Excellent (5 Stars) Dolby Pro Logic Amplifier
Great Display panel which is bold and clear and allows you to edit the text for various equipment, but it already covers most equipment any way.
The Options for sound are TREMENDOUS - there are loads from different types of music to all rooms you can think of such as a football stadium theatre mode when you watch football matches.
The graphic equaliser mode allows you to adjust your music with ease using a dial at all frequencies - and you can hear the differences and quality straight away.

This also has a dolby digital input which i have used and it handles like a DREAM!! i teamed it up with the highest quality dolby digital decoder i could find (about $800) and the handling is superb.

The amplifier looks very stylish and can handle alot of power - i have it linked to a top class 'Kef Code' cinema speaker system (about $6,000) and it handles superbly.

Frankly i have NEVER seen or heard of any amplifer that comes close to this quality i have experienced for over a year.

Nothing has ever gone wrong and it is very reliable

The REMOTE CONTROL is Perfect it is programmable for all your other equipment and covers almost everything.

Its quite big and heavy but if you have a quality system this is the perfect accessory as it would sit nicely in any cabinet.

Acousticically there are no weaknesses it performs at all levels and is ideal for cinema sound when linked to a dolby digital decoder

To sum up it has to be said that this amplifier does not come cheap and to the normal low budget buyer this is out of their range. But to some one on a moderate budget and is a cinema enthusiatic and loves music then this is the DREAM buy. It is a cut above the rest an the quality is obvious - just from the look you can tell this unit has superb handing and power out put - and it does!!!!

It looks great and plays superbly HOWEVER there is no point in buying this if you are going to link to a crap low budget system that has no quality at all. You will experience its best qualities which it will offer if you hook it up to a brilliant speaker system that can handle all the frequencies like the Kef, Mission, and even Wharfdale!

My rating is 5 Stars ***** . It meets all demands and is GOLD QUALITY!!!!!!!

Similar Products Used:

Previously i had a top of the range Yamaha amp A1020 whiuch was also excellent but the Sony Va8es is just that bit better!

I bought this winter 1997, at that time I got
a good rate from a friend working at Sony, I still
use the amp with satisfying results, the only drawback would be the lack of Dolby Digital and DTS.

This amp has a very nice look and great feel, It really
is something to show off for your friends.

For approx 600 USD you get a very nice amplifier with
great DPL and enough power for the mid-range sector.
It holds a sub-out for active sub... very neat.

First of all, sorry for my English which I suppose is not very good ... anyway, i bought my Sony TA-VA8 ES (the one with the "gold" finish, the look is fantastic) about 1 years ago and used it very often with Dolby Pro-logic codified VHS films. I enjoy it very much, using a pair of Infinity studio monitor SM152 as front speakers, SM Video as center speakers ad a pair of SM65 as rear. I don't own a DVD player yet, but i tried the 5.1 inputs with a Panasonic DVD A350 that a friend lended me some time ago, and the sound was VERY GOOD. The DSP section also offers a variety of credible effects. I paid it £. 1.250.000 (about $650 at current rate), a really good purchase wich fully satisfied my expectations.

well, i bought this amp about 1 1/2 years ago and i can say, this amp rocks...i´m using mission 750le as front, 760i as rear and a modified 760 as center speaker. a jvc passive-sub delivers the low frequencies. i must say i´m very impressed with the power and sound of this amp. especially when your listening to music in the direct-pass-mode, the music has an open scale. in the future i´m going to combine this amp with sony´s 725db-dvd because of his 5.1-output...
in the moment the amp runs with an jvc-svhs-vcr in surround-mode and i´m enjoying every minute with him.

5.1 input, very good all round surround amp

no variable front line level out, doesn't work with some DTS decoders

Surround usage :

I bought this amp to replace my old technics SU-V2X amp and an add-on low-cost kenwood suround processor.I paid 600$ for it, which was a very good deal (Belgium is a very expensive country for hifi). This amp leaves my old setup far behind : much more power, better control and a lot of surround setup options.

A year later I added the sony ep-9es dolby digital decoder. For surround the combination truly rocks.

When the 5.1 input is selected, only the master volume and the front balance can be adjusted. This may give problems with some external DTS decoders where the indvidual channels can't be level matched to the sensitivity of your different speakers. The 9es in bypass mode doesn't do this either .

Stereo :

The only problem with most surround amps : pure stereo play.
While the stereo play with this amp is ok if you use direct pass (this leaves out the ADC - DSP - DAC process which detoriates the sound quality), there's no upgrade path to use a dedicated power amp for the front speakers. They left out the variable outputs for front, but provide a center, sub and surround line out.

Dolby surround on the 8es vs 9es

A/B comparison between the internal DSP of the 8es and the external 9es DSP :

- select video1 as the source and activate the 5.1 input. The source is still selected so it also goes to line out, but the power amplifier gets it's signal from the 5.1 input instead of the internal dsp.

I wanted to test the difference between the sony ep9es as dolby surround dsp and the built in dsp in the 8es.

In the first case, I use my sblive to digitize the record out of the 8es, then connected it's sp-dif out to the 9es. The I compared this with the internal dsp of the 8es by switching the 5.1 input on and off.

The 8es with 5.1 off sounded much cleaner and more cinematic. There some possible factors :

- the 9es is optimised for dolby digital and not for surround
- the ADC process may be flawed , even on a card like a soundblaster live
- the long path between my vcr and the 8es internal amp (vcr->8es->sblive->9es->8es:5.1). There are 3 analog interconnects vs 1.

Stereo upgrade path :

I decided to go for a rotel rb 991 amp, rc 995 preamp and rc 971 hdcd player. My sony 8es will be used for video source switching and to drive the center and surround speakers.

My front speakers are celestion ditton 33, a 70's speaker, which will soon be replaced by a Nautilus 804 speaker of the older Matrix 802 from B&W. This kind of speaker won't work very well with the 8ES.

On the rb 991, I can switch between balanced input (from the rc 995) and unbalanced (from the 9ES).

I also looked for 5.1 / stereo combined preamps, but they all seem to digitise the analog inputs, which I don not like at all. This leaves out the possibility to upgrade the DAC later. Therefore I chose to have 2 preamps, the rotel for plain stereo and the 9es for surround and future digital sources which use at max 48khz (e.g. DAB, sattelite receivers, ... ).

Please feel free to mail your comments on this setup.

Similar Products Used:

sony ep9es