Sony's latest top-of-the-line A/V receiver, the STR-DA5200ES, might more fairly be labeled a V/A receiver, being one of the most video-intensive encountered so far. Among its boasts is the slickest onscreen display we've seen in a receiver (its style derives from PSP/PS3 game designs), the most powerful video scaler, and a host of video capabilities, including in-receiver PIP processing. Of course, there's a long list of audio goodies too, among them precise auto-calibration and a range of surround and two-channel options, including one mode optimized for portables such as an iPod or, this being a Sony, a MiniDisc player. (I'm sure you've got one of those in the closet.) The receiver is also XM-ready, including decoding for XM Neural 5.1-channel broadcasts.

On first glance the Sony STR-DA5200ES A/V receiver looks like any other, but with an exceptionally clean front-panel layout, thanks to most functions being accessible strictly from the system remote — a conventional-looking, button-based affair. The back panel is dense, of course, packed with the three HDMI digital A/V inputs of the well-dressed receiver and all the component, S-video, and digital-audio ports you could want.

After hookup, my first move was to run Sony's auto-setup routine. The supplied stereo calibration mike, shaped like a sawed-off "T," yielded impressive spatial precision, calculating my speaker distances to the inch — I checked with a tape measure! (Triangulation is the secret, of course.) It set all my speakers to "large," but since they're all quite able down to 60 Hz or lower, I 've got no major beef — I rechecked with tiny sats, and the receiver dutifully reset to "small." Levels were all within a dB or so of my handheld SPL meter (which may be less accurate than the Sony), except for the subwoofer, which was auto-balanced about 6 dB strong to both my ear and my meter — easily set right on the manual-adjustment page.

Which brings us to the 5200ES's graphic user interface, or GUI: These translucent onscreen displays are, by a wide margin, the most elegant and detailed I've seen from any receiver, and they should do a great job walking the less familiar through the admittedly complex task of setting up an A/V system. The little textual "help" messages along the bottom of many pages, and the full-color, hi-rez look (especially for the speaker and surround setup menus), are undeniably cool.

ERGONOMICS In a very real sense, once you've learned to bring up the GUI and use the remote's cursor/Enter cluster, you've learned all you need. Virtually everything is accessible through the menus, and the response is quite crisp (though the Sony 1080p LCD I used to check out the 5200ES could take a few seconds to re-sync, depending on the receiver's video settings).

One problem with this kind of menu-based control system, however, is that some functions you want readily accessible may be deep in the menus. For example, if you want to adjust center-channel level up a few dB on the fly for the current movie (something I call the Robert Altman maneuver), you will need to make, by my count, no fewer than 16 keypresses from the GUI's home menu just to reach the required page. This holds true for several other potentially oft-desired features, though Sony was wise enough to provide dedicated remote-control keys to most critical commands such as source input, surround modes and radio tuning, plus a few extras via a "Shift" key — including the picture-in-picture feature and the output resolution of the built-in scaler.

The good news is that reaching any command in the GUI is always easy, via the same On Screen and cursor remote keys. Teach your fingers where to find those, and you'll never need to peer at the remote. Sony also designed the system so that the onscreen display "remembers" its place: You can just toggle it on and off to jump back to, say, the page for adjusting channel levels or whatever other screen you last used.

The remote itself is reasonably well laid out and easy to use but with a good bit of hard-to-read small lettering. There's no illumination — a bit surprising at this price — but it does boast powerful glow-in-the-dark primary keys.

VIDEO PERFORMANCE The Sony STR-DA5200ES's scaler uses Faroudja DCDi (Directional Correlation Deinterlacing) technology that can reformat signals up to 1080p through the HDMI output and up to 1080i through the component-video output (signals from S-video and composite-video outputs remain at 480i only, of course). The Sony overlays its GUI displays on any of its outputs, so the onscreen image of whatever you're playing appears beneath the semitranslucent menus on every hookup — woo hoo! Furthermore, the receiver up- or cross-converts any lesser-resolution signal coming in on any input to the HDMI or component output at the currently set resolution. Result? The holy grail of a single HDMI cable from receiver to TV, with you simply selecting sources via the receiver, always having access to the onscreen menus, and always getting the best possible picture, at least in theory.

The Short Form

Price $1,500 / sonystyle.com / 877-865-7669

Snapshot

Class-leading video processing and an elegant graphic interface headline this very capable, well-equipped receiver.

Plus

•Unique video processing power, flexibility •Nifty, ergonomic GUI •Very solid audio performance

Minus

•Some features a long OSD journey away •No convenient channel-level adjustments •No remote illumination or display

Key Features

•120 watts x 7 channels •3 HDMI inputs •Upconverts all inputs to up to 480p/720p/1080i/1080p (1080p via HDMI only) •Extensive onscreen display, control; OSD on all inputs and resolutions •Receiver-based PIP (standard-def only) •Auto-speaker calibration/EQ with stereo mike •XM Satellite/XM Neural-ready •USB port for music-file playback •3-zone multiroom A/V playback; back surround channels assignable to Zone 2 or 3; supplied Zone 2/3 remote •10-device preprogrammed/programmable remote

Test Bench

The STR-DA5200ES presented no surprises. Power was generous in all tests save all-channels-driven, where the receiver topped out at 66 watts all around; note that this is only 4 or 5 dB less than from the most powerful receivers we've seen and was more than adequate to drive my medium-sensitivity speakers to cinema-like volume. When deliberately overdriven, the 5200ES behaved well, shutting down without fuss and restarting without complaint. The 5200ES was about 1 to 2 dB noisier than the theoretical ideal (and the best A/V receivers we've measured) in all noise-related tests, but listening checks revealed no audible effects via loudspeakers and virtually none on headphones. Full Lab Results

And the practice is pretty close, too. I used Sony's excellent, 1080p-capable KDL-40XBR2 LCD HDTV (reviewed November), and images looked quite uniformly excellent. One caveat: The current multi-scaler state of the A/V world makes this kind of evaluation tricky: My Comcast HD box, Panasonic upconverting DVD player, and everyday TV (a Samsung DLP), as well as the Sony XBR display used for this review, all can (and in the latter cases, always do) also scale video signals. Consequently, you can't always be sure which product's processing is doing what to the signal you're looking at.

That said, I'm fairly comfortable that the 5200ES's Faroudja scaler gave excellent service in just about every mode. I could easily compare 480p coming from the DVD player going directly into a component-video input on the TV with the same signal scaled to 1080p (or other resolution) by the receiver and output as HDMI. No great surprise: Compared with the TV performing its own internal 1080p upconversion from its analog input, the receiver won hands down. For instance, in the shot opening Chapter 8 of The Island, the solidity and coherence of the falling-water feature were obviously better, more film-like. Making comparisons between the DVD player's own 1080i upconversion and the receiver's 1080p was far more difficult and thus inconclusive. But either way, I've rarely seen DVD video look better on my system. On many a Cessna-priced manufacturer's demo system, sure, but not here in my studio.

The STR-DA5200ES made a much more obvious (and welcome) difference when I viewed standard-def cable. Setting its scaler to 720p, 1080i, or 1080p (or even 480p) yielded noticeably better pictures. Close inspection of the original signal revealed that, as I find with almost all scalers, unprocessed 480i actually included as much or more fine detail, but with much more visible line structure and video noise. The receiver-processed versions, on the other hand, showed snappier, bold edges and more vibrant color ranges, with just a slightly softer overall look. The lower the rez of the original source, the harder it got to judge the differences among receiver-scaled 720p/1080i/p: DVDs, for example, were clearly superior in the 1080 settings on this 1080p display, while upconverted standard-def television could be tough to call.

The 5200ES's video processing extends another groundbreaking receiver feature: picture-in-picture. There are some limitations: There's no TV tuner built into the receiver (now there's a thought), and the feed for the PIP window is limited to standard-def signals coming in on either the composite- or S-video inputs. And there's no "swap" command to make the PIP image the main picture. Nevertheless, the potential usefulness is there. And should your TV or cable box or both have their own PIP processing, you could conceivably rig up PIP-IP, or even PIP-IP-IP.

 

AUDIO PERFORMANCE Oh, yeah — audio. Sony claims that the 5200ES's digital signal processing for audio represents a new generation of better-sounding hardware, and I have to admit that either I'm as suggestible as the next guy (perfectly possible) or it's true. Sound quality on movie soundtracks was excellent, as were stereo CDs processed via the Dolby Pro Logic IIx/Music mode. The Sony STR-DA5200ES had ample power, playing plenty loud in my room for even fully cinema-like movie presentation via my medium-sensitivity speakers.

Sony's proprietary Digital Cinema Sound surround modes are included in all their interesting variety and also sounded fine — though, as usual, I preferred plain PLIIx or DTS for surround from most sources, as the least-colored options.

The 5200ES's auto-setup routine permits results for three different listening positions or user preferences to be stored and recalled. The routine also incorporates automatic equalization, available in three versions: to match response to Sony's own listening-room ideal, to deliver "flat" response in your room, or to normalize your center and surrounds to your main fronts. All these proved interesting, and high in intrinsic quality, but their usefulness will depend on your speakers, room, and tastes.

Sony endowed the STR-DA5200ES with a front-panel USB port into which you can jack most storage devices, including a thumb drive or other flash-memory cache. (The receiver decodes only MP3, WMA, and Sony's own MiniDisc ATRAC files.) If you had a spare 80-gig hard drive lying about (and these days, who doesn't?), you could load it up with music files and have a stripped-down music server for the $25 price of an external case: The 5200ES gives you onscreen display of basic metadata and full transport control, although no fancy playlist or sorting functions. Sony's "Portable" sound mode is a two-channel setting said to optimize compressed-audio files. This sounded to me like typical "aural-enhancer" processing; my music files sounded better to me in plain ol' stereo.

THE BOTTOM LINE The list of A/V receivers with HDMI-output scaling is short indeed, though certain to grow. The Sony STR-DA5200ES A/V receiver is, presently, unique on many fronts — notably, its 1080p capability and its graphic interface — and has the performance to back it up. At its modest-by-flagship-standards price, the STR-DA5200ES legitimately earns close consideration by any serious A/V receiver shopper.

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