii machine, Sony ES tape player, Sony ES BD player.
I also used the stereo speaker calibration mic which is GREAT.
I properly named my HDMI items.
I do not know where the 120 watts is coming from as the sticker on mine says 140 watts.
I have had this unit for 6 months and have had NO problems.
I love this unit.

This is a full featured 7.1 Receiver; however, this is the fourth ES system I've owned and it doesn't stand up to the previous versions. The STR-DA9000ES was easier to setup and was equal in features and it is nine years old. I do recommend this receiver; but only to a first time ES buyer.

This receiver has a ton of bells and whistles. More than the average person will ever use. I was very disappointed in the networking capabilities of this receiver. It is supposed to stream music as well as movies. I have not been able to get it to recognize any movies as of yet. As for the music, it takes for ever and is not worth the hassle. Secondly in this day and age and the popularity with Apple, I was very disappointed that the receiver was not compatible with apple. You would think being networked would be as simple as 123. That is not the case with this receiver.