Sony STR-AZ7000ES AVR Review

[Descartes]

The Sony ES line used to mean something better in quality!
Still have a Sony SCD-X777ES SACD player and that thing is built like a tank and sounds great

 

[Billy Budapest]

I just finished reading the entire thread, and I only want to post for that rare person who may have found this thread when searching for reviews of the STR7000.

I am clearly biased as I own one so right there most folks here can ignore my subjective view and just post that subjective reviews on the internet are worthless.

Anyways, let me cut to the chase and save folks from reading what is sure to be a lengthy post by summarizing my thoughts.

I currently own an Onkyo TX-NR7000, a Sony STRAZ7000, and an Anthem AV90 running on Outlaw monoblocks. I have found the Sony 360SSM room correction to produce the best Atmos effects and prefer to watch movies with my Sony vs my Anthem. Also, I have never heard any distortion or had the system clip and I have played all my systems at mid 90 dB levels.


I appreciate the fact that this website is called Audio Science Review and as such Amir provides reviews that have measurable data. As such I am of the opinion that most people who participate here hold their equipment to higher standards then the average consumer. To wit I would point to the poll I ran on "Diminishing Returns" both here and on another forum. Here roughly 40% of the folks said one must spend over $5k to get a speaker that in most cases represents the Law of Diminishing Returns and on another forum it was closer to 10%.

As part of my learning process that started here I also paid for a comparison of Ascend Acoustic speakers against KEF Blades 2s. What I learned was that some folks did believe they could hear a difference between $4k speakers and $28k speakers, but no one felt the differences warranted the price difference, and furthermore there was more than one reviewer that expressed this opinion that was forwarded to me:



I bought the Sony because I wanted to try 7.4.6 and there were scant AVRs that had the ability to handle that many speakers. At the time it was on sale for $2999 as well. Also, using Sony's 360 SSM is almost trivial, but getting the room correction setup on the Anthem was, in comparison, a complete bear and not something I would anticipate the average consumer would undertake. With the Sony and the Anthem I could turn the correction off and on. The Sony 360 SSM simply creates more of that bubble of sound. The Anthem makes the helicopters fly over head very convincingly, but when the Cornish pixies are released in the room at Hogwarts Sony's 360 SSM makes them fly around the room and the Anthem puts them overhead. Lastly I would just say that so far I have come to believe that the vast majority of people over 40 can not hear sounds above 16kHz. Yes, I know many on here can, but as I said I do not believe that is the norm. I believe so not only because of the literature I have found online, but also because I have been running informal listening tests at home almost every time friends or family come over, and it is surprising how few folks hear anything above 10kHz. Even my kids young friends often can't here the higher pitched sounds.

So . . . who is the buyer of this and who would vote this as a Golf Partner . . . I would. I wouldn't pay the current list though; instead I would likely buy the 5000.

If the az7000 goes on sale at $2999 again, it would be an instant purchase for me. I’d then sell my za5000, or at least try to. I also have a za810, and the za5000 could take its place. Then I’d probably give the za810 to a relative.

 

[Power Pop 23]

As noted in the link in the thread referenced below,

Sony has sold a 51 percent controlling interest in their home audio business to TCL.

The video business is slowly dying

Over the years more and more brands are selling off or shutting down their video business, from beloved Oppo Digital, to Toshiba, JVC, Sharp, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, so on and so forth. Now Sony. This is a very competitive market. Hisense and TCL now are dominating the market due to consumer...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[aagstn]

I saw this story and it is disappointing to see Sony effectively leaving the space. Yes, they have interest in what TCL will be releasing but the ES quality of old will never be seen again. I also think Sony is being short sighted. They are giving a Chinese company more power and control and who says TCL or another Chinese company won't come after their camera sensor business next. So many of these former Japanese giants sold out to Chinese companies and our options for quality home audio products has diminished greatly.

 

[Power Pop 23]

I saw this story and it is disappointing to see Sony effectively leaving the space. Yes, they have interest in what TCL will be releasing but the ES quality of old will never be seen again. I also think Sony is being short sighted. They are giving a Chinese company more power and control and who says TCL or another Chinese company won't come after their camera sensor business next. So many of these former Japanese giants sold out to Chinese companies and our options for quality home audio products has diminished greatly.

As I noted in a posting to the referenced thread,

Choosing to buy a 51 percent controlling interest does not inspire confidence that TCL intends to invest capital to 'grow' revenue from the Sony brand of TV's and home audio.

I recall a breakout of revenue from Sony from a few years ago that indicated their gaming division and the camera sensor division were the largest contributors to profits at Sony.

I don't know but Sony shareholders may be the happiest of all stake holders by this announcement.

 

[Oddball]

It does not necessarily mean that TCL will have control with 51%. JVs are complicated things and have seen such JVs that were essentially really 50-50 vote, 51-49 economics, or even 60-40 economics. "Minority" can have consent rights over a long list of items that effectively takes it to 50-50 vote. One of the items that is usually part of the deal would be budget that would indicate how much would be allocated to specific product lines, including home audio. Budget would usually require consent of "minority" in case of change.

This is just MOU and they target to draft final docs by March - which might or might not eventually happen. We will need to see details once and if available. Both Chinese and Japanese are not that transparent, so we might not know the full picture even after that.

If there would be dealings between TCL and Sony directly, or each of them with the JV - such as panel sales or technology licensing - that should generally be done on fully commercial basis as they will remain independent entities with different shareholder structure. JV might not own Sony IP, but just license it and will most likely be buying panels from TCL.

This is definitely a new chapter, but does not mean that Sony has completely pulled out from the home entertainment business, at least not yet. It might be the first step though.

 

[Miker 1102]

I guess I'll stick with my two STR-DH520s until the're pulled from cold dead hands. Why two? two separate systems & I didn't want different remotes & setup menus! Both cost $100, one from the Sony outlet, one Ebay used. Cheers!

I used the 790. Honestly, It sounded great and it was like 300 bucks.

 

[Sir_Round_Sound]

Personally I don't mind reading these reviews but they never sway my opinion in any way. They are interesting and I appreciate the effort that Amir puts into this site.
However this latest Sony Home Theater Gaming Music Movie Machine is an absolute gem. Yes I would typically have kept my 5000 f0r-eh-verrr ( sandlot.... anyone?) but the HDMI 2.1 is crucial to the hobby and the recent purchase of a PS5 Pro and Sony BRAVIA A95 begs for "more". Yes I had to invest in a 2.5G Internet switch in order to replace the 5000's onboard switch but such is life and I'm not ever going wireless unless absolutely necessary. I'm in the process of putting down an LVP Dark Grey Slate tile floor and turning my whole setup 90°, which means running all new wires and making a custom wall plate that mirrors the speaker output placement of the receiver in order to keep it as streamlined as possible because I also got 2 kittens recently. And almost immediately after getting them home my ROKU stopped working . Did I mention it used to be 3 kittens? HAHA j/k. I no longer "need" my original Schitt Vidar for the rear heights channel amplification so the garage sale is going to be killer.
Bottom line though, honestly, you cannot go wrong nor will you be disappointed with an ES product from Sony. Sure the Marantz Cinema30 might be a capable machine but in my estimation the extra money is not worth it and the Marantz name has lost its lustre in recent years.
I'm a loyalist ever since my first FM transistor radio then Walkman. And if I still had every Sony product I've owned I would be considered a hoarder. From car audio to headphones to Home Theater it's always Sony for me and I'm never disappointed. But one thing that diverts me is admittedly the Samsung phone. I mean, I'm not unreasonable .
Don't arbitrarily hang your hat on this "test" because this machine is completely BRILLIANT!

~Golfing Panther~~~

 

[Farva0066]

Obviously the Sony did not do well on the bench and is not a product that one would necessarily want in most circumstances.

I never heard the new ES series but lots of people on various forums like the way they sound. Their room correction is imbecile proof and not very adjustable, but looks like it is (somehow) doing the job. Pretty sure would not do a good job for me, but then this is aimed at different market. They also have 3D correction that apparently works if your speakers are not in the right positions.

I would be interested in some feedback with respect to performance their room correction system. Often think that D&M have made it really complicated to get decent sound out of the box, which is apparently what Sony does well. Not everyone wants to log to forums to get instructions how to make the thing work well.

It's not just 3d correction for when your speakers aren't in the Dolby-approved spots. Outside of pre-rendering TRUEHD soundtracks into individual PCM channels based on your actual speaker layout with Cavernize, remuxing, then using a big PC interface to output all those channels while playing the movie; or, taking out a 2nd mortgage for a Trinnov system, there isn't another solution to actually realize Dolby's "promise" of objects that know where YOUR speakers are. This units performance aside, the SONY 360 tech is really remarkable. The system determines the location and angle of each speaker, renders the ATMOS (DTS:X, etc) track normally ( which does *not* take into account anything about your speakers/room) and then applies it's Sony magic.

I don't know if it specifically does anything with the objects themselves (I doubt it) but it works differently than even a perfectly aligned ATMOS system. Instead of just hearing the objects pan from speaker to speaker, Sony creates "phantom speaker locations" to make it seem like the whole soundtrack is, well, coming from a place where no speaker exists. It is extremely impressive. It's the reason why you buy one of these units - it does something even the 16 channel ATMOS processors cannot. Think of the amplified channels as a bonus, lol.

Ideally you could get just a processor, or something with fewer powered channels + a bunch of pre-outs... but everyone seems to have the exact same product stack concept.

It is a huge bummer this unit had problems - I was hoping it could function as a legit stereo music system (maybe it's been fixed ...). Regardless, I am confident the owner is enjoying it thoroughly on movie night.

 

[Oddball]

It's not just 3d correction for when your speakers aren't in the Dolby-approved spots. Outside of pre-rendering TRUEHD soundtracks into individual PCM channels based on your actual speaker layout with Cavernize, remuxing, then using a big PC interface to output all those channels while playing the movie; or, taking out a 2nd mortgage for a Trinnov system, there isn't another solution to actually realize Dolby's "promise" of objects that know where YOUR speakers are. This units performance aside, the SONY 360 tech is really remarkable. The system determines the location and angle of each speaker, renders the ATMOS (DTS:X, etc) track normally ( which does *not* take into account anything about your speakers/room) and then applies it's Sony magic.

I don't know if it specifically does anything with the objects themselves (I doubt it) but it works differently than even a perfectly aligned ATMOS system. Instead of just hearing the objects pan from speaker to speaker, Sony creates "phantom speaker locations" to make it seem like the whole soundtrack is, well, coming from a place where no speaker exists. It is extremely impressive. It's the reason why you buy one of these units - it does something even the 16 channel ATMOS processors cannot. Think of the amplified channels as a bonus, lol.

Ideally you could get just a processor, or something with fewer powered channels + a bunch of pre-outs... but everyone seems to have the exact same product stack concept.

It is a huge bummer this unit had problems - I was hoping it could function as a legit stereo music system (maybe it's been fixed ...). Regardless, I am confident the owner is enjoying it thoroughly on movie night.

Just try Dirac ART - this will be the end of your journey for now. Anything else is just really mediocre to bad. Trinnov not included but they are also way behind in the ease of bass management, so the price tag for decent bass management with Trinnov is like BMW 420i coupe - $45K. I have one and a great car and then spent $15K on subs and AV-10.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Audioholics testing showed a SINAD of 90.7, measuring from HDMI input to analog output. So, marginally better than Amir’s measurement. Audioholic’s measurement was also on a preproduction unit. Since that time, Sony has issued two firmware updates which claim increased audio performance (in addition to additional features). In any event, the 90.7 figure is more in line with historical Sony AV receiver measurements. Not great, but not pi$$ poor.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Is this one faulty? I expect better from Sony.

Audioholic’s take was a little more sympathetic than Amir’s:

 

[Goldhamster916]

Does anyone here have hissing with 360 sound mapping enabled?

 

[Billy Budapest]

Does anyone here have hissing with 360 sound mapping enabled?

I do not. Have you updated to the latest firmware? Have you run setup again?

 

[Goldhamster916]

I do not. Have you updated to the latest firmware? Have you run setup again?

I am considering importing the Receiver from the US to Germany because I am a fan of the 360 sound mapping ever since I had the Sony theatre quads. I am just trying to get a picture how widespread the hissing issues with 360 sound mapping enabled are, because I probably won’t be able to return it.

 

[Eric Natural]

. . . No hissing on my unit
best of luck