Sony DG720 review

[Goatse]

I know alot of you guys are waiting for a review on this AVR now that PS3 can finally decode DTS-MA. With out reading the whole thing... is lossless sound worth an upgrade??? Hell yes!

Just got my 720 from yesterday evening, 259 dollars shipped on ebay =). This AVR had everything I wanted (3 hdmi, 7.1 LPCM) at a great price and left out extras didn't need like Truehd/DTSMA decoding, analog to digital vid conversion and Upconversion. Got around to playing with it for good 4 hours last night tried bunch of movies from all my sources hd-a2, ps3 and xbox360.

Heres my impressions.

First, the manual is confusing as others has stated. I'm a tech savvy so figured it out in a few mins playing around with it but the manual can be confusing. It kept on sending me to different page to find out how to use a feature which kept sending me to another page. All you really need is the "overview of the menus" page and can figure out how to set everything up.
The remote is complete junk, cost cutting at its finest. Buttons don't respond without good hard push and many times multiple tries to register and only if you point it directly to the sensor. Good thing I have a Harmony remote, I'd say a Harmony remote is a must for this receiver.
That said the menu system in the AVR is pretty clunky, nowhere intuitive or easy to navigate as my Pioneer was. Good thing is that once you set the options, you don't have to go back to it again.

I have a 7.1 set up with Mirage Omnipolar towers all around, guess they can be considered power hungry speakers and require decent amount of watts to drive them. Since the Sony amp isn't very powerful, I set them all to "Small" and crossover at 80hz as others suggested. Had low expectations going in to this since all the Sony amp hating. Overall very happy with the SQ from the DG720, the volume is more than adequate in my townhome and every speaker came in clear with out distorting. Compared to my old Elite, it didn't sound as full but thats probably because with the Sony all the bass is being fed to the sub. In no way does this AVR sound bad, definitely went above my expectations.
This receiver should easily hold me for 3 years. Once I upgrade to a new Elite or Onkyo, I'll appreciate the improved sound that much more!

The DG720 does sound more spacious and has better pinpoint accuracy in the sound, however thats probably due to the PCM, TrueHD and DTSMA.

heres some comparison, randomly flipping though some scenes.

28weeks Later - Amazing sound, great on standard 1.5mb DTS, but MA flat out destroys it with peaks going to 7+mb!. All the surrounds were alive and could hear clearly where sound effects were coming from, dynamics went beyond what I thought home sound was capable of. Its the little things that catches your attention, how much more detail from the beginning scene when they are in the airport and monorail with the crowds surrounding you.

300 - Epic is a word to describe it, the movie has to be heard to be believed. Soundtrack and effects are clear as day, puts the 640kb dd+ to shame really. This is my new demo disk.

Waiting - Mostly a dialog driven film but also comes with a 7.1 PCM track. Even though there isn't any explosions it is a substantial upgrade to the DD track. Each dialog came in crystal clear and had depth the standard track lacked.

Blade Runner - I only tried the opening sequence. The spinners sound like its flying right next to you, it really does sound that clear and the panning is amazing from side to rear surrounds. Fantastical soundtrack has never sounded better. I'll definitely have to re watch this soon.

Rockband on XBOX360 - Actually preferred the way this game sounded on the Sony over my Elite. Music had a more balance sound to it for me and the instruments sounded clearer, on the Elite it sounded to mixed and couldn't really much out individual instruments as well. Also the Concert hall DSP sounds fantastic and really made it sound like listening to the music at a concert.

Conclusion

This is a great AVR for those living in an apartment/townhouse that doesn't require a high powered amp. DTSMA/TrueHD/PCM sounds fantastic, can't stop raving about it. Its like falling in love with the movies all over again. No reason why you shouldn't upgrade with such a low entry price.

[krazyfiend]

Thank you. I just picked this AVR up last night @ BB and did not have enough time to play with until after work today.

^^^
BB actually price matched BH Photo's 269.99$ price I had printed out on color laser and forgotten to add in the shipping they usually need to when pricematching online prices... stacked with a 10% off coupon for BB... I basically got the AVR for 263$ after tax.


This post helped sum up a lot of general posts about the 720 I see floating around on the 720,820,920 thread.

I'm in the same boat, this is a stop-gap purchase for myself ... and I'm excited to listen to diehard 4.0 , apocalypto and see what the planet earth blu-ray series is outputting...

Thanks again for so much insight, this is why I'm addicted to AVS! =)

[doctorjedi]

Just picked up my DG720 from Vann's. Tested 300 on HD DVD, Revenge of the Sith on DVD, and SWAT on Blu-Ray. ( I have it set up for PCM and selected it in the Menu). I would say that if real life is a 10 and Dolby digital is a 6 then I would rate these uncompressed soundtracks a 7.2; maybe I was expecting too much for anything to have wowed me. Once its set up its easy to work.

[krazyfiend]

Anyone know what the proper audio output setting on a ps3 should be?

There are a whole host of Frequency choices, I selected 'PCM 7.1 48 kHz' and it sounded great when playing Die Hard 4.0 ... but I know choosing the wrong 'possible output frequencies' can harm your speakers...

I look all through the manual, the spec's page, and the DG720 manual didn't clearly state anywhere what input frequencies that it will play nice with via hdmi - go figure, you'd thing Sony would since they do make the ps3.

Thanks in advance!


PS... coming from a person who didn't use TOSlink/optical and my last receiver was a stereo/rca input based Onkyo receiver (It's prob considered vintage as it has a rotary knob to move the radio dial back and forth and has two Phono inputs lol) ...this DG720 is 'serenity now' to my ears.

Paired w/ two monitor 50 polk front tower speakers and a new SCS500.1 JBL setup... 7.1 Dolby II/ DTS-MA/True HD is something else.

Agreed, menu is clunky (but doing as the OP stated and setting all speakers to small, if using a sub/LFE, and the crossover to 80 gets you acclimated with it), the manual is poorly laid out, but once you get it set, the output (what matters most) and hdmi switching works w/o a hitch.

[Chris Rein]

Figured I'd post what I posted a while ago in the "multiple" receiver thread here now since it's dedicated...


The PS3 is sending DTS-MA to it as well. You can't do any post-processing on it as it's coming in as multichannel PCM, but it works great. There is a problem with some 7.1 DTS-MA/HR tracks. The 5.1 DTS-MA tracks get a matrixed surround in the other two surround channels. I've been impressed by this little receiver sonically (especially for the price), but there are some annoying things...

1) Auto-calibration does everything but LFE. Dumb. Time to break out the SPL meter and do it manually (which I like anyway, but for others that might suck).

2) Lack of binding posts for all channels. Why they put them on A/B, L/R speakers only is beyond me. They give you push terminals for the rest, which aren't big enough to take a 12 gauge wire. Pins are the way to go here.

3) The binding posts are super weak for the L/R channels. Meaning, you push a banana clip in there and you can literally see the binding post push into the unit. Not sweet.

4) Turn this thing on and you can hear a hum from the receiver. I've been spoiled by separates for years now, and maybe this is the norm for the receivers these days?

5) No on screen display. Nope. Nada. Zilch. Guess at this price point I can see why.

6) No reference level indicator. Again, my pre-pro spoiled me as I knew 0 was reference. If you auto-cal, you have no clue as to what volume the calibration is at. I can tell you it's not as high as the volume goes! This could be taken care of if you use an SPL meter and do it manually, but I feel most that will buy this unit (again, nice price point to get into HR multichannel audio), will just use the auto-cal and be done with it.

7) If you do go into the menu and set up the levels by yourself, you'll find it a bit tricky to manually change the levels at first. The manual sucks.

8) Speaking of the sucky manual, okay, this is probably just me here, but the diagram to set up the surround and back speakers just doesn't look right. They use two different perspectives on it. They could have easily mapped it out so that you can pick how your surrounds are laid out in the room and pick accordingly. Then, ask the question of if they are low or high. Silly, but when you see it, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Now that I have those out of the way, video looks great being passed through the receiver to my projector. No issues there. Audio works as planned too. If you are wanting to get into the new hi-resolution audio on the cheap, this is the way to do it. I got $150 bucks back from Best Buy for the HD-DVD refund and had some Rewards Zone tickets to burn. I walked out of there with this for $40. A perfect price and stop gap until the stuff I want comes out later this year.

So, if you need something to hold you over until what you want comes out down the road, this is the perfect ticket.



Updating this for all...

Reference level after doing it manually is 50 for me (at 75db). I wound up doing another reference level (like in DVD Essentials) of 85db too, and the volume for that is 71. So, apparently the numbers are not db rated. Very strange. I reran it several times, and came up with that every time.

[Goatse]

Originally Posted by Chris Rein

Reference level after doing it manually is 50 for me (at 75db). I wound up doing another reference level (like in DVD Essentials) of 85db too, and the volume for that is 71. So, apparently the numbers are not db rated. Very strange. I reran it several times, and came up with that every time.

50??? I haven't been past 27... I'd figure at 50 the speakers would just distort.

[krazyfiend]

Originally Posted by Goatse

50??? I haven't been past 27... I'd figure at 50 the speakers would just distort.

Same here, 38 sound level was literally scaring my bull dog when listening to some FLAC tracks via optical input from my computer.

This was after I followed Goatse's instructions on setting all speakers to Small and setting the crossover to 80... as well as making sure my sound card and ps3 were outputting a LPCM stream.

I used the blu-ray DVE disc last night, but did not delve into the audio calibration areas.

[Chris Rein]

Originally Posted by Goatse

50??? I haven't been past 27... I'd figure at 50 the speakers would just distort.

Yup. Reference Level is 50 calibrated at 75db. When I watch, I keep it around 38 or so.