Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #235570 in Home Theater
- Brand: Sony
- Model: DAVLF1
- Dimensions: 60.00" h x
20.00" w x
45.00" l,
125.00 pounds
Features
- Single-disc multichannel home theater system with support for DVD, Super Audio CD, MP3 CD, JPEG image CD
- 4 floorstanding speakers, wireless audio transmission using Sony's DIAT system, 1 center speaker, and a 170-watt powered subwoofer
- Progressive-scan video output for seamless, flicker-free images on high-definition and HD-ready TVs
- Dolby Digital, DTS, and Dolby Pro Logic II processing as well as Sony's own Digital Cinema Sound processing
- FM/AM tuner with 20 FM and 10 AM station presets; 2 auxiliary AV inputs, 1 digital-audio input, 1 AV output
Sony DAV-LF1 Platinum Dream System
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
66 of 68 people found the following review helpful.
By Wei Lee
There are obviously many surround sound systems available on the market. So the first thing I did is to figure out my most important criteria. For me, the top 2 criteria are (1) Wow factor look, (2) Wireless surround rear speakers. I have owned this unit for 6 months. I bought it online new for $1500.As you can see from my uploaded pictures, I am going for the simple but elegant look. I am no longer attracted to the rack of black A/V equipment. We became somewhat immune to the stacks of equipment as we visit different homes. The Sony DAV-LF1 is truly unique in this respect. The form factor is simple different from the rest of the manufacturers. Visitors stop to take a closer look at the unit. They wonder what it is, they want to know where all the wires are. They are simply amazed that this is my receiver and surround sound system! The electronics and input/output ports are located at the sub-woofer. So the glass control unit only has a very elegant white cable going to it. Very clean and simple. No wire messes around. Also, check out in pictures how CDs and DVDs are slotted into the glass control unit. It is motorized and very practical.Secondly, my family room floor is tiled and I have no way of wiring the rear surround speakers without some really ugly wires running exposed. The Sony DAV-LF1 solves this problem superbly by providing wireless rear speakers. However, do study up on how the wireless system works, and make sure that if you need a wireless feature, this architecture will work for you. For example, the Sony DAV-LF1 uses infra-red rather than RF (radio frequency). This is supposed to prevent interference from other wireless devices (such as cordless phones, wireless 802.11(x) hubs). However, it will require line of sight between a transmitter in the front and a rear speaker at the back. Also note that one of the rear speakers will need AC power outlet to power-up the wireless system. So don't go around thinking that you can have the rear speakers hanging around the ceiling with no wires at all.Of course the sound quality itself is superb. But the bass is a tad soft. If you are the type who wants to bring down the house with thumping bass, then this is not the unit for you.Other pleasant surprises include:Super Audio CD is something that I wasn't aware of. Basically, this is a new format from our normal audio CD. There are not a lot of selections on the market, but I did buy a few to enjoy. They are simply stunning with surround sound effect. Imagine listening to Jazz and you can hear different instruments being projected from different parts of the room.I was lementing that I have to spend $50 each for the wall-mount kit for the speakers. Turns out that I can put 2 screws behind the speakers myself and then use the keyed picture hangers to hang them on the wall. So, my point is that it is possible to get away without buying the very expensive mounting kits from Sony. My result is posted in the image section.Some negative feedback that falls into the "wish I knew that section":- The DVD player does take a long time to read and get started. A minor inconvenience, but did not go unnoticed.- There are no tone controls (treble and bass) for the amplifier. Not a big deal, I have come to just let the producer decide and deal with sound mix. Actually, I thought it was a little strange in the beginning, but now I find myself not even worrying about tone controls.- The wires for the speakers are of thinner gauge. I simply replace mine with a thicker cable for better sound reproduction.- I wished I could change the labeling of the different input source. For example, the default label says "SAT" for satellite, and I wish I can make it say "CABLE". My "VIDEO" is actually "GAME".
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
By J. Preston
This is one of the finest SONY products I have purchased in my 35 years of using SONY stuff. . . .The heavy construction of the speakers and DVD console is not only impressive looking, it is of the highest quality materials and production I have every acquired from any manufacturer in any home entertainment product.SONY used genuine brushed aluminum and chrome on the speaker stands and the front panels, as well as heavy (at least 3/8") acrylic wherever the aesthetics allowed for transparent panels.The performance, with a High Definition television, is also outstanding.I have never had a home theater before, and have just upgraded to high definition TV (after about fifteen years of not having made any serious audio or TV equipment acquisitions).I must admit that I found the lack of specifics in the documentation to be frustrating, at first. I had to read up on concepts such as progressive scan, dolby surround sound (and "true" dolby surround sound) before I could understand the documentation and get everything to work properly. However, once I updated my understanding of this technology, I was able to connect this system to my SONY 50" Grand Wega HDTV and the results exceeded my expectations.Americans, like me, who are used to analog stereo, and, CRT televisions, will need to know things that are not obvious in the documentation.For instance, it took me a day to get the progressive scan on the DVD to display on the television. I didn't know (and the documentation doesn't tell you) that the progressive scan signal will only output through the component video jacks (not the RCA video jacks or the S video). It wasn't until I hooked up the component video jacks to the TV (using monster cable THX certified cables) (component video cables are not provided) that I was able to get the TV to recognize the progressive scan signal.Once the progressive scan was output to the TV, however, the resulting image was no less than amazing to me.I literally began watching all of my DVDs over again. There is so much detail in the progressive scan image from this system it was like viewing the movies on the big screen for the first time. I used Russell Crowe's "Master & Commander (The Far Side of the World)" for my initial evaluation. This is one of the films that Holywood produced which had home theaters like this in mind. I have yet to find another film that better displays the virtues of this system. The film is rich in foley, voice and music. All of the audio signals play extremely well with the progressive scan image. The cannon shots in surround startled me and my Labrador retriever because they were so surprisingly realistic. The music from this film was also very enjoyable on this sytem while watching the movie. As far as voice, I was able to understand the heavily accented voices of the actors with ease because the sound reproduction is so clear (I had to use subtitles when listening to the dialogue on an analog television speaker).DVD's of older movies, such as Milius' "Wind & The Lion" (1975) (with an Academy award winning soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith) play equally as well on this system, but, without the rich sound effect you would expect from movies produced during the THX and Dolby Surround era.The clarity of the sound on this system, from any DVD or CD, is superb.As a stand lone stereo, however, audiophiles should not expect too much. I played a variety of CD's on this home theater, then, played them on my 15-20 year old Audiocom amp with Klipsch corner speakers and subwoofer.There was little comparison between this system's stand alone sound and my old stereo. (I compared Brubeck, Lila Downs (her operatically trained voice is acoustically perfect), and Dvorak (Szell)). The old stereo provided much more rich music and much more impressive sound. (In all fairness, my old stereo is probably the finest production amp and set of speakers ever made).This system provides at least modest sound, though, as a stand alone stereo. Prospective purchasers can expect better quality than a shelf stereo. However, I wouldn't recommend that audiophiles plan on using it to replace their treasured audio system.As I post this, one reviewer complained about not being able to adjust the fade on the speakers. There is, in fact, a way to adjust the volume of sound front to back. It just doesn't have a simple front-to-back fade function as one would have in an older analog stereo system.This is not a simple stereo system.What is necessary to adjust the fade is to go into audio setup and tell the system that the rear speakers are farther from the listening point than they really are. This will cause the system to calculate the sound balance between the five speakers (necessary to preserve the integrity of the Dolby 5.1 surround sound effect), and, increase the volume in the "surround" (or rear) speakers.There are similar fixes for any other concerns I had.As a downside, SONY's documentation on this system is barely adequate. It is obvious that it wasn't written by a native English speaker. It seems to me that it was written in a foreign language by a technical person, then, translated verbatim into English, then, someone (sort of) proof read it.With the diagrams in the documentation, however, and an understanding of the concepts (surround sound, HDMI, optic cables, etc.) it is possible to decipher most (not all) of the documentation. Sony's technical support (again not provided by native English speakers) was poor, but, they did help.In all I am very pleased with this system and would have purchased it at the retail price or above if I knew everything I know about the system after using it for a week.
12 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
By book reader
I made the bad assumption that a very expensive system should at least be able to do the basic things any old car radio can do. Wrong assumption.You can not adjust high or low tones. This must be one of the few systems even for sale anywhere that don't allow you to adjust sound. So if your hearing of high tones is not so good, or if there is windnoise on a video you have shot, or if the explosion sounds behind you during a war movie become irritating, you are out of luck with your Sony.You can not adjust sound from front to back. A twenty year old car radio lets you do that. If you like to have the noise come only from the speaker right near you so you make less noise late at night and the rest of the family is asleep, that is too bad for you.You can only adjust from left to right.The system is very slow. You can not just turn it on and insert a DVD. You have to turn it on and wait.The wiring is too thin. Sony must know this. The instruction manual tells you how to replace the wiring with a thicker gauge wiring.This is a conversation piece. You can talk with your guests about how beautiful it looks. Don't use it though because they will then laugh at your stupidity for overpaying for something that looks so pretty and does less than a car radio in a twenty year old Volkswagen.
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