Just how much A/V receiver can they contrive to give us for $500? The current answer, at least from Sony, is "Lots!" The no-baloney brand's new STR-DG910 hits the pavement with three 1080p HDMI inputs, transcoding of component (and composite) analog video to HDMI, XM sat-radio readiness, automatic speaker setup with a supplied calibration microphone, a Digital Media Port for use with an optional iPod dock or Bluetooth dongle, and seven 100-watt amplifier channels, and a good deal more.
Sony crams all this in at this price, at least in part, by omitting some items we've come to consider pretty much standard on receivers in recent years. For example: Although the Sony STR-DG910 A/V receiver is amply equipped with composite- and component-video inputs and outputs, it has no S-Video connections whatsoever. Surprising at first, on reflection this seems perfectly sensible, since component has pretty much superseded Y/C hookups altogether.
Even more radically, the Sony eschews multichannel analog inputs, which means that some systems wouldn't be able to present multichannel SACD (or DVD-A) recordings at all, given that some current and most earlier players furnish no high-resolution multichannel digital output, and this receiver does not decode SACD's DSD-multichannel stream as do some higher-end models. (Is this tacit admission from Sony that SACD is, practically speaking, moribund — or at the very least, pining for the fjords?) The DG910 further lacks any second-zone capabilities, which however rarely exploited are a receiver staple at this level.
Nonetheless, the STR-DG910 still packs in a lot of good stuff. But "stuff" is only good if the underlying performance is there to back it up, so I was anxious to get the receiver up on my rack and under power.
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Sony STR-DG910 A/V Receiver