| Price: | £279.99 Link Below. (: |
I would recommend, NB: if you don't have a spare HDMI cable, order one at the same time.
Great sound, and when I watched The Day After Tomorrow I got the full bass effect of climate change, as did the neighbours :-) I really have no complaints in this area. The Blu-Ray video playback is great as well on the Sony Bravia KDL37EX503U I bought at the same time.
It more or less configures itself. It comes with a little microphone that you can stick in the middle of the room and it will automatically adjust the gain of the individual speakers to the right level. Cute, probably not essential, but overall the setup is pretty quick and painless.
When I checked out the model in a retailer, I was a bit put off because it seemed a little cheap and tacky, but having got a new model installed in my living room, I have to say that it looks better that I expected, quite sleek and monolithic, and complements the Bravia that I got at the same time.
I spent a loooong time considering different models, especially thinking about whether to go for the Sony BDVE370 or the Sony BDVE870 instead. The main difference is that the E670W has wireless rear speakers, while the other two are wired. I guess this accounts for most of the price difference. The E870 also has speaker stands, which I didn't particularly like (the sound system I had before had similar speaker stands and they really clutter up the place). Apart from that, there are some power differences between those three models, but no other differences that seemed important.
Note that "wireless rear speakers" is nothing to do with the wireless network I discuss below. The wireless rear speaker kit is included, for the wireless network you need to buy extra kit.
I'm just going to comment on one feature which was high on my list. I wanted the ability to stream media from a DLNA media server, which I have running on an LG NAS device, which is primarily hosting my iTunes music collection. This is where it gets a little technical...
(1) You can get a USB wireless network adapter (Sony UWABR100 Network Adapter), about £65, which allows you to hook up the E670W to your home wireless network. Now, most of the reviews for the UWA-BR100 said that it wasn't too reliable, so I debated whether to get a powerline adapter instead (which runs Ethernet through the normal 240V power lines in your house). In the end, I went for the wireless... and it does work OK... but it required a bit of jiggling of the wireless router in the other room. It was also slightly tricky to set up, because I've configured my router to only accept a pre-defined list of MAC addresses, and I had to hunt around the menus in the E670W to find this particular bit of info - but it is there if you need it.
(2) Having got the wireless sorted, the next step is upgrading the firmware. You can do this either by downloading the files and burning onto a DVD, or directly online using the network. I wasn't yet confident enough in the stability of the wireless network (see 1 above!), so I just went with the download-and-burn approach, which worked fine. The firmware upgrade is also required to watch BBC iPlayer and other online content (some of which is premium content as well BTW).
(3) Lastly, the format of the files the E670W (and E370 / E870) can play over DLNA has some surprising restrictions. I did my homework (i.e. I downloaded the user manual beforehand and read the small print), so I was expecting this, but in particular note that it doesn't play AAC format files streamed from a media server. I think it handles the AAC format, just not over DLNA. So I've converted my iTunes library to MP3 format. You may want to read the small print yourself if this bothers you (and maybe a future firmware upgrade will change this anyway).
So after a bit of tinkering, I've got exactly what I wanted, which is good (virtual surround) sound in the living room served from my NAS. I have to say after all the effort it sounds pretty sweet!
For more info and to buy, please follow this link to Amazon. Thankyou. :)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003I643S8/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=revkid-21&camp=2902&creative=19466&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=B003I643S8&adid=0Y2Y1C8JJM6ZVYH4Z57C&
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