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

I bought this unit on Amazon just before Christmas. I was getting it to achieve the best possible combination with my new Samsung 40" LCD and Toshiba HD DVD player. Took awhile to get my head on straight when navigating the manual, but after awhile I got it figured out. Sounds really good with my Klipsch Heresey fronts, Bose rears and JBL center.

Keep in mind everything is relative. This unit sounds good but not as good as the Nakamichi AV-10 that it replaced (that was $1000 new in 1999). I only did the upgrade for the HDMI input/output. Our room has lots of traffic and it was of no benefit to spend a ton of money when kids have access to the remote. For the less than $275 spent it is a solid investment that does the job.

I will admit I relied heavily on the reviews on the Amazon site and was torn between the 810 and the 910. In the end I decided to spend a little less and try it for awhile.

The remote is stout and fairly simple. All in all, very nice.

Arrived from Amazon in 2 days. Setup was very easy and the enclosed microphone made balancing the speakers unbelievably easy. It works great with the 5.1 speaker system I have. Recently bought a Sony Blueray player and this receiver complements that very well. My old receiver couldn't handle the uncompressed audio from the Blueray disks. At about $300 is a great buy. For most people this will far exceed what they need and future proofs your investment by providing the HDMI inputs.

It works as advertised. Nice clean, crisp sound and good base on my inexpensive speakers. The automatic speaker set up using the supplied mike worked almost flawlessly. It is true that the manual can be somewhat confusing but spending the time, using each feature explained in the manual, is well worth the time and effort. It works seamlessly with my sony tv and dvd player. I'm very happy with the purchase and Amazon's customer service too. Thanks.

The Sony STR-DG810 6.1 Channel Home theater Receiver is a great mid size receiver. It has HDMI ports which are very important to the HD minded people. I am huge into sound and the sound is great with this receiver. If you are willing to spend more money then this is not the receiver for you. This is for the money conscious person who wants good sound and good picture through HDMI but doesn't care about 7.1 sound or more options. This receiver is great for the mid-range person.

Product does everything it says, but the sound quality, oh my the sound quality... Yes it has 3 HDMI inputs which is great. Love just hooking up 1 cable to dvd 1 to sat then 1 out to tv. This alone would be enough for most people to buy it. Throw in easy set up and you'd think it would be 5 stars. But, sound quality is just mediocre at best. I hooked this up to 3 different sets of quality speakers and was not pleased with the sound on any of them. The receiver I'm replacing, an old 60 watt per channel 5.1 JBL sounded better. If I had bought this in town I'd be exchanging it. As it is I'll put up with but I truly expected a lot more. xroads