Sony ES

[ematthews]

Just curious as to why so many people stay away from Sony ES?
Are they that bad compared to the compitition? I know their normal stuff is week but I thought the ES stuff was very good.

 

[PENG]

Just curious as to why so many people stay away from Sony ES?
Are they that bad compared to the compitition? I know their normal stuff is week but I thought the ES stuff was very good.

You have to define "so many". If you meant around here on this forum it may be true but not so for the general population. Try asking this question to Best Buy, Sony Style and they will tell you why they still sell Sony receivers, let alone the ES models. I owned a couple of them before and had no complaint other than I thought their wight to power ratio is way to high. A 37lbs Denon is much more powerful than a 46lbs 4ES back in 2004. Audioholics reviewed the 5ES and thought it was very good too. Many of us around here are probably of the AV phile/nut type, may be that's why.

 

[ematthews]

I guess so many people here on this site... I have always liked Sony products and am looking to replace my Onkyo 805.. Most likely a Pioneer will get a home here, but I have been looking at the Sony brand as well.

 

[Adam]

I don't know all the mental reasons why I stay away from Sony, but I just have no desire to buy their receivers. I did look into their ES line a few years back when I was shopping because I liked the looks of them, but they cost more than I wanted to spend at the time. I have this view (right or wrong) that their non-ES receivers aren't as good as the competition, and because that's the price range that I shop, I don't gravitate to Sony.

My brother, on the other had, has owned Sony receivers for years. He must like them, because he replaces one Sony with another Sony.

 

[MatthewB.]

Having read over the many years the "bench test" results on their amps and I find it appalling that they can charge 2,000 for a reciever that can only garner 35 watts per channel when all channels are driven. They have rather poor amplifiers in all their ES line (their non ES line are even worse) They have top notch on screen guide graphics, but when it comes to power, they fall short (really, really short) and unless you live in a place the size of a walk in closet (or avarage New York sized one bedroom apt) then I would shop elsewhere.

 

[Shrivel]

In the 25+ years that I've been into home theater and audio, I've owned many Sony products (2 auto CD decks, two receivers, a laserdisc player, tape deck, portable CD player are the ones that come to mind...). EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE products failed well before I would have expected them to. I know that electronics don't last forever, but I would expect them to last for more than a couple years. The only Sony product that continued to work was a ES Dolby Digital decoder processor.

My brain is programmed at this point to completely ignore any Sony product. I don't even see them on store shelves. I will never buy another one, no matter what the price.

 

[PENG]

The response are as ecpected, but again, this is not the best forum to ask about Sony. Sony fans and those who has good experience with them just do not gravitate to this site. Those who cited their poor ACD bench tests need to read more reviews. I have seen many that yields similar results to Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo and HK products, some better, some worse and some about the same. It all boil them to which models, who did the bench tests. I tend to value the group comparison bench tests by Home Cinema Choice. At least you know they all get tested the same way.

The problem is anyone who has seen two test that showed poor results they jumped to the conclusions that Sony is bad. Some people say the same about Onkyo AVR's and indeed, some of their models yielded very bad ACD results in lab measurements by S&V and HTMag but they also have the 805, 875 and up models that are as powerful as top HK and NAD AVR's, if not better. I don't think people should make generalized statements, but that just my opinion.

 

[Hi Ho]

I simply do not like Sony as a company. I have never been impressed with their products and their business practices are not exemplary (remember the rootkit fiasco?). They always try to force their proprietary non standard formats/technologies on everyone even after there are already tried and true standards on the market (MemoryStick, UMD, ATRAC).

They make excellent professional video equipment. I think they are finally getting it right with their e-reader where they are making it more open.

I still won't buy their products. I would put my Yamaha RX-V2700 up against a Sony ES any day. I'll also take a Panasonic product over Sony in just about every category (no audio equipment from either though )

 

[cmchen0]

The response are as ecpected, but again, this is not the best forum to ask about Sony. Sony fans and those who has good experience with them just do not gravitate to this site. Those who cited their poor ACD bench tests need to read more reviews. I have seen many that yields similar results to Denon, Yamaha, Onkyo and HK products, some better, some worse and some about the same. It all boil them to which models, who did the bench tests. I tend to value the group comparison bench tests by Home Cinema Choice. At least you know they all get tested the same way.

The problem is anyone who has seen two test that showed poor results they jumped to the conclusions that Sony is bad. Some people say the same about Onkyo AVR's and indeed, some of their models yielded very bad ACD results in lab measurements by S&V and HTMag but they also have the 805, 875 and up models that are as powerful as top HK and NAD AVR's, if not better. I don't think people should make generalized statements, but that just my opinion.

I totally agree with your points. I have previously owned a denon receiver that broke down in 2 months too. As for the test bench, it does really comes down to who did the bench test and as well as the equipments they used to test the receiver.

 

[highfigh]

I haven't owned a receiver since I first starting selling audio equipment in '78. The first piece of separates I bought was a Sony TA-4650 VFet integrated amp and while they were rated at 30W/ch, bith channels driven, low THD+noise, and something like 10Hz-50KHz +/- .1dB (or something like that), they spec'd out at somewhere around 56W/ch at the same tolerances. The 50W model (TA-5650) came in at about 73W/ch and that series was called Audio Lab, which was definitely better than their receivers, although their receivers at the time were pretty nice. The other Japanese manufacturers weren't doing anything special until they all saw the light and started making an upper-end line. The ES line was really nice until probably 10 years ago, when they diluted the results of all of the development done in the past. I have been using a Sony TA-F500ES integrated amp for well over ten years and its sound is excellent. Clean, doesn't run hot and other than the video section, the controls are all passive. Fast forward to the last 5 years, or so, and I have found that Sony isn't the company it was, in terms of product quality. I have some customers with Sony ES receivers and while they sound good, I don't think they're anything special. Weight vs output means little. Large, heavy transformers aren't necessarily a bad thing but PWM supplies have been around for a long time and they work well. I think amps need to be spec'd with all channels driven but my opinion was shot sown in another thread about this- I fail to see how an amp can be tested any other way and testing one channel isn't realistic. I want the power supply and output stage to be able to handle anything thrown at it, not just what looks good on paper.

 

[Ares]

I haven't owned a receiver since I first starting selling audio equipment in '78. The first piece of separates I bought was a Sony TA-4650 VFet integrated amp and while they were rated at 30W/ch, bith channels driven, low THD+noise, and something like 10Hz-50KHz +/- .1dB (or something like that), they spec'd out at somewhere around 56W/ch at the same tolerances. The 50W model (TA-5650) came in at about 73W/ch and that series was called Audio Lab, which was definitely better than their receivers, although their receivers at the time were pretty nice. The other Japanese manufacturers weren't doing anything special until they all saw the light and started making an upper-end line. The ES line was really nice until probably 10 years ago, when they diluted the results of all of the development done in the past. I have been using a Sony TA-F500ES integrated amp for well over ten years and its sound is excellent. Clean, doesn't run hot and other than the video section, the controls are all passive. Fast forward to the last 5 years, or so, and I have found that Sony isn't the company it was, in terms of product quality. I have some customers with Sony ES receivers and while they sound good, I don't think they're anything special. Weight vs output means little. Large, heavy transformers aren't necessarily a bad thing but PWM supplies have been around for a long time and they work well. I think amps need to be spec'd with all channels driven but my opinion was shot sown in another thread about this- I fail to see how an amp can be tested any other way and testing one channel isn't realistic. I want the power supply and output stage to be able to handle anything thrown at it, not just what looks good on paper.

What was the reason they gave for shooting it down, it makes sense to me and I won't be using only 1 speaker or 2 most likely 5 or 7.

 

[highfigh]

What was the reason they gave for shooting it down, it makes sense to me and I won't be using only 1 speaker or 2 most likely 5 or 7.

Shooting down what, the method of stating specs? AFAIK, the FTC removed the requirement that had been in place since '73, when equipment ratings were a free-for-all. They used IPP (Instantaneous Peak-to-Peak), one channel driven, RMS and several other ratings, usually serving only to confuse consumers. Why they couldn't just permanently adopt the same standards as broadcast and audio engineers, I don't know. Must be due to the numbers being larger- we all know more/bigger is better, right? More power, more lights, more specs, etc. Car audio and most other gear was explicitly excluded from the FTC mandate and they had their own free-for-all. Used to be that an amp might be rated in 'Sony Watts', 500 Watts JBF (Just Before Fire) or 500 Watts WLS (When Lightning Strikes). Bigger numbers sell more equipment.

When the Japanese audio manufacturers decided to compete on power ratings, they filled the magazines with articles and interviews that said things that we all know now to be crap. On a certain level, some of it was correct but in real world situations, most people just didn't give a rat's azz. How many people really care about slew rate? For that matter, how many know what it is? Sansui though it was important enough to make a lot of noise about it in their spec sheets and reviews. True to form, Audio and Stereo Review agreed. How many people actually care about power output, other than for bragging rights? How many actually know the SPL difference between 70W and 100W, but bought 100W because it was more. People bought big, heavy receivers that really didn't sound all that good because they were led to believe that they needed 270W/ch and a tuner, in one box. The Pioneer SX-1980 weighs 98 pounds and it doesn't fit in many cabinets I can think of, nor will most cabinets support one. Want to put one in a standard 19" rack? Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Also, using 1KHz as the test tone for an amp's power rating is absolutely freakin' USELESS unless the power output for the rest of the bandwidth is equal to that. We're not playing AM radio here, this is full-range audio.

 

[Ares]

So in a nutshell the main reason for not having a standard that all audio manufacturers must follow seems to boil down to one thing money. Your right alot of people don't take the time to research and ask questions to find out what the current specs mean all the know bigger must be better. So your just ahead of your time and it would make to much sense to do this, in other words the will lose money in their minds. Thanks.

 

[highfigh]

So in a nutshell the main reason for not having a standard that all audio manufacturers must follow seems to boil down to one thing money. Your right alot of people don't take the time to research and ask questions to find out what the current specs mean all the know bigger must be better. So your just ahead of your time and it would make to much sense to do this, in other words the will lose money in their minds. Thanks.

If the manufacturers are all allowed to decide which specs are important and how they will be measured, no standards can exist. More is seen as better, except when it's a spec that has been vilified for decades, like distortion. Most people think or know that less is better, when it comes to this one but if the consumer electronics doesn't pull their heads out of their patoots, no consensus will be reached and confusion will reign. Oops, too late!

The industry needs to be proactive in this and demand one testing scheme, preferably following the AES/EBU/NAB/IEEE standards. I don't see people debating pro audio equipment the way we do with consumer and there's a reason for it, actually several. #1 is that they don't believe there's any mystery in how this stuff sounds, #2 is that they already know what makes a system sound good and still be reliable and #3 is that they don't want to spend thousands of dollars on cables when the differences can't be measured or verified objectively. He!!- most of the high end goodies can only be determined in carefully controlled environments that are almost impossible to repeat and completely impractical for most people to use.