New Sony ES 8K AV Receiver Line STR-AZ7000ES STR-AZ5000ES STR-AZ3000ES STR-AZ1000ES

[The Guy who cares]

I wonder how the new Sony Receivers sound with Native Multichannel, Room Correction Off. I find some Receivers sound better in Native, especially for Music.

 

[The Guy who cares]

Here is more from the manual

 

[valerianf]

Did somebody see if there is a center spread capability when using Dolby Surround or an equivalent mode with a stereo input?
My old Dolby Pro Logic is able to do it0

 

[mattsrs]

I received my 2nd unit yesterday morning and spent the whole day with it. Good news is that it looks like my first one was definitely a dud because setup on this one went smooth and without any warning. It didn't even throw that center channel warning. Whats still odd is that first time you turn on the unit, its front display shows "Please wait..." and nothing on TV and after 2-3 mins it turns itself off without any further communication. When you turn it on, TV shows "Game" and thats it showing it is in game input. From there you have to go to menus and click on easy set up to do calibration. They could improve this and show a proper first time setup wizard process.

I watched 5-6 movie scenes that I know and played Call of Duty extensively and also listened to a few tracks that I have in my music playlist to test my systems then swapped back to 4800h (while my audio memory was fresh) and tried the same things. Overall, this is a solid unit and you'd love it if you don't compare with something else. Here are my impressions:

• 360SSM definitely fills the room better and give you a bit more sense of immersion in movies. I also think I never heard this much from my overhead Atmos speakers so 360SSM definitely uses them more than before. However, when I toggled it on/off, I definitely noticed quality of audio changing. I think because they do tons of digital processing for 360SSM, it impacts the quality. Also noticed when there's a moment of silence or in transition from Netflix title to start of a scene, there's a hissing type of noise coming out of speaker. It wasn't just hissing and it had some more random artifacts in it which went away when I turned off 360SSM. I suspect those are side effects of additional processing for 360SSM. Not a deal breaker but something that is annoying once you notice it. When I went back to 4800h and watched the same scenes and listened to the same tracks, I didn't feel I am missing the spatial stuff and the improved quality of audio (in terms of detail and overall fidelity) was noticeable.
  
  
• For music, the Sony definitely sounds more "musical" in stereo mode and if I had to choose one for just music, I would go with the Sony
  
  
• Overall audio coming out of this is more bright as compared to my Denon and RZ50
  
  
• Bass management on this unit is not good at all. For reference, I have Rythmik E15HP2 sub (the 1000w version). After the initial calibration, I had boomy bass but then turns out it had detected my LCR as large so went there and changed crossover for all of them. After that no boominess but bass was missing from everything I listened to. By missing I mean as an example noticing the difference in male voice compared to my 4800h. Or the opening scene of 6 Underground sounded so soft compared to how it should.
  
  
• As far as room calibration and how it compares to my 4800h, unfortunately my buddy borrowed my umik-1 so I couldn't do REW but my subjective opinion is that it didn't sound as natural as my Denon to my ears in back to back listening
  
  
• The unit gets warm but less than Denon but nowhere as cool as RZ50

Hope this helps guys. Overall, given things I mentioned above and the fact that we'll get Dirac for Denon in a few weeks which will improve it even further, I am going to send the Sony back as the only advantage is the Spatial stuff but it comes with downsides that are not worth it for me.

 

[RWetmore]

mattsrs,

Thanks for the report, and I'm glad to hear your second unit seems to be better. But you really should spend at least a few days with it, if not a week or more, before giving a final evaluation.

 

[RWetmore]

mattsrs,

"For music, the Sony definitely sounds more "musical" in stereo mode and if I had to choose one for just music, I would go with the Sony"

Do you mean in 2 channel pure direct mode? But this is consistent with my experience, as I mentioned in this thread, that the Sony ES receiver amps are the most satisfying for music. But like I said, the amp's sound gets better with capacitor break-in.

 

[mattsrs]

mattsrs,

"For music, the Sony definitely sounds more "musical" in stereo mode and if I had to choose one for just music, I would go with the Sony"

Do you mean in 2 channel pure direct mode? But this is consistent with my experience, as I mentioned in this thread, that the Sony ES receiver amps are the most satisfying for music. But like I said, the amp's sound gets better with capacitor break-in.

This comment was for regular stereo mode not Pure Direct. IMHO it sounded better in stereo mode than Pure Direct

 

[Deividas]

I received my 2nd unit yesterday morning and spent the whole day with it. Good news is that it looks like my first one was definitely a dud because setup on this one went smooth and without any warning. It didn't even throw that center channel warning. Whats still odd is that first time you turn on the unit, its front display shows "Please wait..." and nothing on TV and after 2-3 mins it turns itself off without any further communication. When you turn it on, TV shows "Game" and thats it showing it is in game input. From there you have to go to menus and click on easy set up to do calibration. They could improve this and show a proper first time setup wizard process.

I watched 5-6 movie scenes that I know and played Call of Duty extensively and also listened to a few tracks that I have in my music playlist to test my systems then swapped back to 4800h (while my audio memory was fresh) and tried the same things. Overall, this is a solid unit and you'd love it if you don't compare with something else. Here are my impressions:

• 360SSM definitely fills the room better and give you a bit more sense of immersion in movies. I also think I never heard this much from my overhead Atmos speakers so 360SSM definitely uses them more than before. However, when I toggled it on/off, I definitely noticed quality of audio changing. I think because they do tons of digital processing for 360SSM, it impacts the quality. Also noticed when there's a moment of silence or in transition from Netflix title to start of a scene, there's a hissing type of noise coming out of speaker. It wasn't just hissing and it had some more random artifacts in it which went away when I turned off 360SSM. I suspect those are side effects of additional processing for 360SSM. Not a deal breaker but something that is annoying once you notice it. When I went back to 4800h and watched the same scenes and listened to the same tracks, I didn't feel I am missing the spatial stuff and the improved quality of audio (in terms of detail and overall fidelity) was noticeable.
  
  
• For music, the Sony definitely sounds more "musical" in stereo mode and if I had to choose one for just music, I would go with the Sony
  
  
• Overall audio coming out of this is more bright as compared to my Denon and RZ50
  
  
• Bass management on this unit is not good at all. For reference, I have Rythmik E15HP2 sub (the 1000w version). After the initial calibration, I had boomy bass but then turns out it had detected my LCR as large so went there and changed crossover for all of them. After that no boominess but bass was missing from everything I listened to. By missing I mean as an example noticing the difference in male voice compared to my 4800h. Or the opening scene of 6 Underground sounded so soft compared to how it should.
  
  
• As far as room calibration and how it compares to my 4800h, unfortunately my buddy borrowed my umik-1 so I couldn't do REW but my subjective opinion is that it didn't sound as natural as my Denon to my ears in back to back listening
  
  
• The unit gets warm but less than Denon but nowhere as cool as RZ50

Hope this helps guys. Overall, given things I mentioned above and the fact that we'll get Dirac for Denon in a few weeks which will improve it even further, I am going to send the Sony back as the only advantage is the Spatial stuff but it comes with downsides that are not worth it for me.

Cool review thanks, and just to note I think Denon 3800h, 4800h and up should have 360SSM kr am I mistaken? I think I so it on the packaking or is it used purely for 360 music and Sony uses it for upmixing?

 

[GXAlan]

Did somebody see if there is a center spread capability when using Dolby Surround or an equivalent mode with a stereo input?
My old Dolby Pro Logic is able to do it0

The old ZA5000ES did not have this feature.

When Sony does their AFS (auto format decoding) they are pretty purist about doing 2 ch. You can see then having DSEE (Audio Enhancer) as a new mode.

As far as room calibration and how it compares to my 4800h, unfortunately my buddy borrowed my umik-1 so I couldn't do REW but my subjective opinion is that it didn't sound as natural as my Denon to my ears in back to back listening

Definitely play with Engineer and Flat. If I recall correctly, flat still has a slight Harman curve and Engineer really juices up the bass.

 

[GXAlan]

This comment was for regular stereo mode not Pure Direct. IMHO it sounded better in stereo mode than Pure Direct

This is consistent with the room correction doing something.

Audio Enhancer mode will turn on the DSEE. This upsamples 16/44 and 16/48 using some AI that Sony built by looking at original DXD and DSD master recordings.

I think one thing you mentioned is that you have an audio rack which tells me you have speakers in ideal positions. I have said that the worse your speaker positions the better the Sony could be. As your speakers move to ideal positions, the benefit of speaker relocation reduces.

 

[kalexan9]

I received my 2nd unit yesterday morning and spent the whole day with it. Good news is that it looks like my first one was definitely a dud because setup on this one went smooth and without any warning. It didn't even throw that center channel warning. Whats still odd is that first time you turn on the unit, its front display shows "Please wait..." and nothing on TV and after 2-3 mins it turns itself off without any further communication. When you turn it on, TV shows "Game" and thats it showing it is in game input. From there you have to go to menus and click on easy set up to do calibration. They could improve this and show a proper first time setup wizard process.

I watched 5-6 movie scenes that I know and played Call of Duty extensively and also listened to a few tracks that I have in my music playlist to test my systems then swapped back to 4800h (while my audio memory was fresh) and tried the same things. Overall, this is a solid unit and you'd love it if you don't compare with something else. Here are my impressions:

• 360SSM definitely fills the room better and give you a bit more sense of immersion in movies. I also think I never heard this much from my overhead Atmos speakers so 360SSM definitely uses them more than before. However, when I toggled it on/off, I definitely noticed quality of audio changing. I think because they do tons of digital processing for 360SSM, it impacts the quality. Also noticed when there's a moment of silence or in transition from Netflix title to start of a scene, there's a hissing type of noise coming out of speaker. It wasn't just hissing and it had some more random artifacts in it which went away when I turned off 360SSM. I suspect those are side effects of additional processing for 360SSM. Not a deal breaker but something that is annoying once you notice it. When I went back to 4800h and watched the same scenes and listened to the same tracks, I didn't feel I am missing the spatial stuff and the improved quality of audio (in terms of detail and overall fidelity) was noticeable.
  
  
• For music, the Sony definitely sounds more "musical" in stereo mode and if I had to choose one for just music, I would go with the Sony
  
  
• Overall audio coming out of this is more bright as compared to my Denon and RZ50
  
  
• Bass management on this unit is not good at all. For reference, I have Rythmik E15HP2 sub (the 1000w version). After the initial calibration, I had boomy bass but then turns out it had detected my LCR as large so went there and changed crossover for all of them. After that no boominess but bass was missing from everything I listened to. By missing I mean as an example noticing the difference in male voice compared to my 4800h. Or the opening scene of 6 Underground sounded so soft compared to how it should.
  
  
• As far as room calibration and how it compares to my 4800h, unfortunately my buddy borrowed my umik-1 so I couldn't do REW but my subjective opinion is that it didn't sound as natural as my Denon to my ears in back to back listening
  
  
• The unit gets warm but less than Denon but nowhere as cool as RZ50

Hope this helps guys. Overall, given things I mentioned above and the fact that we'll get Dirac for Denon in a few weeks which will improve it even further, I am going to send the Sony back as the only advantage is the Spatial stuff but it comes with downsides that are not worth it for me.

Thanks a million. This is the best review yet of any owner for everything that matters with the new Sony ES offering.

 

[Rottmannash]

I both agree with you, and disagree with you. First, I appreciated your review. A review is a review. True, you don't owe anyone here anything - none of us do. However in the many years of reading literally hundreds of member reviews, I've never seen someone quit as easily and quickly as you did, which is truly your prerogative to do so. But as this is a public forum, anyone also has the right (without harassing or rudeness, of course) to be critical of anything we post which is what @Randomdude did without harassment. Again, thanks for the review, and we all look forward to other reviews of the new Sony ES receivers that offer some more detail and build on what you started.

How do you know the amount of time and effort he put into getting the AVR to "work"? If I have to spend over 2 hours setting up an AVR I'll return it.

 

[Rottmannash]

Tried your suggestion and no luck. Sony Tech support actually called me today. He said he reached out to the Sony engineers in Japan today to see if he can get some clarification on the issues. Without doing testing on their own units, they are leaning towards just a bad unit on the line. He told me to return the unit and reorder. He would have done an exchange but they don't have available units for that yet. So I am going to do that. I really do think if this unit is working properly, it's going to be a great receiver. Plus my experience with Sony tech support has always been fantastic. The new unit will be here 3/10.

The fact you spoke w/ an actual knowledgeable and helpful human is truly astounding. With customer service these days I would consider Sony just for that reason.

 

[Rottmannash]

This comment was for regular stereo mode not Pure Direct. IMHO it sounded better in stereo mode than Pure Direct

Does this unit turn the sub off in Pure Direct mode like the RZ50 does when in pure and direct modes? That's why I always listen to 2 ch in "Stereo" mode as it includes the sub.

 

[kalexan9]

How do you know the amount of time and effort he put into getting the AVR to "work"? If I have to spend over 2 hours setting up an AVR I'll return it.

Sorry, you're 5-6 days too late.

 

[Rottmannash]

Sorry, you're 5-6 days too late.

Yeah, I had a life and did things between when I stopped reading the thread and this morning when I actually had time to sit and read.

 

[kalexan9]

Yeah, I had a life and did things between when I stopped reading the thread and this morning when I actually had time to sit and read.

It's all good bro. Just had a mimosa and just poking a little fun.

 

[mattsrs]

Does this unit turn the sub off in Pure Direct mode like the RZ50 does when in pure and direct modes? That's why I always listen to 2 ch in "Stereo" mode as it includes the sub.

Per manual, stereo is just L/R and no sub which is a bit dumb IMO

 

[The Guy who cares]

How does the Sony sound without Subs? Is there enough bass running everything in Full Range?

 

[mattsrs]

Does anyone know what the iphone app is called for these receivers? I only found Music Center but it doesn't detect my receiver