Gadgetory

hey I'm Matthew Muscovy AK from C net and we're gonna take a look at the Sony STR DN 1030 this is a 7.2 AV receiver and it's selling for five hundred dollars from the front this looks like a pretty standard AV receiver it's not quite as sleek looking as Denon and Moranis models and the front panel has a few more buttons and knobs that are really needed the remote is also kind of a mess with too many buttons and many of those buttons have multiple functions activated by a shift key it's all confusing and really unnecessary especially compared to Denon's much simpler remote that gets the job done just as well flip around to the back and you'll see what makes the STR DN 1030 really stand out you almost never see in antennae on the back of a receiver but the sony has one because it has built-in Wi-Fi and built-in Bluetooth that's not something you're gonna find on any other receiver in this price range although Akio at least offers an inexpensive dongle to add Wi-Fi functionality there's also an Ethernet port on the back and all these networking features allow the Sony to support a variety of features including built-in airplay DLNA Pandora Slacker and Sony Music Unlimited airplay works great but the rest of the services are a little hamstrung by Sony's really basic user interface that's cramped in the center of the screen and only offers a few lines of text luckily you usually won't see the user interface on a receiver that frequently especially if you're going to use your phone or tablet to listen to music through airplay or bluetooth but it's still disappointing that it looks so out of date the rest of the back panel is adequate but not quite as good as some competing receivers there are five HDMI inputs three digital audio inputs plus quite a few analog ports for your older gear that should be enough to cover most home theaters although you can get a lot more flexibility from ochio's TX and our six one six which offers eight HDMI inputs for just four hundred and ten dollars we had seen its resident golden ear steve guttenberg take a listen to the sony and he found sound quality to be surprisingly good especially since sony has been lagging in previous years it sounded great with dynamic action scenes from movies and also really natural with music from both blue Ray's and CDs we had it compared directly to last year sound quality champ the Denon AVR 1912 and the two receivers were pretty much neck and neck so altogether the sony is really an excellent value at $500 especially since it's the only model with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on Chios txn are 616 is a slightly better value overall but the sony is a very close second and it's also a sleeker option since so much of his functionality is built into the receiver I'm Matthew Muscovy ak and this is the Sony STR DN 1030