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The sound is amazing but not for the price. The "award winning" GIU is lame and slow. I've put it up on a shelf and am using my old Sony receiver form 1997 because IT STILL WORKS. The XM input broke off the circuit board. Because it is "physical damage" its not covered under warranty, even tho it was never soldered to the board. SONY quality is not what it used to be and they don't care. Save money and headache by buying something other than Sony.
I have my cable box, pc, wii, ps3, xbox, and hd dvd all hooked up to it. It will come up but the scaler has to "turn on" while you make changes, and then turn off to resume direct connection. Sounds confusing but you will see what I mean if you connect it this way. Basically you will see and hear flickering and clicking as the resolution changes from one format top another. You will still get full dolby hd, dts hd, or linear pcm, but your video will be coming through component. For one, you cannot use a hdmi to dvi cable for output.
If you use such a cable to plug into your tv the receiver WILL NOT ouput sound for any Hdmi connected devices, in any way. period.(non hdmi connected devices will still work in video and sound) If you have an old DVI TV you will have to connect the video through the component inputs/ouputs and assign the HDMI connection to component video.(you cannot assign hdmi to any other audio input). I have spent about a week with the 4400es and it is without a doubt a great and versatile product. Furthermore, the second zone option must match your input. If you have resolution set to direct, meaning you are disabling the video upsaler, the gui interface will not work. Furthermore, if you connect hdmi for audio and component for video, the GUI interface will have to scale to 480p to work. Component RCA output from the 2nd zone must match a Component RCA input.
good. It all sounds and looks great.There are however some limitations you must be aware about. You can avoid all this if you just set GUI interface to OFF, and there will be no issues with the scaler kicking in on and off.Last but not least, the second zone hd connections offer no scaling or digital options. Got it. (if you have an hdtv with hdmi you dont even have to worry about this)Also there are some limitations with the GUI interface with component video. Make sure whatever you are sending the signals to can actually accept them. No mix and match with any other connections.hope this info helps future buyers out there.
I have a powered sub and the lack of the AC outlet requires me to manually turn the sub on. Almost every audio option is supported (Logic 7 would be nice but Lexicon/Harmon Karden keep that one on a tight leash). I bought this receiver because it covers all the bases. Oh and the calibration mic claims that my speakers are not in phase when I know for a fact that they are. The GUI is very PS3 like which is okay with me however I find that it's integration with the remote to be less than desirable. The biggest disappointment is the lack of a switched AC outlet. I use a PS3 for blue-ray and it works well with the receiver but I can't get the multichannel audio programs to work when I stream the audio using the PS3 from my PC. I think that this is a limitation of the PS3.
The manuals are available on the Sony web page under support.This can convert component/composite into 1080P HDMI, but it can't convert any HDMI video into component or composite. there are some limitiations of want video and audio sources can be configured, but I was able to do everything combination I needed.I couldn't find anyway to tell if Deep Color was actually passing through the receiver other then watching the change in the picture. It supports two channel audio out the HDMI port but will not pass DD, DTS etc. I also was not able to upscale 1080i to 1080P. Many you could live with only component inputs, but TrueHD and DTS Master Audio require HDMI input require HDMI inputs. It worked okay for the satalite receiver, but I had to connent both HDMI and component video inputs to get it to work for both zones.
Unfortunately, the Sony DB is a pain to switch between HDMI output and component and it can't do both at the same time. So it is a real pain that zone 2 only supports component output with the receiver and you have to connect all your components twice to really use both zones. There is not another brand on the market that can do what this one can, but it still has a lot of limitations and notes on every page of the manual. You can use the preouts to connect the TV as center channel, but it you are spending this much you should really invest in a quality center channel speaker.The mircophone supplied for automatic speaker calibration is not very good. From the different options available (DB, DVD, CD,.). It says you have to use direct video for Deep Color, so some configuration can actually loose deep color from the signal. It said my speakers were out of phase when they were not.
It can't upscale to deep color, connecting the Wii with the component input looks great in 1080P though. I was using Zone 2 component output for my old HDTV and HDMI for the new one. If you turn this functin on though, you only get 2 channel audio from the receiver speakers too. If you want to utilize deep color and 1080P from the DB, you have to use an HDMI input too. It is pretty awsome with allowing different video and audio sources being configured to work together. So, you can't really use the TV speakers via the HDMI input, but you can connect separate analog audio cables to do it. The stereo microphone with the STR-DA5400ES worked much better.Control for HDMI may not work if you have a cheap HDMI cable like I started with.
Only down side is with my PS3 it only does LPCM and the reciver will not display the new formats name on the screen. All I have to say is I owned a denon befor this and it is way better. Not the receivers fault if you want to display DD HD audio and DTS master audio on the screen you have to use a standalone BD Player but thats only if you really need to see the audio in bitstream. It has 6 HDMI ports and I can view the Receiver interface from my tv in HD. not all receivers can do that at least not older ones the price is a little high but amazon and other online stores have it at a much lower price. Not a big problem because LPCM is just the same. Maybe they will update the PS3 firmware so it can do HIGHDEF audio in bitstream.
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