Sony STR-DA3300ES user reviews

Pros Nothing at all

Cons Poor HDMI ports drop connections intermittently. Overpriced for such a poor product.

Pros On screen display, remote, connectivity, good power

Cons sound quality is good not great, upconversion degrades video quality even during component pass through

Summary I have a 5 year old Yamaha that sounds better and doesnt degrade my picture quality on just a simple component pass through....which in my opinion makes this receiever sub par considering the reason you buy a receiver is for the video switching and the sound----should have stuck with Yamaha or Denon....

Pros sound quality, options, integration, GUI and the very easy setup

Cons nothing found

Summary I connect to a PS3 and to Bravia LCD 52" W4000 via HDMI. My choice for speakers was B&W (Bowers & Wilkins M-1), pack of 5 and the subwoofer PV-1. The connection of the PS3 to internet is via wifi airport from apple.
The setup and the calibration is made automatically and is very easy to do it, the system has a special feature to do it with a microphone that it is include. The integration with these equipment is superb, the GUI of the sony is the same of PS3 and the sound quality is impressive. I think that only 5300 can be better but the differences for the money is not enough to buy it.

Pros Good sound and nice video interface

Cons Bad video quality

Summary I bought this because it had the best features compared to the other for the same price. Well everything about this receiver is good as described by most of the editorial reviews online and by magazines. Even the DCDi upscaling is also nice, though less noticable unless you are very stringent about the picture quality. But the worst thing that I found was the quality of the high definition video. I connected my HD Sat box with this receiver with component cable and then the receiver to the HDTV with HDMI cable. The picture was very dark and clearity decreased a little, and there was no way to change this setting of darkness from receiver. Changing picture color, brightness and contrast from TV didn't gave me better results. Perhaps my HD Sat box connected directly to the HDTV with component cable was ten times better in clearity and quality.
Bottom line if you are thinking to buy this receiver for picture quality and conversion I would suggest not to waste money in this. May be you can get the same sound with a cheaper model like DG1000 etc. don't pay high for video, you will regret.