SONY STR-DE895/B Hi-Fi A/V Receiver ? Black

Rating:
Summary: After 7 years SONY has lost my business
Review: (Although the product is not exactly the same as my purchase, they are very similar; so take this review at that) I purchased the STR-DE995 7.1 "Home theater" receiver. After less than one year, it deteriorated into an overpriced stereo receiver. For your amusement, I attached the letter I sent to SONY of America's CEO.

Mr. Howard Stringer,

I am writing to inform you that your company has just lost my business. Over the years I have purchased many products from Sony and its subsidiaries, including a SONY Walkman, a Car Discman, 3 stereo receivers, a CD/DVD 5 disc changer, a WEGA TV, a PlayStation and its software, and DVDs and CDs distributed by SONY and its subsidiaries Columbia and Epic.

With the recent purchase of the SONY STR-DE995 receiver, I experienced audio problems 9 months from the date of purchase. The chronology of action taken is outlined below.

In an email, I wrote:
"Audio problem - When Dolby/dts (or any surround format) is selected a rhythmic, chirping noise is sounded through the center and rear speakers (currently have 5.1 setup). The noise is amplified as the volume increases. There is no recognizable noise when the receiver is in stereo
mode (since the surround speakers are not enabled). I've tried the following connections: RCA analog, Digital Coaxial, and Digital optical. The receiver is stored in an entertainment center, and is connected to a SonicBlue ReplayTV DVR and Sony DVP-NC655P (both devices have the same sound output problem). The audio problem began about 2 weeks ago. No devices/cables/wires have been added or removed leading up to the problem. I've had no other problems with this device."

Follow-up email from customer service stated the problem would need to be serviced. My reply:
"The service offered is very unsatisfactory. I treat and have treated all my electronic devices in excellent condition, and this product was purchased less than a year ago (09/26/2003). The recommendation was to have it serviced. Since the closest Sony Service Center is over 2 hours away and the closest authorized center is 45 min away, I'd have to mail it to one of
the centers. Figuring 2 business days to and from the center and about 3-5 days to be serviced (if it can be repaired at all); that would leave me without a receiver for at least 2 weeks. With the many years doing business with Sony, I expect its receiver to be fully operational for many years, not just 9 months. Also, the out of pocket expenses that would be charged at my expense to get the receiver to one of the service centers is not acceptable.

I take a great deal of time researching the best products for the resources I have available to me; when I decide to purchase that product I not only expect the product to be exceptional, but the service as well. Therefore, since the product is under warranty, I want the STR-DE995 replaced with a new one, and I will ship the "problem" receiver to Sony at its expense."


A 2nd follow-up email was sent stating customer service would need to be phoned. When I spoke with a rep this morning, he stated SONY's policy would not be able to honor my request as stated in the above email. When no progress had been made I requested to speak to the manager. He said he was the manager. I reiterated my request to speak to his supervisor. He then transferred me to a rep named Luke. He basically mimicked what the precious rep had told me; insisting policy must be adhered to. I continued the conversation stating, I expect perfection in the products I buy and the service that comes with that product. He replied that SONY equipment is constructed by humans and mistakes will be made. With that said, am I to believe that now and in the future I can expect less than perfect products from SONY? Even if my receiver is serviced, what's to guarantee there will be no other underlying problems? He didn't have the knowledge to answer my questions; instead he repeated the warranty policy. I went on to say, if SONY will not compensate me with a new receiver and pay for shipping costs, it will lose my business and will recommend to my friends and family to do the same. He told me I shouldn't base this decision on emotion, and tried to explain to me how businesses worked. I cut his rhetoric short by restating my position. He offered to fill out a service request. I said, you have lost my business and be sure to pass the message onto your supervisor.

With the end of the conversation, the SONY Car Discman that I've been using at my workplace for the past 6 years went right in the garbage. I will not advertise SONY or any of its subsidiaries. I will not purchase any SONY product and encourage my friends and family to do the same. I will not buy advertising that supports the Spider-Man franchise or Columbia/Tri-Star films, nor those products advertised on Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. Finally, until I have the resources, I will be replacing all my SONY products with non-affiliated brands.

Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A GOOD ENTRY-LEVEL RECEIVER
Review: First of all I want to describe the positive points about this receiver, and then I will point out its weak points. This receiver is extremely easy to hook-up and set-up, although if one is going to use this receiver as the heart of a surround sound home theater system, then there are a lot of parameters that must be set up prior to the first listening. These parameter adjustments may take up to 8 to 10 hours, but they are easy and straight forward, and the manual is very well written to allow a first time user the ability to sort through all of the various features and adjustments with minimal frustration. If one is using this as the heart of a surround sound home theatre system, this receiver does provide ample connections and features to assure forward compatability with various componets and encoding, decoding of digital material. With its fiber optic inputs (which I highly recommend using) and onboard DACs, this receiver provides the flexibility that one needs to control a variety of home theatre products. The best feature of this product is the musicallity of the onboard amplifiers. With low distortion, high power, and quick response times, this receiver is an able bodied amplifier for even the most demanding musical numbers.The only reason why I bought this receiver was for the six channel discreet amplifier section coupled to a six channel analog input option. This feature was neccasary for my set-up as I have a SACD player. It is here that the receiver earns its low rateing of only three stars. The tone controls, which are pretty cheap to begin with, having no loudness compensation circuit, do not even work with a multi-channel input. The tone controls only operate on the front two channels, so any time a person wants to enjoy surround sound, it is relatively flat WITH NO POSSIBLE WAY TO ADJUST THE FREQUENCY. This is a real weakness for a receiver that was intended to be the heart of a surround sound system, but the engineers must have felt that they could save enough money by not including any tone controls that it warrented this obvious lack of crucial adjustment. Every musical piece, and most movie playback, would benifit from the ability for a user to adjust the frequency response slightly, tweek the sound so to speak. I can understand that adding tone controls to a receiver my cost a little bit of money, but the exclusion of tone controls seems to me to be a shame that SONY should rectify ASAP. But it must be remebered that this is an entry level receiver, so I guess one can't be to critical. All in all, if you are in the market for a low-cost, entry level receiver for a home theatre system, consider this model. If you have a little more money, I would highly recommend skipping this model and moving up to a genuine high fidelity receiver.

Rating:
Summary: Great receiver for the price
Review: Love this receiver. Price is way low and it's packed with tons of features. Plenty of power to drive all my speakers. An user here complained about the lack of tone control but I disagree. There are just a lot of settings you can tweek on this machine. You can set your bass/treb levels, speaker sizes, speaker distances, speaker heights, and a few more. Haven't found anything bad about this receiver. I was comparing this with other brands such as Yamaha and Onkyo. They lacked some of the crucial features I was looking for (assignable digital audio inputs, video switching, etc) and the Sony looks great. Definitely recommend.

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT VALUE FOR HD TV
Review: What attracted me to this particular receiver was it's ability to handle Component Video and High Definition TV, in particular. I recently bought an HD-ready TV and have an HD Cable TV Converter as well as a DVD player with Progressive Scan. I needed a new receiver that could handle the switching duties between the various components. The 895 does the job handily. A necessary feature was the 80Mhz pass-thru between the Converter box and the Monitor. (No other A/V receivers in this price range have this high a quality of spec.) This allows ample bandwidth for the High Definition signal to pass thru the receiver and onto the Monitor with no degradation to the signal.
In addition to a dedicated Component Video input for the DVD Player, the receiver boasts a coaxial digital audio input. The Progressive Scan video and CD quality sound that the 895 allows to pass through is extraordinary.
Then there is the 895's 6.1 surround sound.... fantastic! I have a unique situation in that I have 2 CD Players with digital outputs that needed to be hooked up to the receiver. No problem due to the assignable fibre optic digital inputs. You can even re-label how you want the input description to show up on the front panel of the 895. Cool! (So was the color option - I opted for the silver to match my TV ;-) I have been extremely satisfied with this Sony receiver and rate it a solid 5 STARS.