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It's a dream
By Sean Carruthers, posted 4/2/2004 3:55:40 PM

Sony's home theatre plays old and new discs

Sony DAV-FC7

www.sonystyle.ca

Estimated price: $799

If you're looking for a home theatre system that will play your audio CDs -- including all of the new audio formats -- look no further than Sony's new Dream system, the DAV-FC7. The main unit is a 600-watt digital amplifer/receiver and a five-disc player, all in one attractive, compact, brushed steel case. The player handles DVD movies, DVD Audio, Super Audio CD, MP3 CDs, and your old audio CDs. It also has a built-in FM/AM tuner.

The system comes with its own speaker set, consisting of five satellites and a subwoofer. It is reasonably easy to set up thanks to colour-coded speaker terminals and phone jack-style connectors at the receiver end. Threading the speaker wire up through the stands takes a bit of work but is pretty straightforward. Because of the jack system, you'll have some splicing to do if you want to change the speakers themselves down the road. However, because this set is matched to the amp, you shouldn't have to do that unless you go out of your way to damage the speakers that ship with the system.

Of course, in addition to audio playback, this system is designed for DVD movies. You can hook it up to your display using the composite (RCA) output, via S-Video or using the tri-channel component output. It plays DVDs (movie or audio) in either Dolby 5.1 surround sound or DTS when available.

As with most new home theatre setups, the receiver doesn't give you the same easy control over tonal settings that you have with older analogue equipment. The bass control has only three settings and there isn't a multi-channel equalizer on the front panel that can be easily adjusted. You can burrow down into the menu systems and adjust volume levels for each individual speaker (including the subwoofer), and change the surround settings, but most users will find this more frustrating than it's worth.

Speaking of which, another mild frustration is the disc-loading system. Most multi-disc players use a carousel with a drawer that pops out. The DAV-FC7 features a slot-load system, like those in a car stereo, with eject and select buttons for each of the five discs. To load a new disc you have to look at the backlit buttons along the top to see which spots are free, then press the eject button for that slot before you can load in your disc. You then have to wait until the mechanism is in place before you can insert that disc -- a process that isn't very obvious, forcing you to poke your disc into the slot until something grabs it and yanks it inside.

Ultimately, it's a small annoyance when you consider what you get: an unit that's reasonably easy to set up, plays almost all of your audio and movie discs, and replaces your amp, DVD, and audio players in one compact and attractive unit. (And attractive it is, from the top to the bottom. Even the way the pieces were put into the box was well designed, with the speaker stands arranged into a spiral pattern, and the speakers clustered around the outside. How often do you see that?)

The best thing is, it sounds great. It uses 1-bit decoding for the Super Audio CDs, which means you get full audio resolution out of all of your formats, and as soon as the audio hits the air, you can hear the quality.