Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DAV-FC7 Dream Home Theater System with 5-Disc DVD Player

Do not buy this unit or any complicated electronics from SONY.

Had problems from the day I got the unit. It would completely freeze, had to unplug (and keep unplugged for a while) to get it back to normal. Sony wanetd me to pay to ship it for repair. Finally some mgr noticed "Oh, there's a repair shop right down the street from you." Took it in, they couldn't reproduce (Ma and Pa shop). Finally wrote them the steps to reproduce, take it in again. They call me back and say "Sony just changed policy, you have to mail it to them." Call Sony, they make me pay to ship. I explain that it has never worked, I've brought it in twice on my own, and now... The guy rudely interrupts me "Mr. Vaughn, life is full of inconveniences". Seriously, he told me this. I still don't have a working unit. For fun, before you buy this product call Sony support at 1-800-222-7669 and just see how long it takes you to get all mad. You get an automated voice-recognition system that doesn't work. You literally spend a 1/2 hour saying "No" and "Go Back". Eventually the fake computer person says "OK, you have a Sony TV not under warranty, let me help you with that" (which of course I don't have) and now you are HOSED. Seriously, call it for fun, its a riot, we do it at work. The fake guy says "Hmmm, I didn't quite hear that, can you repeat it?" and "There seems to be something wrong with my computer." What you eventually have to do is just say "BLAHBLAHBLAH" enough where he says "I can't understand you, I'm going to hand you off." Their support is horrible and rude. I have lots of electronics with no problems, I'm not a whiner - I have just never had a product this bad and then have it serviced so poorly.

The unit was purchased through J&R, and they were worse than Sony. Typical "I don't care" NY firm. The first lady said "We've got them in stock, we can just swap." Then the "I have a New-Jersey accent so thick you can't understand me" lady came on and basically told me "Tough. Call Sony"

Seriously don't get this unit. I just bought a new ultra-portable laptop this weekend. Guess which vendor used to be in the running, and got pulled from the list???

Nice Design and Functionality but Technical Difficulties

I was tired of separate stereo units for a receiver/dvd/cd players, each with their own remote, wires, etc.

I like the packaging and functionality of the Sony unit (DAV-FC7) I bought but have had two separate problems in less that two years.

The first one was when a CD got stuck in the 5 disk changer. I think it was partially my fault from tipping the unit forward with CDs in it. I took the cover off and was fixed it with a little nudge.

Now, a year later, I have two simultaneous problems- it won't shut down (the "Standby" issue that another reviewer posted on) and it won't accept/eject CD/DVDs.

I just got off the phone with Sony and they gave me two options;

1. Ship it to them and pay $130 for the repair plus shipping

2. Drive it to the nearest service center fifty miles away.

Shipping it is unappealing because I neither have the original shipping box, nor do I have the time to deal with it. I would also be without a system for two weeks.

I would have preferred the drop off option, but there is no way I'm doing a 100 mile round trip for this. I live in San Francisco which you would think would have some type of certified repair centers.

The net is that it's a good product with questionable quality and lame service options if you have a problem. Good luck!

Sony's lacks quality. This system never switches off, keeps flashing "Standby". I have seen this happening every shop I visited. Still these shops sell these equipments!!
And more over, this is my third bad experience from Sony.
1. Wega TV - Broke in two days
2. Home Theater - Broke in week
3. Sony DSC-P3 digital camera - Came defective(lens won't pop out).

All these broke within a matter of first day or in a week.

I have decided not to purchase any more Sony equipments/gadets unless really improve their quality.

I sold this item and purchased Onkyo(SR502B)/Bose(AM6) combination. Wow..What a quality and sound!!

Overall the system is nice: it sounds fine for a low end system and the picture quality is fine. But I hate using it as a CD player. It takes forever to switch between disks, about 30 seconds. Loading or ejecting a disk take even longer. There is no way to tell what disks are loaded in the machine, and you cannot change one disk while it is playing another. These seem like minor things, but when you walk in to the room and turn on the stereo to listen to some music they add up to a 5 minute delay before you are actually listening to anything. Bleh. If I had it to do over I would get a system like my older one that just has a big tray instead of the fancy slot loader. I guess the people at Sony put looks ahead of function on this one.

I have the Sony Dream System DAV-FC7, and now its experiencing a continuous high pitched whine on all inputs except dvd, even when no input cables are connected. It seems to be a common problem as its mentioned on many web forums. A piece of JUNK, I will never buy Sony again.