Exclusive Review: Sony 5600ES Receiver With 4-Port Switch

Audio

When it comes right down to it, audio quality is the most important feature of a surround sound receiver.

The STR-DA5600ES does not disappoint. Quality is far above what I would expect from a receiver at this price point.

We tested the audio portion with speakers both large and small, in-wall and free standing. We tried brands including Sunfire, JBL, Phase Technologies, Sony, Dali, Totem, Jamo, TruAudio, Energy, and my personal favorite subwoofer company Velodyne.

This receiver had the clarity to make bookshelf speakers sound amazing, and enough power to rock some free-standing towers. The fun thing was to adjust the EQ on the fly with the set-up manager on my laptop. During movies I felt immersed in all the sound. I was impressed with the improvement in surround modes over past Sony models.

With Digital Cinema Audio Calibration (DCAC) this piece was easy to tweak to any listener’s preferences.

Did I mention the funny looking new calibration mic? It is now a bar with two mics labeled right and left, spaced about the same distance as the ears. Good thinking! Now if they could figure out a way to compensate for my acoustically unfriendly head being in the room we’d be set.

AM/FM. Who still uses this? Not being a fan of broadcast radio myself, I was surprised at the sound quality. The tuner was impressive, bringing in some stations I can’t usually access around these parts. I could never call AM/FM radio crystal clear, but this was one time I actually stopped to listen for a while.



ShoutCast, Rhapsody. Both ShoutCast and Rhapsody Internet radio services are simple to configure through the receiver’s set-up menu, and the Sony GUI makes the services easy to navigate. Nothing fancy here, but a nice feature to be sure. In addition to these music services, you can access photos, music and video stored on the home network. The receiver is DLNA-compliant, making it especially easy to stream from DLNA-compatible servers.

Here’s the bummer: The full Bravia Internet Video (BIV) service is not available through this product, as it is for many Sony TVs, Blu-ray players and the forthcoming $129 SMP-N100 media player. Therefore, you won’t find Pandora, Netflix, Amazon, Slacker and other Internet niceties.

Zone 2 Audio. The sound from zone 2 is excellent. For bookshelves or in-ceiling (even outdoor speakers as I tested) this receiver works.

As mentioned earlier, I would prefer zone 2 on the front high speakers rather than the rear surrounds so I could still get 7.1 audio. But for what it is it does, zone 2 works well on the 5600ES.

Discrete audio selection is awesome. Control it easily via the free iPhone control app or a third-party control system (discussed below).

One note: zone 2 audio must be supplied to the receiver via analog inputs.

Video

For video, let’s start with the sexiest feature: 3D pass-through. I did a head-to-head test and there was no visible difference between 3D supplied directly to the display or through the Sony receiver -- a jaw-dropping experience at this price.

Video quality gets a big boost from Faroudja, whose famous chipset provides the DCDi 1080p upscaling for this receiver. DCDi, or directional correlation de-interlacing, takes all of the jagged edges on a video and adds brand new information to fill the gaps.

It’s nice, and fairly unusual, to see this type of scaler inside a receiver. If Sony keeps up, we just may have an acceptable all-in-one solution yet.

In our tests, the 5600ES did a flawless job with upconversion, getting rid of pesky jagged edges even on my old VHS collection.

Yes I said VHS. You know you have them. I do too, and being the geek that I am, I tried them with the receiver. Not bad. Not bad at all.

The built-in video scaling on this device is terrific and a sure sign from Sony Studios (which lent a hand in the design of the receiver) that there are big things to come.

HDMI on the receiver works exactly as advertised, so I won’t go too far into a standard we love to hate. But I will say it’s nice that the receiver supports the audio return channel (ARC) of HDMI 1.4 -- a feature that not many integrators and enthusiasts have embraced.

If you’re using an ARC-compatible display for broadcast video – or better yet YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, or other streaming service – you can extend the audio through the receiver via the same HDMI cable that feeds A/V to the display.

Zone 2 Cat 5 Extender
We’ve already covered zone 2 audio for the 5600ES, but what about the video? The receiver has an RJ-45 zone 2 output for sending video over Cat 5/6. You could get lucky using powered baluns from your preferred vendor, but Sony recommends the CAV-CVB1, designed by Sony but manufactured by MuxLab.

As luck would have it, I already had a display with the MuxLab component balun on it (the same baluns are used with Sony’s 12-port switch), so I gave it a try. It worked like a charm.

Then I took zone 2 all the way, hooking the zone 2 audio output to some in-ceiling speakers in the same room. Voila! A full zone 2 audio and video solution.

The maximum resolution for zone 2 video is 1080i, while the main zone obviously supports 1080p.

Control

iPod/iPhone/iPad. Sony’s free app is one of the best device control apps I have seen for the Apple platforms to date. It gives you complete control of the main zone, zone 2, and zone 3. You can set the surround mode, adjust volume, pick your input, browse your ShoutCast channels, manage the display of photos from your media server and, of course, directly control the receiver.

As a bonus, if you use the Quick Click IR control feature to operate Lutron lighting or other devices in the built-in IR database, you can use the Apple app to control those items as well.

Home Controllers. Naturally, the Sony 5600ES can be integrated into the usual third-party control systems. But if you happen to be a Control4 dealer (we are), then you’re especially fortunate.

Amazing Control4 Integration

The predecessor to the 5600ES, Sony’s 5500ES, was the first receiver to be certified by Control4. And the 5600ES is certified as well. That means Sony took extra measures to ensure rich two-way interoperability between the component and the control system.

The work definitely shows.

This is the first driver I have ever seen where zone 2 works flawlessly -- no tricks, no programming workarounds.

If you set this receiver up correctly, the main zone and zone 2 work separately with no issues. I don’t know how many times I can say this, but this is a fix to one the biggest problems voiced by dealers around the globe. And Sony and Control4 finally fixed it!

The other good news: Both serial and IP control work beautifully -- we tried them both.

In Control4, make sure to leave the receiver icon on the Navigator user interface, because when you press it, you have discrete selection for many sound fields and surround modes. I was surprised to see a headphone direct and headphone 2 channel.

With Control4 OS 2.0 the Sirius tuner and AM/FM control pages on the touchscreens work really well and provide much more control than we’ve seen in the past.

And the Bad News
Control4 has a nice 4Store app store, but no app exists for this receiver. Why couldn’t we get a Sony device control app just like Control4’s own iPhone/iPad app?

This would immediately sell more Sony receivers! Here’s how:

A potential client sees the free app , downloads it because they are curious, looks at all the glorious functions, and Bam! They buy a Sony STR-DA5600ES with a big grin on their face.

In any case, the driver integration worked perfectly in our testing. Even though we’d like to see a 4Store app for the receiver, it isn’t all that necessary with a driver this solid. It is definitely going to make life much easier for field techs and designers.

STR-DA5600ES Bottom Line

Other than a few nit-picky complaints, I can’t think of any reason that the Sony STR-DA5600ES wouldn’t be the go-to receiver for CE pros, especially Control4 dealers.

With the exceptional zone 2 performance, built-in LAN ports, iPhone/iPad app and Quick Click IR control function, the receiver can be the hub of a whole-house A/V and lighting-control system … as well as a great surround system. Use it for clients who want to start small. Then, when they’re ready to grow, tack on a third-party controller and a few more subsystems.

From this point on, for this price point, this will be the first receiver I recommend. It makes installation, setup, programming, and use as easy as it could get.

I was not a Sony dealer when I wrote this review, but given the quality of this product and Sony's unequaled commitment to the custom channel ... sign me up!