Customer Reviews

Sony STR-DE897 Audio / Video Receiver, Black

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

 

 

I recently replaced my JVC surround receiver with this one. I love it, now I have all the inputs I need for VCR, DVD, Sattelite, Etc.. It also lets me connect composit video devices and send them to my monitor through the s-video jack. With my JVC receiver I could never get a good balance between my surround speakers and my center and front speakers. With the new receiver it sounds great. The only problem is now I'm tempted to add side surrounds to get 7.1 surround.

This receiver was a massive upgrade from the Magnavox I had for 10 years. Sounds decent, lots of inputs, I felt the setup was easy. The remote is tedious to operate and program indeed. The receiver is not even a year old and the pre-channel for the front right side blew and was sending distortion for both A and B speaker sets. One thing that annoyed me was that there was no Optical input for DVD audio. Only SA-CD, MD/Tape and Digital Satellite had optical inputs. The opticals are assignable but only assignable within the inputs listed above. Can't assign to DVD input...

This unit looks nice and the sound is very good. Setup is not easy at all. The manual is terrible, and the user interface is very poor. For example, you cannot search for radio stations from the remote; you must enter the frequency or use the main unit dials. The remote is very poorly designed in general.

I expected better from Sony but this unit only accepts 8 ohm speakers. It was not listed as so and there is a 60HZ ac hum which shows poor filterig. Other features are fine but falls short in quality sound.

It has great sound and it's very reliable. Has served me well, the manual can use quite a bit of work and the learning curve is a little steep but quite worth it.

Yes the remote is difficult to use for things other than the most basic functions. But, once you get the receiver hooked up, select the modes and sound fields you like, and enter your local radio stations, it's just fine.

For such a great price, how can you go wrong? I have my unit hooked up in Dolby 6.1 mode with DCM front speakers, and BOSE center channel, surround and subwoofer. Put in a DTS encoded movie and you living room is transformed into the theatre. Nothing really can match the excellence in sound quality from this reciever. At 100 watts per channel, everything is crisp. And what a difference from my former Dolby Surround system! Low frequency effects to the subwoofer are great. When I recently watched "Saving Private Ryan" it was as if I was really in the landing craft at Omaha Beach. Amazing.

Needed a special digital audio coaxial cable to route the audio signal from the DVD player to the receiver. There is a way to send a digital optical signal to the receiver, but no input for this when input is set to DVD. Must route this cable to Video 1, 2 or TV input. (a minor gripe)

The reciever has a blue indicating light that shows you when input signal is Dolby Digital--nice feature.

Money well spent. Took only five days to reach me in Hawaii after I placed my order--free shipping, too.

My best friend has this receiver and every time we're at his house watching a movie I can barely keep from cringing during any musical peaks, this receiver is so unpleasant.

For the same or just a tiny bit more you would be much better off getting an Onkyo or best of all, Harman Kardon receiver. In fact if you go to eBay you can buy refurb HK receivers direct from them with full original warranty and for the price of this Sony POS you can get an HK AVR-135 or 235 which would blow this out of the water.

About the only thing Sony still makes well nowadays is their TVs, with everything else they're just cashing in on their huge brand name recognition. Visit any audio newsgroup/forum like ecoustics dot com, avsforum dot com or home theater forum dot com and you'll get much better suggestions.

Edited to add: now that Panasonic has released the two hundred thirty dollar SA-XR55 pure-digital receiver, that's what I'd strongly recommend over ANY receiver under $2000. The only caveat is that you must have decent speakers that are not overly bright and that can put out quality midrange otherwise all the extra high frequency detail the Panny brings out may be overwhelming.

This reciever is great but the remote is awful. ABSOLUTELY AWFUL.
The Jump button (used for jumping back and forth between 2 channels) never worked.
It often just stops working, remedied by either re-selecting your video mode or turning off and on again the receiver
Burns through batteries
Have to hit "Alt" before you can input a channel number because for some reason the primary function of the buttons for channel numbers is not for inputing your channel numbers. "Alt" doesn't stay on long so a minute later if you want to change channels you have to hit "Alt" again (sometimes 2 or 3 times before it's activated).
The manual is very poor, as well.
I find it really incredible that such a great reciever would ship with such an awful remote that is so bad I'm looking online now for a 3rd party remote to buy so I can use this receiver!
Because of only the remote, I would not recommend buying this receiver.

My main issue so far is programming in other components. I have a combination VCR/DVD. There are no codes provided for this, and Sony provides only the helpful suggestion, just try some other combinations if the few codes we provide don't work. That's nice...but 900 plus codes with a remote that you try to get into program mode and it takes 4 to 5 attempts just to get it to accept a code.....horrible. And Sony support in this matter....nonexistant.

This is really more of a criticism of Amazon's deplorable customer service than anything to do with this product. I orded the product, they charged my credit card, and then the package for whatever reason was never shipped. Three weeks later they said my address (at which I receive all my mail and UPS shipments) was incorrect and credited my account. I tried to explain to them that the problem was not my address. They offered to let me re-order. Some deal. I would suggest you find a legitimate supplier of this product and have it sent directly. Do not deal through Amazon.