I bought the sony satelite system about 8 months ago. I did have a sony 5.1 system before but decided to change it as i had just bought a new plasma and wanted a surround system to compliment the looks of the plasma mainly (my tv's piano black as is the dav subwoofer).
I knew the quality of the dav-is 10 was there but when i tested it i thought the power output was quite low but at the price it was the best option for the subtle, cosmetically smart looking surround that i was after.
This system is not a powerful, in your face surround sound. It's a quality sounding, subtle looking crisp system - less powerful than my previous sony..
It looks brilliant with the tiny satelite speakers which really do hide in your room - especially with the skinny sony stands you can buy (70 pounds for the pair - well worth it).
The subwoofer is the main output here. The bass and mid all come from this and to be fair it gives out a lot if you take into account that the 5 satelites give pure treble and no bass at all.
To really here the system at full potential you need to put the volume on near enough full sound - but i feel that this doesn't balance out properly. Too much bass and mid but the satelites really push the quality through. But if you put the bass and mid down you don't get the sound of voices clear enough - you can mess with the settings and there are plenty of those but not so that you can hold one setting and keep it there.
The midrange is the main letdown here - you can't add anything to the system so you're stuck with it. Hence, the need to put the volume quite high to hear the voices and mid properly but then as i said it sounds unbalanced.
The HDMI playback is good - but don't expect anything near blu-ray quality. HDMI is just an upscale - a bit more red in the blood on screen is the best way to describe it.
I paid 379 and it's good value when you consider the overall sound quality but as is said before it doesn't pump out the power so if you're looking for an all rounder then look elsewhere.
I have seen this advertised for under 300 which is a bargain but anything under 370 is good
Good luck
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines