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Strengths: price competitive
Weaknesses: Extremely poor documentation, written by an Electrical engineer for other Engineers. Some Remote Functions Disabled. S-Video on Separate bus. No EQ only bass/treble.
Summary: In some ways this receiever did not live up to expectations. The user's manual was poorly written, difficult to understand. SAT TV, Source and Phono buttons are disabled. There is no effective Equalizer, just Bass/treble adjustments (a big step down from and earlier comparable Sony receiver form 8 years ago I just replaced.
The most serious hurdle is that because the S-Video (why you pay $100 more than the 597 model) connections are on a separate bus form the RCA connections, you cannot use S-Video unless all of the components in series with your TV are also S-Video. I have a slightly older Sony VCR with only RCA plugs (no S-Video). Because of that I was forced to use RCA plugs on all my other newer components and Sony WEGA TV.
Also, there is no effective support for SAT TV receivers (no codes and disabled SAT TV function on remote), including the newer D10 Direct TV Receiver. I must use 2 remotes, the Direct TV for on/off and channel functions. However, SAT audio on the current channel still goes thru Video 1 or 2 inputs effectively even with TV off.
On the plus side, it does give powerful distortionless sound, and the remote is pretty good for CD and DVD. The tuner and preset functions (#30) are good. For us old folks though, I don't like having no Phono input (although the pricer 897 has one.) To get around this use amn inexpensive Pre-Amp thru Aux input, I guess.
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