Sony STRDG820 7.1 Audio Video Receiver - Black

The receiver produces clean clear sound and all the volumn I and my neighbors can stand. Automatic calibration is a great convenience. With my 5.1 speaker setup you have that in the movie feeling: Polk Audio PSW505 12-Inch Powered Subwoofer, Polk Audio CSi3 Center Channel Speaker, 2 Bosak main speakers, and two un-known in the wall surround speakers (came with the condo).

My ten year old Sony receiver (STR-D865)was showing it's age and I had just upgraded to a Sony LCD TV. I have this system connected in a 5.1 speaker configuration. The sub woofer is a Klipsch, the front (and center) speakers are Polk audio and the rear speakers are Cambridge Sound. I had a slight problem with the initial set up - I may not have performed the power-up step correctly outlined in page 29 of the users manual. Initially the system couldn't see the rear speakers during the Auto-calibration step. I went to page 37 and performed the test tone operation and all the speakers worked great. I then went back to the auto cal step utilizing the supplied microphone and this step worked great. I must mention that I also have a Sony Blu-ray player connected to this system. The final test was to watch Ironman with all of it's great sound effects. This was awesome! Also, I should mention that the Sony LCD TV, Sony Receiver and the Sony Blu-ray player are all Sony Bravia Sync enabled (or capable). This greatly simplifies the operation of the system in regards to remotes. When I turn the TV on or off it also turns on and off the receiver and puts it into TV mode. When I turn on the Blu-ray player - the TV and receiver also turn on and the TV self selects the proper input (from the Blu-ray player) etc. This is a great feature,and is especially appreciated by my wife!

You could spend a ton of money on a higher end receiver but this Sony gives a lot of bang for the buck.
I choose the 820 over the 920 because I do not needed to have everything up converted to one Hdmi cable. Here is why: My 360 and xbox 1 both use components. To be able to play games without any lag, my samsung 52inch lcd is set to game mode on the component inputs.
My Fios HD and Panasonic bluray player use hdmi. With this setup, I use Auto motion Plus on the TV to smooth out the video.
So by using both component and hdmi to the TV, I can have separate settings for each input.
To only thing I have to figure out is how to properly tame the bass output. It seems to be very loud and powerful when watching movies and listen to music even when to bass control is set to -10.
In all, this is a great receiver.
BUY it.

With a Roku, PS3, Blu-Ray and DVR needed four HDMI inputs - this seemed to be the most reasonable. Easy initial set-up, very good sound.
Remote is not too intuitive, hard to program for other TVs.
The manual and custom set up/display features just suck - counter intuitive, and one of the worst manuals every - surprising for SONY. Still haven't quite figured out how to boost surround rear surround speakers only. Also, although you can use your home theater speakers or go through your TV speakers, unit must be on for both.

I bought this to replace a Harmon-Kardon AVR330 since the HK didn't switch HDMI and didn't support the newest lossless codecs (Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio). I hadn't intended to buy this receiver, but a large price drop made me jump.

For a non-demanding buyer, this receiver is fine. It's easy to set up, does a great job switching HDMI signals, and is easy to use. It plays particularly well with Sony Blu-Ray players (I have a BDP-S350) and presumably Sony Bravia TVs (don't have one myself, but I suspect they're a good pairing). A low-end home theater buyer can't go wrong with this one if the price is right.

Unfortunately, the audio quality just isn't there. The sound of the STR-DG820 was horribly brassy to me. Far too much high end, not enough low end. I cringed while listening to the receiver because it wasn't able to give me the warm, realistic sound I came to enjoy from the HK AVR-330. I have since returned it and purchased a Denon AVR-1909 - which, while almost three times the price, is the product I should have purchased from the start.

My three star rating is really the average of two ratings. For a buyer looking to get a modern receiver at a low price, this is a four or five star receiver. You simply can't find a cheaper receiver that decodes TrueHD/DTS MA and has 4 HDMI inputs. For a buyer looking to complement a high end TV, speakers, etc, this is a one or two star receiver. It just isn't a high end component, so if you have other high end parts, it's worth your while to spend some more to get a higher quality receiver. I highly recommend the Denon AVR-1909.