Price Paid:  $400.00 from CircuitCity

Summary:
When I first got this player it worked great. Yes it was slow to load and the remote is basically junk, but the looks made up for it. My biggest gripe is that some movie CD's freeze for a fraction of a second half-way thru the movie. I have two dvd players in the house, I tried it on my toshiba and it worked fine. After about 5 different movies having this problem I sent it in for service. I got it back and it seem to work fine for a month or so, until it started happening again. For example movie "Out of Time" chapter 15, it would freeze every so often thru out the movie. I am so frustrated. I would not suggest this model to anybody, I am surprised that this hasnt happen to other people, maybe I will just send it into service again.

Strengths:
Great Looks
Sounds more than adequate

Weaknesses:
freezes during certain movies.
Remote is terrible.

Price Paid:  $450.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
My wife selected and purchased this system for me as a Father's Day gift. Evidently the guys at the store told her that it was the most popular HTIB. I am a car stereo enthusiast but this is my first surround sound system. Overall I am very pleased with the DAV-C770.

Of course my wife likes the fact that the speakers look good and don't take up too much space. We have small children and I was able to mount some shelves about 5 feet off the ground for each speaker. I first checked the manual to see if this would be OK, and it was not only acceptable but the receiver also lets you specify whether your speakers are mounted high on the wall (I assume some adjustments to the audio are made for this). The subwoofer is easily hidden in a corner.

The sound is excellent and the bass put out by the subwoofer is more than enough for the room. My Family Room is 17 x 20 and movies sound really good on this system. I do feel like the volume maxes out a little low. If I was a bachelor and had no children or wife to complain I would probably want a louder system, but at max volume everyone else in the family is already giving me dirty looks. One tip that I definitely want to mention here: Crank all three (front, rear, sub) "level" settings up to +6. By default, these are all set to 0. This makes a ton of difference. For most movies I have to turn the sub level down to +3 or so, otherwise the sub tends to drown out the satellite speakers. If Sony would have shipped these with higher level settings there may be fewer negative reviews. Most people will never change the default settings and are not getting the most out of their system.

The remote leaves much to be desired. It looks like it would light up, but doesn't. If I remember right it is supposed to glow in the dark but mine never has. It is not a universal remote but it will control your television. In order to switch to TV mode, you have to move a tiny switch from "DVD" to "TV" (can you say clunky). I have not programmed the remote to control my TV, but my two year old is constantly moving the little switch to TV mode. The first time this happened I though the batteries were dead and it took me a few minutes to realize what had happened. The print next to the buttons is very tiny and if the room is dark you'll give yourself a headache trying to read it.

My system does suffer a glitch in the "fast reverse" function. Occasionally I will push the back button twice and for some reason it goes backwards very slowly. I work around this by pushing play (to get out of the slow-mo) and then back twice again. This happens about every third or fourth time.

My biggest gripe with the player is in the loading time. It takes quite a while to eject and load discs, and just as long to read the disc and begin playing it. I have seen some Sony Dream Systems that use a carousel changer and if you have not yet purchase the C770 you may want to consider this option. As much as I change DVDs it would be nice to be able to lay all five DVDs down at once instead of loading them one at a time through the single slot. This annoys me on the weekends when we usually rent three or four movies. I have to baby-sit the player for what seems like an eternity in order to load all of them. The only benefit that I know of to having the one at a time loader is the small size of the player.

Another thing I'm not crazy about is there is no way to tell which slot a certain DVD or CD is in. I usually stack the cases up in the same order I load the discs. That way I know which slot the movie I am looking for is in (until the kids knock the cases over).

The proprietary connectors on the receiver also annoyed me. I guess this is nice for the people that don't have a clue, but for people that know what they're doing this can be a real pain. I had to splice Sony's connectors onto the wires that I have coming out of my wall. For me, splices in the wires means that I could have problems down the road. Sony should have made these proprietary connectors removable.

You can tell that Sony put a lot of thought into the on-screen menus. I found it very easy to set the player up without the manual (I still read it). I only wish that there was room for more text on the screen when playing my MP3 CDs. Most of the time only the artist's name is displayed and the song name gets truncated.

All in all this is a good player for the money. The sound is impressive and once I have the discs loaded I get to kick back in my recliner and enjoy without needing to get up and change discs between movies. Laziness is a beautiful thing.

Strengths:
Sleek futuristic look
Able to mount speakers high on the wall
Great sound
Holds five DVDs/CDs
Easy on-screen menus

Weaknesses:
Default "level" settings are too low
Sloooooooooooooooow to load and eject
Worthless remote
Proprietary receiver connectors
Glitch in the reverse function

Similar Products Used:
Toshiba DVD player with horrible on-screen menus

Price Paid:  $300.00 from circuit city

Summary:
I love my dav-770. The player is slow to load, but it can take that since it is in such a small package. I was really happy when I got it home, the guy at the store said it didn't have mp3 or vcd support, which I found out that it did.I live in an apartment with a roughly 15 x 20 room and it sounds awesome. The only thing sound wise I didn't care for was when the sub is driven hard, it starts to sound airy. Like you can hear the air puffing out of the enclosure. I had an infinity bu-1 powered sub laying aorund so I hooked that up and now it sounds great. I haven't had any of the skipping problems yet, and hope not to have. But I did get it on closeout for around 300 bucks so I am quite happy with it.

Strengths:
Size
Preformance
Features

Weaknesses:
Sub is only so-so
The special speaker wire connectors

Similar Products Used:
none

Price Paid:  $450.00 from I don't remember /on

Summary:
Monkey can set it up.
Works OK, no problems at all.
I'm happy with it can't find a reason to buy a new one.

Strengths:
Nice look.I use it for dvd, cd, mp3,no skiping freezing etc..Easy to find neon blue remote at night.Main buttons OK.

Weaknesses:
Slow disc load, and change.but I can deal with it.Remote has step by step disc change only!(no disc 3 to 5,or 4 to 1 etc...1;you must change all over, 2;walk to main unit )Little buttons a pain hard to memorize and find them.

Similar Products Used:
First home sys.

Price Paid:  $499.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
After hearing Darkside of the Moon was coming out on SACD I found myself seaching for the best inexpensive player out there. I listened to a few systems, but the sharp sound of the little grey speakers and the small size (this is for my bedroom afterall) of this Sony home theatre sold me. I got the box home and was disappointed to find proprietary connections for the speakers. I hadn't been careful enough on the store model when I was looking it over--my bad, but easy to overlook if it sounds so nice. Once it was up and running I threw in my shiny new SACD. The loading mechanism was slow like I had heard; my anticipation almost overtook me as every gear turned and grinded to let me load my disc. Finally I stuck Darkside in and was blown away by the new mix! Every speaker rung out crystal clear with its own part of the music to itself. And then 45 seconds into track two the sound cut out for a mere instant. I figured it was a small anomaly and continued on in musical euphoria. Then a minute later: another skip. Then more. Each skip being just far enough apart to let me slip into peaceful listening and then jar my ears with the sudden stop. Maybe it's my disc I thought. I checked it later in the store's SACD player and had no trouble. Well, I threw in a movie to check the quality. I don't have an HDTV, but my component cables and flat screen Sony still look alright. More skipping. Movies would freeze up just for an instance. Not as often as on audio, but enough. Also, the subtitle problem was still in effect. Every so often spanish readings for signs on screen would pop up. I played a regular CD just for testing and it worked fine. I traded mine for another one like it figuring I had purchased a dud. This next one worked better with SACD, but still would skip on occasion. The video situation also had less skipping but it happened. I took this back the next day and ordered a Pioneer DV655A player with SACD and DVD-A format support, which works great. I wanted to like the Sony, but it didn't make it easy. When it worked, it was great, but I couldn't be comfortable with the problems I kept having. It's a tempting model, but I'd recomend finding something else.

Strengths:
-DTS 5.1, DPLII, and DD 5.1
-Sounds fantastic
-Nice and small
-Easy to setup
-Cool remote despite microscopic buttons
-Looks are a definite plus

Weaknesses:
-Subtitle problems persist on new models.
-Loading really is slow
-Remote is bad for people with no microscope
-Proprietary speaker connections.
-No Powered sub out
-Skipping on movies and more so on SACDs (and isn't that Sony's own format?)