Would the Sony STR-DA1200ES be a good choice ?

[rijnton]

In another thread I wrote about problems that I have with my Yamaha RX-V757 with regards to phasing. TLS Guy already told me to have it checked with a scope. Of course I will do that.
Supposed that it turns out to be defective, I will have to buy a new receiver, because there is no warranty anymore. I was thinking about the Sony STR-DA1200ES, because it got a very good review from What HiFi. It should also be a very musical receiver. Because it is already a somewhat older model, I saw there are some good deals to be found.
I cannot find more in-depth reviews however.
Would it be a good choice also for music listening ?
The alternative for would be the new Yamaha (again) RX-V863.
What would your advice be ?

 

[lsiberian]

I'm not a fan of Sony receivers. I suggest you go with a different brand.

Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon, Marantz are good brands there are others too.

 

[Adam]

I didn't read the entire thread on phasing, so I might have missed info on what I'm about to bring up. The STR-DA1200ES lacks some of the more modern features of the 863, such as decoding of the new lossless audio codecs and audio processing over HDMI. So, if you want to send audio to your receiver over HDMI, that particular Sony isn't the right choice for you.

 

[Nomo]

I owned a Sony receiver once, never again. Very poor sound for music.
As far as the RXV-863 is concerned; you may want to save a few hundred bucks and consider the RX-V663. Same receiver, that is minus the XM, Sirius and HD radio.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/compare/Detail.html?compitem1=&compitem2=567570&compitem3=567571&CTID=5000300&VNM=LIVE&comp_items=567570&comp_items=567571&B_compare.x=23&B_compare.y=14

 

[rijnton]

Thanks for the replies until now.
I should have added perhaps that I don't own a BD player yet. I use my htpc for playing everything (with Winamp, foobar2k, MPC and PowerDVD Ultra). Although I have a Marantz dvd/cd player I hardly use it anymore.
With my present, maybe faulty, receiver/system I have connected my videocard directly to the HDMI input of my Sony HD Bravia TV and I use the analog outputs of the soundcard connected to the multichannel inputs of the receiver. This way the software player does the decoding and the soundcard does the D>A conversion. So actually the receiver is "only" for radio and for amplification.
Although I may buy a BD player in the near future, at the moment I don't need all the HDMI optiopns, nor the HD Audio decoding. So maybe Nomo's suggestion is a good option.

 

[Adam]

Nomo's suggestion was excellent, IMO. The 663 will still give you HDMI connections, audio processing over HDMI, and decoding of today's lossless codecs. Great receiver.

 

[rijnton]

Nomo's suggestion was excellent, IMO. The 663 will still give you HDMI connections, audio processing over HDMI, and decoding of today's lossless codecs. Great receiver.

However I meanwhile saw that the power is a little bit lower than the 863. But I assume that that is neglectible.
Apart from the problems that I have now, I always was very satisfied with the sound of the Yamaha.

 

[tn001d]

I have been playing around with a new sony str-da4300es. I'm not happy with it and it will be going back next week once its replacement arrives - Denon AVR-2809CI

Sadly the new Sony ES isnt built as good as my sony STR-DB1070 from 6 yrs ago that i had to get rid of.

 

[MatthewB.]

I agree with the latest issue of HT Mag, they reviewed the Sony STR-DA5400ES and although Sony rates it at 120 wpc, on the test bench it only rated 0.1% distortion at 37.3 watts all channels driven and clipped at 41.9 watts. For a 2,000 receiever that's pretty poor. I am not a huge fan of Sony receivers and would suggest going with Onkyo or Denon at a far cheaper price.