Sony DVD Dream System review (DAV-FR10W)

We admit it: the picture on the side of the Sony DAV-FR10W's box wasn't very encouraging. Those willowy HTIB tower speakers look cool enough, but all too often they sound, well, thinner than a supermodel. Not this time! Once we'd unpacked the box and sat down to listen, Sony's ultrasvelte speakers broke out of the all-show, no-go stereotype. Better yet, the FR10W features particularly well-designed wireless surround speakers that use infrared technology and don't sound any worse than their wired counterparts. You'll pay extra, however, for the style and the (relative) freedom from wires: the DAV-FR10W carries a list price of $1,000.

Editor's note: We have changed the rating in this review to reflect recent changes in our rating scale. Click here to find out more.

The Sony DAV-FR10W's low-profile, beautifully finished receiver/five-disc changer consumes 16 inches of shelf depth. Its slot-loading disc mechanism eliminates the loading tray; you simply feed each disc into the slot on the front panel. Press Eject, and the disc gently swivels out. It's very cool and high tech, and so is the slim remote, which presents only the most essential buttons for everyday use and hides everything else under a slip-down cover. On a more critical note, the disc changer is a really slow chugger--it can take 30 seconds to get to the next disc.

The four 43-inch-tall tower speakers, clad in an aluminum finish with gray grilles, are elegantly designed and largely responsible for the system's sleek appearance. They come with their bases already mounted, so for once we didn't have to exercise a screwdriver to get the speakers up and running. A 14-inch-wide matching center speaker completes the main speaker array, and the subwoofer's silver finish and sculptured front panel visually complement the receiver/changer and the towers. This 20.7-pound boomer measures 7.9 inches wide, 14.5 inches high, and 17.6 inches deep.

The wireless surround speakers employ Sony's Digital Infrared Audio Transmission system, which still requires lots of wires. First you plug the cable of the 4.5-inch-tall infrared transmitter into the DVD-changer unit and aim the transmitter towards the left surround speaker's built-in infrared receiver. If there's no direct line of sight between the transmitter and the left surround speaker, you must connect a supplied infrared receiver to the left surround speaker and place that receiver in the transmitter's line of sight.

What about the right wireless surround speaker? Well, you have to run a wire from the left surround speaker to the right surround speaker, way over on the other side of your room! Oh, and don't forget that you'll have to plug the left surround speaker into an AC outlet to run its power amplifiers and infrared receiver. As complicated as that sounds, its setup was actually more straightforward than that of the other wireless systems we've reviewed. Still, we'd like to see some improvement in this area.

Note: Those who don't want to hassle with the wireless feature can opt for Sony's nearly identical but fully wired DAV-FR9. It costs $200 less.

The digital amplifier on the Sony DAV-FR10W's receiver/changer delivers 114 watts per channel to each speaker and 115 watts to each of the subwoofer's two woofers. Surround processing runs the gamut from 5.1-channel Dolby Digital to Dolby Pro Logic II to DTS and, get this, Dolby EX and DTS ES 6.1-channel processing. We were surprised by the 6.1-decoding capabilities because the receiver has only five main amplifier channels. To take advantage of the 6.1 capabilities, you'll need to hook up a separate amplifier and speaker to the receiver/changer. Oh, the five-disc changer also plays Super Audio CDs (SACDs), MP3s, and JPEGs. Unfortunately, basic amenities such as bass and treble controls or even a subwoofer-level control didn't make the cut.