Product Description

Breathtaking 5.1 surround sound DVD home-theatre system that creates an immersive sound through five tiny satellite speakers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18072 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: DAVIS10.CEK
• Released on: 2007-08-16

Features

• 5.1 HOME CINEMA SYSTEM
• 1 X HDMI CONNECTIONS
• POWER OUTPUT 50W
• IN BLACK
• 5 SATELLITE SPEAKERS

What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision Review
With satellites around the size of a £2 coin and an astonishingly massive sound, the DAV-IS10 is a great system at the price.

Manufacturer's Description

Sony DAV-IS10

BRAVIA Theatre Sync
Bravia Theatre Sync is a new way of controlling Home Theatre setups. Using HDMI connections and one remote control, signals can be sent between the various units that make up the system. BRAVIA Theatre Sync is designed to cut out any complexity so you can concentrate on enjoying the movie. Just press play on the DAV-IS10 remote and your BRAVIA TV also powers on, changes input and switches sound to home cinema.

Golf Ball Speakers
Deceptively big sound from speakers the size of a golf ball. Less is truly more at 4.3 x 5.6 x 3.9cm. These ultra compact satellite speakers are so small, you can put them anywhere and are designed to be virtually invisible. Small on space, big on sound. With 550W of total output power, these speakers fill even large rooms with breathtaking sound.

Digital Cinema Auto Calibration sets optimum surround parameters in just 30 seconds
DCAC (Digital Cinema Auto Calibration) An intelligent Sony technology that offers simple and accurate automatic set-up of your home cinema system. No matter what the size or shape of your room, DCAC eliminates the guesswork when you position your speakers. The result is optimum surround sound performance for both movies and music. This user-friendly feature uses a microphone to accurately measure speaker distance, volume and frequency etc. It can also automatically compensate for the acoustic character of your room if so desired.

HDMI Video Upscaling to High Definition
Built-in upscaler generates a 720p or 1080i signal via HDMI cable for superb picture quality on your high-def TV. HDMI stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface. Similar to DVI (but using much smaller connectors), the multi-pin HDMI interface transfers uncompressed digital video with copy protection and multichannel audio. Using an adapter, HDMI is backward-compatible with most current DVI connections.

S-Master (S-Master Digital Amplifier). Developed to achieve the best results from high-quality digital audio sources such as Super Audio CD and DVD sources, S-Master (Full Digital Amplifier) technology transmits audio to your speakers in one simple, yet highly sophisticated digital process. S-Master technology offers a highly efficient power delivery with accurate imaging high resolution and stable performance.

DMPORT
Stream music directly from Bluetooth, network WALKMAN®, WiFi or iPod® using optional Sony DIGITAL MEDIA PORTs. Our optional Digital Media Port's (DMPORT) provide the connectivity you need to set your digital music free. Just connect your digital music player, laptop or mobile phone to your Sony home cinema system, and enjoy your music library in HiFi quality sound.

DMPORT On Screen Navigation
Connect your iPod with included Digital Media Port and navigate your content on screen while controlling your iPod with the systems remote.

Portable Audio Enhancer
Music converted to MP3 loses quality. Portable Audio Enhancer compensates for this by boosting the audio frequencies to bring the sound back closer to the original source levels, ensuring better quality with Network WALKMAN® devices and any other portable audio player.

Easy Set Up and Use
The DAV-IS10 takes convenience to new levels with colour coded terminals for each speaker cable helping to complete set-up in minutes.

Other Features Include:

• Touch-sensitive controls light up when in use, then fade down to maintain clean lines
• Slim line gloss black control unit that plays DVD's and CD's. Also compatible with Video CD, DivX, MP3 and JPEG
• Dolby Digital/Pro-Logic II and DTS decoding
• 30-preset RDS FM/AM radio tuner

Customer Reviews

Placement limitations
First let me say this is not a review of the sound or picture - I didn't get as far as that. As far as build quality goes this is a nice bit of kit - the DVD player is small with a nice finish and the speakers are weighty and impossibly small. Connections are limited though, if you need more then maybe look at the Sony HT-IS100 - the same speakers without the DVD unit.

I had two problems with it though - the system relies on a system cable between the player and sub which is fixed in the player and can't be extended. I intended to replace an 8yr old sub/sat system (DAV S800) with the sub behind the sofa and the new system has a 3m cable which would not allow me to have it in the same position. My room is such that I don't have the space for the sub to go elsewhere within the 3m limit.

In addition to this there is a midrange boost speaker on top of the sub so putting it behind the sofa, under a table or even more than 0.5m in front of the front satellite speakers is not recommended (you can download the manual from the Sony site). Basically, if you need to place the sub in front of the 3 front speaker you may find it doesn't sound right.

Great looking, well built kit but with position limitations. Sorry I can't tell you about the sound but I didn't get to un-pack the whole thing!

Don't expect too much HiFi or too many thrills
The reason I bought this peice of kit is because we have a big, flat TV and it does not have great sound. Actually most of the new TVs don't have great sound for the simple reason that the speakers are facing backwards. What I was looking for was a system that would deliver very clear sound and not upset my wife with large speakers, and this system does exactly that. Add to that that the price here is very reasonable and I feel I got value for money too. But...

There will be people out there who are interested in whether this thing can deliver HiFi quality sound. The review of this system in the Gramophone and in other mags certainly suggest it can, but as far as I am concerned that really isn't so. The sound is "cold", which is no problem if you like that kind of sound, but it is also thin. As a result of the thinness the sense of scale is poor and worse still there is no well defined sound stage - even in the special audio mode - and this is critical to good HiFi. Instead you get a very clear, but rather nondirectional sound with no real guts or substance. The system WILL go right down to those low bass notes and that is obviously desirable. Also when the system is required to go low it remains musical and does not descend into toneless thuds - but it never becomes exciting and engaging, despite this ability.

So, as a HiFi system this is not that good. So, is it any good as a Home Cinema system? In my opinion its no better than "good enough". With home cinema you forget all your concerns about HiFi and you start looking for thrills - and as far as I am concerned this unit does not deliver much of that. It is competent, and it is never unpleasant to listen to, in fact I woul go so far as to say it is unobtrusive, but it never has your heart racing. You do get 5.1 surround sounds - always depending on how well mixed the DVD was in the first place of course - but they will never have you out of your seat.

So its not HiFi, and its not a thrill-ride Cinema system. So what is this thing really good for? It is good for what I said in pargraph one. It is a very significant improvment over flat-TV sound at a very acceptable price AND if you can hide the large Sub well enough and you conceal all the wires well enough, you should avoid any marital stress. That's about it.

Great...
I bought this to upgrade my 6 year old Sony HT-BE1 system, and was not disapointed. The first thing that came to mind was how could speakers so small (literally the size of golf balls) give enough sound, but it does! i have a fairly spacious room and it more than suffices, what i reallly like about this system is the big bastard bass box that comes with it, room literally shakes at some points (would recommend watching beowulf)

If like me you are a bit confused as to what ports and connections it has, well here it is, the little black reciver (the smallest of the boxes) has a Co-axial port,HDMI port (as it is also a dvd player) analogue audio ports (the red and white ones) and a DM Port that i dont use but u can stream music via bluetooth etc.

It has built in radio for AM/FM frequencies, TV (if u wanted to hook up your tv to the surround sound) basically any sort of input device it will play it. Now in saying that it is a dvd player also which apparently upscales your dvd's to 1080i, i DONT use this dvd player i have a blu ray player connected to it so i cant comment on that.

Overall im delighted with the purchase, the reason i give it 4 stars as opposed to 5 is that i like to listen to my music at time extremely loud and loud as it may be it just is not as LOUD as i would like.