Customer Reviews

Sony STR-DG800 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver with HDMI Passthrough

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This is a follow up to my previous review on Sony STR-DG800 Receiver with HDMI Passthrough. I mentioned that if a HD DVD is plugged in to the DVD HDMI port on the Sony Receiver, there will be no audio coming from the Sony Receiver audio system as all audio and video signals are passed-thru (hense by-passed) directly to the televison. Consequently, you do not have the quality sound from your home entertainment center.

Well I found a work-a-round for this problem but it still require either an Optical Audio Cable or a Coaxial Audio Cable. It is similiar to the SAT/TV solution using the Optical Audio Cable that I memtioned in the previous review.

Coaxial Cable: You can plug a Coaxial Digital Cable coming from your HD-DVD player into the Coaxial Digital input port on the Sony receiver. This coaxial input port will work with the DVD HDMI input port to give you audio through the Sony receiver. Obvioulsy you will have to have a Coaxial Digital output on you HD-DVD Player.

Optical Cable: If your HD-DVD player only has an "Optical Audio Output", then plug the Optical Audio Cable into the "Optical Digital Video 1" port on the Sony receiver. After that, use the Sony Remote Control and follow the "re-assign" insturctions in the Sony Receiver Manual. You will be able "re-assign" the audio input from "Digital Video 1" to the "HDMI DVD" port. It takes patience, but in this way, you can overcome the drawbacks of the "HDMI Passthrough".

So now I do have audio to my home enterment system from both the Satellite HDMI port and the HDMI DVD Port, dispite the fact that these ports are designed to pass-through the audio to the television only.

Is is odd that the nice people at Sony Technical Support could NOT help me with this or any other solution for the problem. But I DO want to thank the fellows at J&R Electronic for brain storming these solutions with me.

Now that I have this work-a-round setup finished, I am raising my rating to four stars for this receiver. As of now, both the video and the audio from this receiver are everything I had hope for. Happy Birthday to me.

Initially I was skeptical that this receiver would be any good given it's price (which was below $250 during Amazon sale). I switched from a Pioneer VSX-816, which I liked a lot, mainly to get HDMI switching at an affordable price. However, I haven't been happy with Sony's sound or build quality in the past, so expected to return it after trying it out. I still have it and like it, with some reservations.

PLUSES:

Low price.

HDMI switching.

Individual input labeling.

Passes HD video (component and HDMI) with no deterioration that I could detect.

Much better sound than I had expected. (I am not an audiophile and use the receiver mostly for watching video sources, not for music.)

Good build quality, given its price.

Very good ability to assign video and audio inputs.

MINUSES:

Auto speaker setup is limited and not as good as Pioneer's.

Confusing menus, especially for assigning audio and video inputs to difference sources, but once you figure it out, it is very flexible.

Needs another component input (it only has two).

Confusing manual (and too small).

Can't attenuate analog sources to even sound levels, or retain last sound level setting for each input.

No on-screen menu! That should be standard on any receiver requiring this much set up. Biggest omission in my opinion.

Upconverts video to component but not to HDMI (not really a surprise, but we can wish can't we.)

In summary, a pleasant surprise and worth a try if you are looking for an affordable receiver with HDMI switching that has decent sound quality.

I like it. Looks good, sounds great, and has all the features needed for a 7.1 home theater system. Last year I bought a Sony STR998 for my living room primarily for music and it has been an outstanding unit with superb sound that I am using in a 4.1 configuration.

The DG800 has the same horsepower at 110 watts per channel and has similar features. It really shines when using the Pro Logic IIx mode with a 7.1 speaker system. I set it up with a Sony HDTV and HD cable box and the sound is excellent and decoded accurately. There is a certain learning curve and complexity in understanding all the features, but my prior experience with the 998 helped with this unit. The manual and remote are okay, but it takes a bit of study for the techno-challenged. I wish things were simpler, but I don't see that as a practical reality for any good home theater unit.

The auto calibration feature is pretty neat and seemingly accurate, but you still have to tweak things to your liking. A good part of the listening experience will be in the quality of the speakers, how they are positioned, room acoustics, and source material.

Lastly, I would have given this 5 stars, but held back because it may be a little challenging to understand all the features at first and I would have liked broader equalizer control and more sound fields. Once set up it, use is very straight forward. All said, I consider it to be a quality unit and have no problems recommending it.

Strengths:

HDMI "pass-through" not as robust as I'd like, but compared to $1,200 Denon receiver, I'm happy to do the work-around!

Weaknesses:

Manual not in logical priority order.

Summary:

I found this receiver when searching for a value-HDMI switching receiver. I didn't want to pay the $800 and up HDMI switching receivers often cost.

The value of HDMI switching is the receiver takes all the input signals and sends one signal out to the tv as a monitor. This allowed me to hook my DVD player and cable box as inputs to the receiver and send both out to the TV via the HDMI cable. That's another value- it upgrades the composite video signals in to HDMI signals out.

The HDMI pass-through forces you to send HDMI out to the television for video, but then you have to send the audio signal from the tv back to the receiver via another digital cable. You'd think that the receiver could send video to the tv and keep the audio signal for itself; not so. I'm told that this is related to the HDMI security "functionality" that may be overcome w/ HDMI three.

I'm one of those people who actually reads the manual to make sure I'm getting everything from my components. When reading the manual, I was a bit confused why it didn't start off w/ basic start-up tips. For example, after setting up based on the quick set-up diagram, I couldn't figure out why no sound was coming out. After reading the manual for a while, I walked up and turned the sound knob up. Presto! How should I know the volume is set to zero out of the box? :-)

The bottom line:

Excellent sound

Easy set-up

HDMI at a value price

This unit makes it easy to hook up your HD DVD and HD DirectTV box to your new HD TV with the use of the HDMI cable to attain the best possible connection between them. The sound is just passed through and you can still feed a digital audio out from the TV or DVD player to the amp for sound. A super reasonable HDMI solution with plenty of power for a 5.1 surround speaker system like the Klipsh Quintet III ( with matching 10 or 12 in. powered SUB) Are their better units out there--sure, but not for under $500 or $600. This unit is the best value for what it does.

This has HDMI Pass through, not HDMI switching. HDMI passthrough sends VIDEO, not SOUND. You dont need component cables, you need an optical cable to run for the sound. SO, yes you need to run 2 wires instead of one, or you can pay triple the money for DENON and get less power as well. This thing is built like a tank and is a complete bargain!

First off, to call a brand-new product, just released, "junk" is just not right. I just got this unit the other day to replace my older Sony AV as I wanted the HDMI for my DVD and the XM option. I had no problems whatsoever with setup or operation. Speaker calibration was flawless, as was the whole setup. One must READ the MANUAL, work carefully, and there usually won't be problems. The only downside is that my Sony VCR won't operate on a HDMI upgrade through the unit but as soon as the new Sony DVD/VCR is released in July I'll be fine. Sure, one could shell out over a grand for a fancier system, but for the money it's fine.

Ignore the negative comments. If you read the manual and play with the settings, it will become clear to the user how to setup and use this system. It has many more audio settings than anyone will probably ever need, but once you flip through and find the settings that fit your speakers, room, and listening preference, you won't need to change your settings after that. Mine is "Multi Stereo" for both music and movies. The remote is nice and completely replaces my DVD remote. It also seems to replace totally my monitor controller. I have all Sony products, so that is quite likely. I especially like the HDMI passthrough feature that allows 2 HD sources to be permanently linked to the HD monitor. If you take the time to understand the receiver features and to set it up correctly, you will give it 5 stars as well.

I purchased this unit as my first A/V receiver. Now I am a fairly savvy guy when it comes to technology. I regularly make Cisco networks sing and dance but this thing dumbfounded me. Please understand that my criticism is not of the unit but my preconceived notions about how this should have worked. It took me several hours of fiddling and resetting and recabling before I finally achieved 5.1 nirvanna. Now I get it but without considerable research about what the manual means a novice may be overwhelmed. Thanks to other reviews on this site I was able to circumnavigate some gotchas so I recommend reading other reviews before installing. Overall this is a solidly built unit with incredible sound and I highly recommend it. Just be patient and read.

Just picked up this receiver from Amazon for $249 in total and finally got done installing it (manual has to be read in order to take full advantage of all features of this receiver). I'll sum up my initial impressions w/ the +s and -s bullets:

+ Great features in low cost receiver.

+ Sound quality is excellent. Pro Logic IIx sounds wonderful for CDs.

+ Movies sound great too. Speaker configuration and component hookup is fairly simple.

+ Support for auto calibration.

+ All in all, great receiver for the money. Can't complain.

+ Remote size is odd (looong), but it works great w/ Sony CD changer and DVD player. I have yet to configure it for TV/Tivo/DVD recorder to see how well it works with any of these. Ultimately, I realize that I will have to go w/ Logitech Harmony 880 or similar universal remote.

- hdmi pass thorugh. I hooked dvd player (Sony DVPNS75H) to receiver through HDMI, but for audio (as complained by others), I have to use Coax cable. Can't figure out sony engineers goofed this one up.

- Auto Calibration. Nice to have, but what is the point of it? I still had to go in menus and manually configuration most of the settings such as speaker size/dist,etc. to get it correct.

- FM reception is poor (even with AM/FM antenna) in comperision to my old Sony receiver. Haven't checked AM reception yet.

- To play TV audio through home theater system, you need Optical audio cable. I use Vizio 46" GV46L LCD HDTV which I will replace soon w/ SONY 46" RP HDV KDF-46E2000.

- No menu configuration on TV. That would have been much more convenient. All have to be done on receiver's LCD.

- No true HDMI support.

+ As mentioned by someone earlier, you still need to run additional cables (s-video,audio,etc.) to control TV (e.g. change channels,etc.) through receiver. It would be great this can be done via HDMI (e.g. video/audio for all connected components such as TV, dvd,etc. can be controled using single HDMI connection).

All in all, it's a great receiver for the value.