Sony STRDG720 7.1 Audio, Best Budget Receiver!
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Best Budget Receiver!
If you own a Blu-ray player and it decodes uncompressed audio like Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD MA. Then now is is time to buy this inexpensive yet very capable receiver. It was huge improvement from my nine year old Sony 5.1 receiver, which still works well.
I wanted to complement my PS3 and 1080p 65″ Mitsubishi with clean uncompressed audio. This receiver met this expectation for me and beyond with the incredible sound it can process. After setting it up, I popped in The Simpsons Movie on Blu-ray which has DTS-HD MA. I could not believe my Sony speakers could sound any better until it started playing. I then tried Spiderman 3 with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and it sounded amazing when Sandman fought Spiderman during the armored car scene. I was truly convinced that I made the right decision buying the 720 after listening to those tests movies.
To every high, there is a low.
The receiver menu took awhile to understand from its manual. I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to adjust my speaker set up settings. After some curse words and taking a break, I finally figured it out. Its still not easy to navigate the menus for minor tweaking to this day after using it for a week! Also I miss the blue light that lets you know when its processing surround sound. It does have a brief scroll telling you what it is processing. But its not the same 
Bonus!
Harmony does now have the 720 in their database and my 880 remote works great with it.
The 720 is sure a great upgrade for my home theater and I hope it can last just as long as my old one! Be sure to have enough HDMI cables for your home theater set up. I get mine from mycablemart.com and no I dont work for them bcuz I dropped their name. They have 6′ 1.3a compliant cables with shipping for under ten bucks!
If you have it set up right, you will not be disappointed with the 720.
Update (2/6/2012):
The featured review for this product, Sony STRDG720 7.1 Audio Video Receiver - Black Electronics, was written by C. C. Ramirez.
The average rating for this item is out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.
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Tags: 1080p, 7 point 1, 71 surround, a v equipment, affordable, amazing, audio, automatic, blu-ray, dolby truehd, hdmi, hdmi audio, hdmi receiver, hdmi switcher, home theater, playstation 3, ps3, receiver, sony, strdg720
Posted on: June 19, 2010
Filed under: Reviews
Reviews (3)
Mike in San Diego
May 17th, 2010 at 2:49 am
Look out for COX Cable
I got the receiver a week or so ago and it is great, especially considering the price. It sounds great and most setup is automatic. It works great with PS3/HDMI. HDMI is required for the PS3 to output more than 2 audio channels from a Blu-Ray Disk (Standard DVDs on the PS3 reproduce Dolby 5.1 just fine.)
HOWEVER, beware of COX cable if you want to use HDMI from the cable box. You will get an error on your TV about it not supporting HDCP, which is a copy protection scheme. Cox (Scientific Atlanta) DVR boxes see any HDMI switching receiver as some sort of pirating device and requires you to use component cables. This is a major inconvenience! The result is that you can’t switch from the COX box to the PS3 without changing inputs on your TV.
A call to COX customer “care” revealed that they don’t care to remove HDCP from their cable boxes even though I suspect it would be a simple ROM upgrade.
Adam C. Bloom
May 18th, 2010 at 10:14 pm
PS3 and HDTV Perfect Match
I bought this receiver to compliment the following setup. Sharp 46 "1080p LCD 60GB PS3 Polk RM6750 surround speakers and two Polk bookshelfs (6.1 surround). This unit is a fantastic value! Has all the functions needed to reach the sky HDTV and Blu-Ray. Do not bother spending a lot of money for high-end receivers since the PS3 is not all the hard work for you. just starting to get the whole system via HDMI and your crystal clear sound. There is no video menu, but you do not need it. "Setup is straighforward. Adjustments can be made to design or to ensure perfect sound regardless of room size. Not sure a 6.1 or 7.1 setup is worth the effort. Just fill the sound a little better. PS3 games really this sound good through setup. Dolby True HD and Dolby sound on Spiderman 5.1 Uncompressed on National Treasure fantastic. Downside, remote is not too smart. In the end, with cable TV or universal Pony come the big bucks for the Logitech Harmony.
C. C. Ramirez
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Best Budget Receiver!
Rated 5 stars.
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