Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony STR-DG810 6.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver

Got this about 1 month ago & have gone through it with a fine tooth comb.

Pros:
1) HDMI connection for TrueHD video & audio receiving
2) Price
3) Easy connections

Cons:
1) Bad manual
2) Not HDMI 1.3 - no audio/ video decoding
3) No on screen display
4) Bad menu interface

Conclusion:
Good entry level AV receiver @ nice price point for new way of high def components. If you are entering the HD arena 1 toe at a time you will want this to welcome you into the water. If you use HDMI, then it will connect easily & quickly to your HDTV & HDDVD player or BluRay. It will ONLY PASS through unmolested the newer advance audio signals - Dolby TrueHD or DTSHD-MA: what are called lossless audio in addition to easily passing through 1080p video.
In other words, your high priced components have already process them for you & sent them to the 810 via HDMI (ie no bitstreaming in high def). I don't use analog so I can't fully comment but it seems it will not convert analog inputs to HDMI output as previously stated. The 810 can process the lesser non high def Dolby & DTS sounds though. Just not the new high def audio. You will have let your DVD player do that.

An onscreen display would have made the bad manual & poor user interface palatable. But I guess not @ this price point.

Overall, this is a nice amplifier & component switcher at an attractive entry price. Nicely put together with Sony quality build. I mention the audio a lot because in the new true high def world it is AUDIO & VISUAL. The 810 won't process any of the newer high def audio signals - not many do currently - but then why would you need it to if you just had spent big money on the High Def TV & DVD players?!

Very good unit at this price range. I bought it to hook up to my ps3/bd player so that I can hear lossless pcm audio over hdmi. I was not disappointed. However, the subwoofer output is very minimal. You have to have an active powered subwoofer to use with this unit. Remote is intimidating and takes time to get used to. Manual was short but to the point. If you already have a good subwoofer and looking for an hdmi receiver, then this maybe a good choice for you.

First off I am going to say that I am not a connoisseur on the intricate specs of a home theatre receiver. I guess you would say I'm your everyday person that reads the instruction manual & sets it all up. My review will be on the entire home theatre configuration experience. Okay, I purchase the 810 because I just bought a 40 inch Samsung LNT4065 LCD. I had a Sony 5 disc Dream surround system with the 5.1 set up. The Dream system had no HDMI jacks which I needed for the TV & my PS3. I also purchased a Sony SA-W2500 Performance Line 150 Watt Subwoofer as the Sub with the previous system was passive. First I am going to give you my positive feedback on the receiver. The sound is excellent for the price I paid for the receiver. I cant believe I am using the same speakers from the previous Sony Dream system. The sound is crisp & clear & with the powered SUB I really feel the whole theatre experience. That sub shakes my floor. I like the ability to name the inputs. You have a lot of flexibility to configure the sound to your specific needs. The HDMI works very well although I needed to purchase a digital audio cable to achieve optimal sound for the PS3/Blue Ray player. The receiver gives you 3 different digital audio selections (Video, SAT, Coax) to configure with the numerous video Inputs. I played the XMEN United Blue Ray dvd & the sound & the picture quality was mesmerizing.
Now for the cons... Like I said I am not a guru on home theatre configurations, so lets just say I had some difficulty getting it together. The setup was rather cumbersome & downright confusing.. My guess is that this receiver has a lot of bells & whistles, but there are so many that one might have trouble ringing & blowing them all. I have a Direct TV DVR(non-high def, red, yellow, white out), VCR(red, yellow, white out), PS3 (HDMI out, digital out), Samsung LCD(HDMI out). I had to call Sony support for assistance twice because I had to get another rep because the 1st was, ..Ill tell you in a minute lol. I am going to tell you that the support was TERRIBLE. They were available, but had no knowledge of the unit. You can tell it was a foreigner that had no knowledge about the unit but who was reading from a support manual giving instruction. At 1st I couldn't get picture thru the satellite receiver. Turned out it was because even though I had the HDMI hookup from the receiver to the TV, I had to run a yellow video from the TV to the receiver to pick up picture for the non high def DVR & VCR. Sorry folks, just didn't know that. Then I couldn't get sound. The tech told me to disconnect all of the speakers from the receiver & connect them again. I was furious because I had already calibrated the sound to the speakers & the woofer before I contacted Sony & the sound worked FINE. He told me it was necessary because they may have gotten shorted out while we were "moving things around" during the trouble shooting for the picture problem. This was ridiculous because I didn't move anything to disturb the wiring. After arguing with him I finally disconnected all of the wires and labeled every single one with tape. It took me twenty minutes to do this. LET ME ADD THAT SONY NEEDS TO HAVE THE OLD FASHION SPEAKER CLAMPS ON THE BACK OF THEIR RECEIVERS BECAUSE IT IS A PAIN IN THE A** SCREWING IN ALL OF THOSE WIRE JACKS. They are really hard to reach & if you aren't careful the wires can come loose while screwing them in. After I disconnected & reconnected the wires I WAS NOT surprised that I still could not get sound. The tech WAS surprised & he suggested that I disconnect the wires from the receiver AGAIN & run the wires to the old DVD receiver because he felt the speakers may be defective. What an idiot... I told him that I would call back because I was frustrated & needed to take a break when in fact I decided to figure it out myself because I knew the problem was something much simpler. Turned out it was because the volume was too high & when changing inputs the receiver has a built in safety feature that mutes the sound when the volume is too high to protect the speakers. I then called back because I could not get video to the PS3/Blue ray player. The tech offered little assistance because she was not knowledgeable about the setup of the PS3 config. She was smarter than the 1st tech though. She basically assured me that I had the hookup correct & I figured out that a software patch was necessary to use the HDMI port on the PS3. That was why It couldn't get a signal to the receiver because basically the port was not activated because I had previously used the conventional red/white/yellow config. The patch was downloaded from Sony & it worked like a charm. Then I notice that even though the picture was excellent I was missing the rich sound that I had before with the conventional config. That's when I figured out that this could be achieved by using the digital sound capability. I ran to Best Buy & bought a fiber optic digital audio cable, assigned the port to the input through the receiver, configured it through the sound settings on the PS3 & the sound was back.

So overall I love the receiver. For the money you cant beat it & the sound is VERY good. But don't call SONY for help. You will probably know more than they do...

this receiver was exactly what i needed. with 3 HDMI ports and easy interface it allowed me to connect all of my devices (PS3, AppleTV, TivoHD) seamlessly. i didn't need an OSD and the PS3 does the DVD upconverting for me so the 910 was just too much $$ for not enough extra features.

i would recommend this receiver to anyone putting together a home entertainment system.

Upgraded from a previous Sony primarily for the HDMI inputs. This is one of the few receivers that actually will pass audio via the HDMI cable without paying $[...] I run a PS3, HD cable box and DVD through this using HDMI no problems.

I spent the better part of a month researching units and was not bias towards Sony in my selection. I went to the Circuit City and Best Buy stores as well as a home theatre centric store in Columbus, OH just to hear everything that was out there. Each place, I was told Onkyo was the best for my price point and I had to have a 7 channel surround system. listening to a demo, I feel the 7 channel surround system is a scam to sell more speakers so that was out. The Onkyo, Denon and Pioneer units did not pass audio through the HDMI interface at the midrange unit level. All these units also only had two HDMI inputs vs. the Sony at three.

I also recommend not using the auto configuration with the mic as your basis to judge the unit on sound quality. While you can use it as a baseline, you will need to tweak it.

My only complaint is that there is on on-screen programming, you need to step up to the next model for that. This unit is still fairly easy to setup via the menu on the unit. It just takes a little time to read through the manual and walk them.

Overall, I am happy with this unit and for $[...] with three HDMI inputs and audio passthru, this is a bargan.