DVD Dream® System: DAV-FR9 (1 Viewer)

[questrider]

Does anybody know anything about these systems? It's a Sony DVD Dream® System: DAV-FR9.

Or if they're new, does anybody have an opinion of the DAV-FR9 system in particular?

I'm not allowed to post the URL to this product, so I'll simply desribe it a bit...

The system that is a step-up (DAV-FR10W) is $200 more and wireless with a little less power in the F/R speakers but a more powerful sub-woofer (150w), but I think I'd like to stay away from "wireless sound".

I'm not a big fan of these "all-in-one" units, but the power (800 Total System Power- 114 X 5 (F,C,R) + 115 x 2 Subwoofer) and simplistic nature of the speakers (3.5" x 43" x 3" with 1" Tweeters and 2 3/4" Woofers in a 2-way type Speaker System) with a moderately powerful sub-woofer (6 1/4" x 2 Bass Reflex Type Dual Woofer Unit) seem to make it a decent system for $800. My cats might also ignore these "tower satellite" speakers instead of ripping them apart as they've done over the years on my nearly 20-year-old 16" x 31" Technics behemoths with 12" woofers, or, they'll pay even more attention to them since they may resemble scratching posts!! Nevertheless, for aesthetics, it also seems like this system will match my 36" Sony Wega quite well!

Or am I out of mind? Please advise.

 

[John S]

In experiencing this system in other people's homes. It does not stack up very well performance wise to an Onkyo 770 system, all asthetics aside.

 

[EricRWem]

Onkyo 770 is the best HTIB out there right now, value for dollar and performance, imho. If you shop around a li'l bit, you might be very pleasantly surprised.

 

[EricRWem]

Accidental duplicate post.

 

[EricRWem]

Onkyo 770 is the best HTIB out there right now, value for dollar and performance, imho. If you shop around a li'l bit, you might be very pleasantly surprised.

 

[questrider]

Thanks! You have given me more information to keep researching and I am finding that a lot of good things are said about the Onkyo HT-770.

 

[John S]

And I guess it comes in silver and/or black...

Not sure if that is everything in silver and/or black though or just the included avr.

 

[EricRWem]

http://www.onkyousa.com/model.cfm?m=...ss=Systems&p=i

All silver or all black CAN be done!

 

[John S]

Dang, and $399 factory refurb from their site!!

And to think I wasted all that money on Denon, Velodyne, and Studio monitors... lol


Really the system performs quite impressively, and is such, that it can expand and grow with you as you may choose to upgrade.

 

[EricRWem]

Those Onkyos bring a new respect to the HTIB market for sure. Very impressive for what it is.

 

[questrider]

I ended up not liking the sound of the Onkyo 770. Sounded colored and was all mid-range.

So I went crazy and bought instead:

Yamaha HTR-5760 Receiver
JBL Northridge E80 (2) for Front L/R
JBL Northridge E20 (2) for Surround L/R
JBL Northridge EC25 (1) for Center
JBL Northridge E150P (1) for Sub-woofer

Coming from a 20-year owner of a 2-channel Technics system that sounded really good to my ears and this being my first surround sound home theater system, I really don't know much about this stuff: Dolby Digital or DTS from 5.1-to-6.1-to-7.1, but this Yamaha unit with the JBL speaker system sounded great at the store when I tested it out for both movies and music CDs. I have 30 days to be satisfied with it so I'll figure it out in the next week or so!

It was a boatload of more money than the Onkyo 770, but my ears are damned picky and the front set of JBLs (E80s) alone sounded so good they blew my ears away.

Maybe I don't know jack and wasted my money. We'll see in the next couple weeks as I figure this stuff out. This forum has been very helpful, but as we've all decided at one point, you can only do so much research and then what it simply comes down to is "Does it sound great?" to your own ears.

I'll check in again in a couple of weeks or so with my updated and "educated" thoughts once I learn more.

Does anybody else out there have these JBL speakers or Yamaha receiver that has any input? Greatly appreciated.

 

[John S]

Well I hope I was obviously being facicious(sp?)....

I am in love with my Denon and JBL S38's.....


If you didn't like the sound ok the Onkyo 770 system, I dare say what your impressions of a Sony Dream system would have been!!! lol


The most beautiful thing about $399 for the Onkyo 770, if you say don't like the sound of the front speakers, you can change them, and still be a ahead money wise on the deal. That AVR that comes with that is really a good solid performer and is certainly the heart of the system even cost wise.

I'd say say just changing the front soundstage with the same JBL speakers, still using the rest of the 770 system would have probably been extremely close performance wise to what you have no though.

 

[questrider]

Okay...

I know by the title of this thread I'm not communicating with many people... but John S this is for you!

You steered me away from the Sony system towards the Onkyo. Then I went crazy and bought the Yamaha/JBL system described above...

Tonight I got everything hooked up correctly, tweaked my settings (haven't used the Yamaha YPAO system for calibration yet--will someday when I want to "play") to where I liked the levels from the center, front l/r, surrounds l/r, subwoofer, etc. First I was watching a few test discs and noticed PCM in the "auto" of the receiver, remembered I needed to change the settings on the DVD player to output Dolby Digital signals, assured myself with the "auto" of the receiver that I was indeed getting "Dolby Digital" (instead of the PCM) and... then put in the new Star Wars: ANH DVD...

Holy f***ing s**t (please excuse my profanity)...

My ears are blown away with this JBL speaker setup. WOW!

This coming from someone who hasn't owned a surround anything... I'm so impressed that I think in the next week I will pick up another pair of the E20s (or E30s to replace the sur L/R and use the E20s for the sur back L/R [?]) for the 6.1 experience/7.1 future potential (once 7.1 becomes standard in the next few years). Why not? I'm always of the mind that I like stuff that matches (so does the wife--c'mon, a lot of us know what I'm talking about )--and the JBL Northridges in black ash are very nice aesthetically--and in a year or so JBL will change how things look and I'll never be able to pick up this "look" again (it happens with everything: even tennis shoes!). It's the "once you find something you like you want the same things again" security/aesthetic. Haha. Anyway...

Thanks to all who steered me in this thread after reading countless posts from those I "lurked" over the past year on researching and learning what I wanted to know about surround equipment. Inherently I knew I needed to spend "some" money but all of us try to be budget hunters, nevertheless, in the end, I caved into what I really wanted. Sometimes I attribute this to the "more money than brains" theory, but so be it.

Going from basic 2-channel front L/R for 20 years to Dolby Digital 5.1 surround... well? Let's just say I will never watch movies the same way again. What's wonderful it now I can go through all the movies in my collection and "experience" them again for the first time (what we all aspire to), but not visually, but "audio-phonically" (is that a word) as I will be "listening" to it for the first time as I've never heard in those movies before. (I hate the word awesome, but my experience tonight fits the bill.)

Later I'm going to check out what all the hub-bub about DTS is when I sample a few of those movies.

No work tomorrow. Fun, fun, fun.

 

[John S]

Well, I in no way was saying you made a wrong choice. You made great choices and obviously it paid off in the performance you experienced. You have a better system all around than the Onkyo 770 system no doubt about it!!

As said, I know a few people very happy with the Onkyo system, but there are distict reasons I own a Denon 4802, Quantity 10 JBL s38 speakers, and a 15" Velodyne Sub. Which all cost well over $3000 combined, over something like the Onkyo 770 system.

You christened it with Star Wars!!! Classic....

Man I watched "The Exorcist" last night for the first time at 1080i, and as per the before the movie Director comments, I turned down the lights, lit a candle, turned the volume up to true theater type reference levels, and I have to say it scared the *$%#$ or of me!!!!! lol