Sony STR-DN860 Review

Like most well-known manufacturers, Sony is trying to give their AV receivers a distinctive look that will make them stand out from the crowd. However, when it comes to AV receivers in the lower price classes there´s limited possibility for design experiments and the real difference comes down to the details.

The front of the STR-DN860 is separated in two sections by a horizontal line. On the upper half, Sony uses a somewhat smaller OSD, which is covered by what I assume is a transparent plastic surface that extends the entire width of the front panel. The lower part is relatively clean and contains two control wheels to the right - to adjust the volume and source selection, while on the left you´ll find the standby button, a 6.35mm gold-plated headphone output, a microphone input for calibration and USB-A port.

The horizontal line below the OSD holds 12 discrete buttons used to control the most important functions. The very top of the front panel is reserved for the Sony logo on the left side, and a 'Hi-Res Audio' badge on the right, indicating that the receiver is able to play high resolution audio formats.

The top and sides are made from a single piece of sheet metal, with a large number of slots for cooling, while the rear panel follows the general trend of reducing the number of analog inputs in favor of digital and network connectivity. Analog inputs are reduced to four pairs of RCA inputs, with two composite video inputs and one output. There are five HDMI inputs, one of which is HDCP 2.2, and two that are mainly intended for an audio-signal from a SACD or Blu-ray player.

In addition, there are two optical and one coaxial digital input, as well as a FM antenna connector. Network connection can be made via the Ethernet port (RJ45) or wirelessly using the provided two Wi-Fi antennas. Loudspeakers are connected via standard terminals that accept bare wire, forks or banana plugs, and there are two outputs for active subwoofers.

The interior of the receiver has a pretty classic layout, but is due to a less deep housing filled to its fullest. In the front are some large cooling fins, followed by seven pairs of complementary output transistors (Sanken MN2488 and MP1620). The last half is occupied by a two level printed circuit board, along with several smaller ones.

Sony uses a completely new design for the preamplifiers, which I guess was necessary to adapt to high resolution material. The new preamplifier has a faster response, better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), reduced thermal interference and greater stability thanks to its own separate cooling.

On the lower board are two electrolytic capacitors from Nippon Chemi-Con with 6,800 microfarad capacity each, while the left part is reserved for the transformer and power supply section. Another interesting thing is the section for the wireless networking, which is housed in a fully shielded compartment in order to prevent interference. This is a really smart solution that is rarely found, even in much more expensive receivers.

Ready For Any Occasion... Almost

One thing I liked while testing the STR-DN860 was the slightly smaller remote control, which due to its dimensions is equipped with a smaller number of buttons compared to what you´re normally used to. This is only a logical step I guess, as controlling the receiver can be performed by using a free Android / iOS app on a bluetooth device like a phone or tablet. Sony's application is called SongPal and is currently in its third version with an updated design, and comes with a high degree of control of the receiver. This includes the selection of sources, access to shared audio files over the network, controlling the playback and network services (Pandora, Spotify, AirPlay, etc.), but also additional features such as equalizer settings and so on.

The 860 provides 95 watts to each of the seven channels at 6 ohms, and the possibility of hooking up two active subwoofer should be enough for surround systems of smaller and medium size. The only disadvantage is reflected in the lack of decoders for the new surround sound formats like Dolby Atmos, DTS: X and Auro-3D, which many competing receivers already have, but we expect Sony to include this in any new firmware update in the near future.

In addition to the lack of decoding any newer surround sound formats, is a lack of support for DSD audio, which can be played via USB memory, but not over the network. We assume that Sony will resolve this by updating the firmware as these are pretty important functions. Until then, the STR-DN860 limits the playback over the network to 192 kHz / 24-Bit FLAC and WAV, 96 kHz / 24-Bit ALAC and other popular formats.

However, Sony has done a great job with the multilingual user interface, which is intuitively designed, easy to use and visually appealing thanks to helpful illustrations and graphics. Automatic calibration is also extremely simple to do and takes less than a minute, but the enthusiasts may want to engage in more detailed settings of all the parameters at their own discretion. Although it may already be implied, it should be noted that the STR-DN860 supports 4K Ultra HD and enables upscaling HD content to this resolution.