Sony STRDH550 5.2 Channel 4K AV Receiver

All things considered, this is a great receiver for the price. I'll start by listing the minor nits and annoyances I have with it, then move on to the good news:1) HDMI standby passthrough is great, but it would be nice if it could somehow recognize what input it is selected to in standby mode. What I mean is, Standby passthrough only works if the receiver has been set to the appropriate input before it was turned off. So for instance if you want to watch a cable channel with the receiver off, but the receiver was set to USB or Game or some other input the last time it was on, then standby passthrough won't work. You'll need to turn the receiver on for a moment, select Cable input on the remote, then turn it back off again. It's a little annoying, but still, standby passthrough is a great feature, regardless of this limitation.2) Playing via USB stick needs more controls. This is another great feature that has a caveat in practice. MP3/WMA music sounds fantastic when streamed directly from a USB stick. But don't expect the receiver to remember what song you were listening to last time. And don't expect to be able to navigate/browse through the list of songs on your USB stick. You can keep hitting the forward button until you find the song you like, or you can put it on Shuffle mode. But that's about it.3) BraviaSync doesn't work 100% with my Sony Blueray player. In fact it really doesn't work much at all. A few of the receiver's buttons may do something on the blueray player, but for the most part there is no communication between the two.4) There are no adjustments for ProLogic II mode. I believe ProLogic II supports fine-tuning for sound stage width and panorama wrap. This unit only has a canned PLII mode. I guess micro adjustment functionality is saved for the more expensive models.All this said, I'm still going to give it 5 stars. Why? Because for the very modest amount of money I paid for it, it sounds fantastic, has been reliable, and has a nice assortment of features. It's easy to spend 2, 3, even 4 times as much for an HT receiver. Keep that in mind when you weigh what the Sony STRDH550 has to offer.Setup was easy, especially as everything is HDMI these days, which really simplifies wire management. Blueray player, X-Box, and cable TV unit all plug into the Sony, then the Sony plugs into the TV. Easy peasy. I then used the included microphone to tune the system, which was very easy to do. It correctly identified how many speakers I had and their approximate distance from the listening position, and if I remember correctly, it adjusted the gain on the rears. These are all things you could do yourself, so the auto-calibration is no magic. In fact, I'd highly recommend that you play around with the speaker adjustments to suit your taste. No automated routine is ever going to predict with certainty what will sound good to you.A note about setting the crossover frequency, which is really a high-pass. First off, why would you want to do this? Well, I can think of one good reason, and that is to keep smaller speaker drivers from being damaged by low frequency sounds. This applies in particular to rear channel speakers, which often have small drivers. They really can't produce low frequency sounds, but they will try to do so anyway, which could result in muddy sound at best, or a blown speaker at worst. Rear channels are intended to be mostly for ambiance anyway, so you don't really need all that low frequency information back there. For most rear channel speakers, a crossover somewhere in the 70-100 HZ range is probably good. This is low enough to sound good, but not so low as to damage the speakers. Really though, I would recommend temporarily disconnecting the other speakers and only listening to the rears for a few minutes. Then experiment with different crossover settings. You might want to do the same with your center channel speaker, as most centers also use smaller drivers. Most mains are built to handle the whole frequency range, so there is usually no need to adjust the crossover on the left and right mains. Note that you can only adjust the crossover settings when the speaker type is set to "Small." If the speakers are set to "Large," then the receiver will send the full frequency range to them and the option to set a crossover frequency will be greyed out. So just make sure they are set to "Small" and then you can experiment with different crossover settings.A note about ProLogic II - Dolby ProLogic II is a pretty sophisticated technology, and creates an immersive experience for both music and movies. As noted above, it would be nice if you could fine tune the PL II soundstage, but as it is, the canned PL II settings are very pleasing. I leave the STRDH550 in PL II mode pretty much all the time because it consistently sounds best. Just note, however, that PL II for music is tuned slightly different than PL II for movies. So be sure to click the "Music" or "Movie" button on the remote as appropriate. If you forget to do so, you'll notice that, for instance, movie dialog is a little bit harder to hear when it's set for Music mode. And the music soundstage doesn't sound quite right if it's in Movie mode. So just remember to change it and you'll be fine.The other 2-channel modes are interesting - if you only have 2 speakers, then you might want to check out some of the effects. Basically, they are canned settings which adjust the delay between speakers and introduce reverb to simulate a live music performance. Some of the settings, such as Stadium, are pretty much a novelty, while some of the others, such as Live Concert sound quite good. I'm an audiophile from the 80s, so part of me thinks of these effects modes as cheating. But objectively speaking, I've got to admit that some of them sound quite good. If you like it, then it's good, right?The remote control has all the buttons you need without being cluttered. The menu system is pretty basic, but it is fast and easy to navigate.It would be nice if this unit could be connected to the Internet to play Pandora and other streaming music. It cannot. But my Sony Blueray player can, so I stream Pandora through the Blueray to the STRDH550, and that's fine.One other note, this receiver can accommodate pretty much any combination of speakers you may have. What's that you say? You have front mains, rear channels, center, but no sub? No problem - just set it for 3/2. Or you have mains, sub, and rears, but no center? Just set it for 2/2.1. Pretty much every combination is available, so don't worry if you haven't yet bought all the speakers you need. The STRDH550 can compensate. I actually switch between combos once in a while, just so I can hear how each speaker sounds. You see, I built my speakers myself, and I'm still tuning them, so being able to do things like temporarily drop out everything but the mains without leaving my chair is handy because then I can critically evaluate how they sound by themselves. Or I can easily turn the sub on and off to see how it sounds. Etc., etc.Final note - the STRDH550 is rated for 145 watts per channel, which is a bit higher than comparable models by other brands. I don't normally pay much attention to wattage, but our living room is 24x24 with 13 foot ceilings, so I felt a little extra power would help fill the room with sound. So far the STRDH550 has given us plenty of juice.So in summary, it may have a few little annoyances, but all in all the STRDH550 is a great receiver at a nice price.

Great product

This is a good basic receiver. The sound is excellent and it is relatively simple to set up. However, there are a few caveats.The unit has 4 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI out, but all inputs are not created equal. I had three items I wanted to connect: DVD player, cable box, and my computer. The DVD player and cable box worked without a hitch and I was able to customize the sound to my room and listening requirements without any issues. The computer, though, would only show the opening screen on the computer, not any files like pictures or videos, though I could hear sound. I tried every input on the receiver and couldn't get anything to work. Finally, I had to connect the computer into the TV (via the side input) and then output that into the receiver. However, I then got pictures/videos, but no sound. I eventually connected a digital audio out from the TV to the receiver and got sound, but not surround sound. I got sound on all 5 speakers, but not a clear separation on any of them.My next hurdle was getting content from the TV to the receiver. Because I access Netflix and Amazon on my TV and not my Blu-ray player, I could see, but not hear, these via the receiver. I tried accessing them through my Blu-ray player, which theoretically would have meant they played through that player and everything would be fine. However, I realized that my Blu-ray player didn't have Wi-Fi capability; it only accepted wired input. This was my fault, but I was able to work around it by using the audio out from the TV, resulting in loss of surround sound, but at least I got sound on all the speakers. My only resolution is to get a new, Wi-Fi enabled Blu-ray player, though there is one more alternative I have not yet tried. My TV has another HDMI port that is not being used. I can attempt to connect that into the receiver through one of its inputs and see if I get surround sound (and picture) through that, but I have little hope this will actually work.This is all complicated by the fact that my TV is huge (65 inches) and the main connections are underneath, which is impossible to get to without taking the TV down from its wall mount. This was part of my original problem, as my old receiver required an optical cable for audio (located on the TV bottom), and that connection is very fragile and caused a constant popping sound as the connection wavered. The new receiver also has optical connections and probably provides superior sound (surround), but I refuse to use it because of the previous problems, hence my utilization of the digital audio out via a miniature jack that then connects to RCA plugs on the receiver.It was a lot of hassle to get this working, and it's still not completely right, but it is satisfactory, and the sound through the HDMI connections (Blu-ray and cable box) is very satisfying. The computer sound is not so important as it's mostly You Tube and other videos, but the Netflix is something I will probably fix by getting a new player, if the second HDMI connection doesn't solve the problem.There is one page of basic instructions included and no cables.