NEARLY PERFECT? | Sony AZ3000ES AVR REVIEW | 360 Spatial Sound Mapping

in 2023 there are many nine Channel avrs out there to choose from I would consider them all to be mid-tier AVR since they're typically not budget per se usually costing somewhere between 11.99 or 12.99 and up but that's usually because they have a full set of pre-owns allowing for expansion and adding more power to your system via external amps without needing to get a new AVR altogether so that feature alone is the reason for paying such a premium but then there's the fairly new az3000es from Sony who is kind enough to send out a review unit for me to see what it's all about but this is one of the few nine channel avrs on the market today without a full set of pre-outs quite the Bold move on Sony's part so with the lack of pre-outs but very intuitive Auto room calibration system with three separate Technologies working in tandem I'll explain what I mean in a bit is it worth it after all let's talk about it let's not waste any time and get right into the the Sony az3000 es AVR is a 9 Channel receiver with a power rating of 110 watts per channel into 8 ohms with 2 channels driven it supports Dolby Atmos dtsx but it also supports Dolby speaker virtualization and DTS virtual X for three-dimensional effects even without height speakers mounted up high but along with the two major immersive audio formats it also supports IMAX enhanced hey DTS when exactly is Disney plus going to stream the new iMac signature sound by DTS those of us with IMAX enhanced avrs are all wondering transparency would be cool right about now halfway through 2023. as I alluded to earlier the new AZ line of avrs from Sony technically have two separate room correction softwares built in the first is your more traditional software that Sony has named Digital Cinema Auto calibration 9 which uses a stereo mic that comes with the AVR along with a mic stand which can also be screwed into a tripod with this thread here which is what I ended up doing to get the calibration mic up to my ear level I'll get more into that later but in addition to that calibration system Sony has their own 360 spatial sound mapping or 360 SSM as this button on the remote shows so you have a more practical room correction software working with the digital cinema Auto calibration 9 and then the more virtual correction or enhancement of the Sound Stage with 360 spatial sound mapping as it states while you're setting up the system 360 spatial sound mapping creates a virtual expansion of your soundstage beyond the boundaries of your speakers that might be a little redundant if you have in-wall speakers since you can't really go beyond your walls but I'll get more into what that actually sounded like in my theater later on in the video moving on Sony's DSE ultimate technology accurately upscales music to near high resolution sound quality along with a built-in high performance 32-bit DAC as far as video it supports all the latest HDR formats including hdr10 Dolby Vision HL G and of course IMAX enhanced which makes sense because several of Sony's TVs are IMAX enhanced certified this AVR supports what's called works with Sonos which seamlessly integrates your new or already existing Sonos system with the az3000 years and along those same lines it supports Bluetooth Wi-Fi Chromecast built-in Spotify connect Apple airplane 2 and connects to your other devices via Google Assistant this AVR also works as a roon player although it requires a subscription and roon core which is a media server that runs on your computer or NAS drive if you're into streaming your music like so most avrs in this price range only feature a Zone 2 expansion if that's something you're into but with this being the es line of avrs meaning it's optimized for custom home integration it can have up to three zones for some killer hold home audio it also supports Sony's Center Channel enhancements like center speaker lift up which blends the dialogue at varying degrees with your front height speakers making it sound more like it's coming from the middle of the TV rather than the center channel itself acoustic Center sync is another unique feature where it works in tandem with speakers built into compatible Sony Bravia TVs again making the dialogue come at you from the height of the TV rather than below or above one thing the AZ 5000 and AZ 7000 feature is dual center speaker allowing you to have two Center channel speakers above and below your screen blending the two speakers to once again make it sound like dialogue is coming straight from the middle of your TV but since the az3000es is a 9 Channel AVR they remove that feature thinking most would want to use those speaker terminals for height channels anyway which again is basically what center speaker lift up does with your front height speakers so whatever just want to let you know that since on their website it claims the 3000 es supports dual center speaker when in fact in the manual it shows four seven thousand and five thousand only just wanted y'all to be aware of that this AVR can be controlled with a Sony music Center app which I will go over in a bit in this last feature I'll go over is very unique to Sony avrs you can in fact connect their wireless surround speakers and subwoofers to your main system there are some limitations though which I will touch on later okay I thought I'd do something a little bit different this time I thought I would just film me setting it up for the first time I haven't even done anything whatsoever this is completely new to me this is my first go-around with the new Sony es avrs so I thought I would check it out for the first time with you hooray let's just go ahead and see what setup does for us it'll probably just walk us through various connections and probably go through the 360 sound mapping maybe some network connections Etc so let's check it out starts easy setup to configure basic settings such as audio calibration and network connection let's do it English configure the basic setup to operate the receiver Auto calibration external device connection confirmation wireless speakers and other speaker assignment settings room and sound measurements with calibration microphone optimization of the sound environment based on the measurement results select preset 2 to overwrite the current settings select preset 1 to save the set getting separately from the currency so sure turn on the wireless speakers you want to use in the auto calibration to the receiver if you do not want to use wireless speakers simply select skip yeah I'll save that for another video to connect the wireless Sony speakers because I do have the smaller wireless speakers and also the smaller sw3 subwoofer that I definitely want to connect at some point just to show you how and see if it's easy or not do you have a TV with s center speaker in Jack no I do not have a Sony TV I have an LG skip please make a selection that matches your connected inputs for the surround back terminals yes around backs are surround back oh wait no that's right they are height too that's right because this is only nine channel so I have it set up to be 5.2.4 right Height 2. please make a selection that matches your connection connected inputs for the height one terminals yes they are in fact I won all right this is where it's going through all the different configurations that are possible and if I remember correctly Sony has so many different configurations to choose from you can start with a 2.0 2.1 with a subwoofer 3.0 with a center channel 3.1 with a subwoofer 4.0 with your like quadraphonic sound if you're into that especially with quadrophonic music 4.1 with a subwoofer 5.0 without a subwoofer 5.1 with a subwoofer yeah so listener yeah so you can see how it says listener level speakers that's what we want to pick 5.1 overhead front height top middle front Dolby Surround Dolby front height plus top middle front height plus top Rear Front height plus rear height top front top middle top front top rear top front rear height I I do like the fact that they have so many different options to choose from Top Middle top rear oh interesting top middle rear height top front surround Dolby front Dolby top Rear Front Dolby Surround Dolby there we go so let's go back to what mine is actually set up to be which is this front height rear height because I have two heights mounted up front and two heights mounted in the rear speaker pattern 5.1.4 yes on the next screen you can check the speaker terminals to which each speaker in the speaker pattern should be connected cool next that's cool I do appreciate that they it's just one extra step to to make sure that you have everything connected to the correct terminal so that's helpful thanks Sony okay so I decided to press the back button just to get out of there now that we know we've got it all connected to the right terminals Auto calibration measuring tape or laser measure room measurements help your system with calibration and sweet spot enhancement so it it wants me to measure the actual distance from the main listening position to the TV okay as you can see it got a tape measure here it is pretty much exactly seven feet to where I have the calibration microphone setup okay then seven feet thing measure the height from the floor to the seated position okay this is very unique they want you to do homework it is four feet yeah just about four feet almost on the dot measure the height from the floor to the ceiling oh I already know that's nine feet thing measure the height from the floor to the green line of the TV screen oh so middle of the TV oh yeah because it's right there Hi green line can you see this hi that is four feet five four feet five inches three five inches thoing save two preset two beep boop mic calibration calibration microphone and mic stand attachment calibration microphone helps accurately determine the room correction needed for your specific room condition you can't see this but I'm laying down for this Next Step just so my body isn't interfering with the sound coming from the speakers next connect the supplied calibration microphone to the calibration my Jack done first measurement please place the microphone stand at ear height in the position where you listen to sound play calibration microphone in the top position with the cable facing out toward the screen yeah done click Start to begin first measurement the measurement will start five seconds after start is selected it gives you five seconds to step out of the room if you need to but like I said I'm just laying down [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] second measurement without moving the mic stand place the calibration mic on the lower stand position oh interesting again this is pretty unique because I'm so used to Odyssey and okay it is in a lower position it's interesting because it's perpendicular to the first position too [Music] ah what a pleasant Melody this completes the measurement operation save based on the measurement results the speaker Sound Source can be relocated quote unquote to the ideal position to improve the surround connection use this feature when it is difficult to place the speakers in the ideal position due to destruction Furniture every room cool Phantom surround back yeah so if you have in-wall speakers or your speakers are just in a spot where you just can't move them anymore this is an extra step to then as it says create a phantom quote-unquote position of certain speakers to improve the immersive quality even more I may want to skip this step just because I want to see how it is just on its own but then I may go back and turn this on so I think I'll just skip this for now because I want to see how it is just after regular calibration optimize the frequency characteristics of the speakers engineer sets the frequency characteristics of Sony Listening Room where this model was developed so flat makes the measurement of frequency from each speaker flat front reference adjusts the character adjusts characteristics of all speakers to match the front speakers oh interesting or off turns off auto calibration EQ um hmm eq'ing of any sort is to smooth out bumps and frequencies or nulls in frequencies where it dips down due to just the nature of your listening space so let's try full flat calibration matching adjusts the waveform output of the sound from paired stereo speakers you can enjoy a wider sweet spot in the listening position and more natural sound effect sure the next screen shows a 360 spatial sound mapping demo enable 360 sound mapping to be able to enjoy surround sound from all directions as if in a wide space exceeding the size of the room okay foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] cool when watching or listening to content you can enable 360 spatial sound mapping by pressing the 360 SSM button on the remote control of this unit using this function automatically disables some audio settings that's good to know it's easy enough to just turn it on and turn it off I did read somewhere that when 360 spatial mapping is on and you're just listening to stereo music that it sounds kind of funky so that's good to know that you can just easily just turn it off if you're listening to music cool beans finish internet settings so as far as this review is concerned I think that's where I'm going to leave it I just want to see how well it does with its Auto calibration and 360 sound mapping technology I'm going to do some demos watch My go-to Demo scenes and see how it performs yeah boy [Music] okay after you've downloaded it another thing you want to do is make sure you are connected to the same Wi-Fi network so your phone and the receiver need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network in order for them to speak to each other in the initial setup I skipped that step I had to go back in and connect to the Wi-Fi network here in the theater so I have done that so now let's open up the Music Center app hey az3000s yes welcome to 360 reality audio available music apps for 360 reality audios on music and title and nugs okay so these are all the different inputs okay speaker update available more info a software update is available this update will take approximately 15 minutes later I hear radio music Pandora SoundCloud Spotify tune in settings and equalizer front yeah once again just bass and treble not the most sophisticated EQ sound field Dolby mode dtsx mode audio enhancer audio format decoding direct 2-channel stereo multi-sterio audio format decoding for movie the native is off pure direct in-cealing speaker mode is if you have in ceiling speakers that are meant to be your front Sound Stage like with a lot of custom home installations they'll often have speakers in the ceiling probably LCR and then two surrounds that are in the ceiling but are meant to be your 5.1 so this feature accounts for that at least for the front Sound Stage 3 spatial sound mapping is on calibration type full flat Okay cool so quite a few of the settings you'll find in the AVR menu you can also find on here for easy access and easy adjusting so that's cool you can perform software updates from this app as well hey cool you can change the dimmer of the front display Hood device name auto update time zone easily switch between zones on this app too so yeah I mean it's your basic AVR app not like a ton of features but yeah just enough to get by if you want to change the volume or change inputs or do a little bit of eq'ing from your phones instead of having to go through the menu to do it which is kind of cool because you can't watch a movie and look at the menu at the same time the menu kind of takes over everything so this is a way to be able to make adjustments while you're watching something so that's cool the first thing I want to say is after having an Iota abx17 preamp as the brains of my system for almost a solid Year my expectations for resorting back to internal lamps was pretty low but I can honestly say that the az3000 has delivered well above my expectations but after going through the initial setup calibrating the system and popping in some of my go-to movie scenes I was very impressed with what I heard right off the bat I will say Sony's Digital Cinema Auto calibration 9 was much better than Odyssey I always have to go back and make many manual tweaks to the system that Odyssey just flat out got wrong especially when it comes to Bass response seems like every time I run Odyssey I have to bump up the subwoofer level significantly because Odyssey turned them way down not the case with the 3000 es the subwoofers responded aggressively they were articulate and pounded my chest although one weird thing I need to mention is that after I did the initial setup for some reason it defaulted two two channel stereo so the tunnel shootout in John Wick 2 was the first demoi popped in and the thump of every gunshot that I was used to was missing but then I saw on the front display two channel stereo so I was like well no wonder so I just hit this little movie button on the remote and boom like I said the bass response was impressive letting me feel each gunshot especially when he switches to a shotgun about halfway through the scene but one thing I need to mention is that remember during the initial setup process when I got to the speaker relocation slash Phantom surround back page and I left it off here's what I found when dealing with not just the digital cinema audio calibration 9 but 360 spatial sound mapping on top of that when I left speaker relocation off it sounded better when 360 spatial sound mapping was also off remember to engage spatial sound mapping all you need to do is press the 360 SSM button on the remote but don't forget 360 the spatial sound mapping is completely virtual that's why it's so easy to turn on and off so when speaker relocation was off leaving 360 spatial sound mapping off sounded better more articulation going on better Channel separation better bass response Etc yes it widened The Sound Stage as it claims to do but the overall impact of the sounds of Dynamics diminished slightly which was a little disappointing I'll be honest but that's because I was relying solely on the Practical calibration of the entire system leaving the speaker relocation feature off makes your system rely only on the speakers that you have and where they are placed a practical space but after demoing a few movies I went back in and changed the speaker relocation feature to type a which is better suited for movie watching relocating the speakers in a theoretical space more mathematically aligned as if they were identical angles and distances from the main listening position a virtual space you with me and that my friends made all the difference in the world when it came to Turning 360 spatial sound mapping back on instead of a Sound Stage being bounded by the physical positions of my speakers it literally seemed to take up every inch of my theater base response was impactful once again dialogue came through nice and crisp highs were shimmery as hell and effects weren't enveloping me from all angles so it made me think oh okay since 360 spatial sound mapping is strictly a virtual or software-based enhancement not a practical one it performs loads better in a virtual environment created by the AVR during these speaker relocation step got it is this Making Sense Digital Cinema Auto calibration 9 creates a practical Sound Stage calibrating your system within the physical boundaries of your speakers speaker relocation plus 360 spatial sound mapping creates a virtual soundstage on my Community page I did ask if you had any questions regarding the az3000es and the vast majority of you wanted to know how 360 spatial sound mapping compared to direct live or Odyssey unfortunately I have yet to actually have an AVR equipped with direct life in this theater which is a crime believe me I get it but there are those out there that I trust who wholeheartedly swear by the magic of direct live so I'm going to still say that direct life might still have a slight Edge over Sony's options mainly because there are upgrades beyond the standard that one can take advantage of like direct life base control for example but I can tell you that I think the combination of digital cinema Auto calibration 9 speaker relocation and 360 spatial sound mapping is loads better than Odyssey at least the standard version Odyssey multi-q X takes it a step further for those wanting to really dial in their systems manually but it's not free one weird thing that I want to touch on is that after I had gone through the initial setup when speaker relocation was still off I went back in to see what the auto calibration had done and made some manual adjustments mainly the levels were just a bit off not all arriving at the main listening position at the same volume and also the Crossovers were all set to 120 hertz for some reason which I thought was too high so I lowered them all to 80 Hertz but one anomaly was after making all those manual adjustments suddenly only all my high frequencies were gone dialogue sounded muddy sound effects didn't have any Sparkle I hadn't changed any EQ settings at all in fact after looking over the list of things that the auto calibration had done nothing had been EQ everything was at its default which by the way is a very basic EQ you can adjust the treble and the bass but that's it no specific frequencies or Q values to adjust only boosting or cutting bass and treble but no matter what I did to try and get my high frequencies back nothing worked although when I turned on 360 spatial sound mapping high frequencies were back so strange when it happened it was about lunchtime anyway so I turned everything off and took a break when I came back from lunch and fired up the system again high frequencies were back so I guess it just needed a power cycle for it to be working well again just an odd Quirk that I thought I should mention to you all that and every once in a while I would get an Ever So slight pop when going back to a scene in a movie or while switching out one 4K Blu-ray for another it would intermittently raise the noise floor significantly before going silent again so not anything I thought was too concerning but little anomalies nonetheless just to see how easy or hard it was I also connected the wireless speakers and sub that I had on hand from when I reviewed the A3000 Soundbar pretty painless process really just plugging in the speakers and sub and pressing the link button on the back which the AVR instantly recognized then it takes you through the calibration process once again one interesting thing about using wireless speakers is that it gives you an option of assigning them as surround or surround bags ha but also surround plus sub or just a sub or just surrounds Etc one thing I was hoping for is that maybe it could go beyond nine channels if you incorporate their wireless speakers no sorry you're still limited to nine channels altogether and if you use a wireless sub that's it you can have either a wireless sub or up to two wired Subs but not a combination of both dang overall it was a cool experiment but the rs3s wireless speakers I have aren't nearly as big as the varus v5b bookshelf speakers nor is the sw3 sub anywhere near the caliber of the aperion audio Bravos 212 DS so as far as sound quality it left something to be desired but in a pinch it's really cool to know that Sony has even made this a viable option know where the company offers that normally Soundbar systems are one and none and that's it so it's uniquely cool that your wireless surrounds or sub that you have with your dated sound bar can still find life integrated into your traditional home theater system more options is good just in case which I am a big fan of another feature I want to highlight is the center channel enhancements specifically center speaker lift up because it was one I could actually utilize with the 3000 es while it did make it seem like dialogue was coming more from the middle of the TV when I stood up and walked closer to the TV it was very apparent the dialogue was also coming from the front height speakers and honestly from my listening position anyway dialogue sounds like it's coming from the TV even though the center channel speaker is below my TV so for me it's not something I needed I personally want height speakers to only output height information I don't need dialogue to bleed into the height effects too just my personal preference one last thing I want to hit on is the price in typical Sony fashion the az3000es is pretty expensive at 16.99 that's the same price as a Denon x3800h which has a full set of pre-outs supports ro3d supports up to four subwoofers and is direct live ready if you want to pay extra for it or there is still the wildly popular Onkyo rz50 which is normally 15.99 but frequently goes on sale for only 12.99 on crutchfield.com including right now as I'm recording this video but the rz50 also has a full set of pre-outs is THX certified and has direct live already built into it or what about something that's even closer with specs like the Pioneer LX 305 which also is a 9 Channel AVR without a full set of pre-outs while it has slightly less power and doesn't support IMAX enhanced it does have direct live already built in and it normally costs 11.99 that's a lot less for just a few less bells and whistles but let's face it Sony knows they can get away with it because Sony loyalists are still willing to pay take the HD A9 for example if you got it with the sw5 wireless subwoofer that's twenty four hundred dollars that's an expensive Soundbar system compared to its competitors and yet it's still one of their most popular items to date go figure lastly I'll leave you with these thoughts on Sony's es line of avrs they are definitely some of the best avrs on the market today with incredibly unique features and fantastic Auto room correction could Sony do something about their updated aesthetic that's been the same since the dawn of time it seems of course maybe they should take some notes from a Rants since I'm a big fan of their latest cinema line of avrs with their clean lines and Sleek modern aesthetic but Sony is definitely one of the few companies at the Forefront of innovation especially with their focus on virtual sound stages since some theaters are much more popular now than ever before more companies are starting to invest more heavily into virtual room treatment options since your modern living room just isn't the most ideal place for surround sound systems so creating Phantom speakers and aligning your entire Sound Stage through software-based calculations is honestly the future since less people are flocking to the movie theater or Cinema direct live is doing that with their active room treatment Sony is doing it with their 360 spatial sound mapping and speaker relocation Technologies this is a direction we're heading making it easier for the average consumer to make their non-theater-like living room sound Incredible without having to completely renovate their listening space so while I still think that direct live along with their base control and active room treatment options are still more sophisticated Sony isn't far behind with their speaker relocation and 360 spatial sound mapping like I said Odyssey multi-q X is very sophisticated but you sure need to know what you're doing to dial in your system but honestly anyone could follow the simple steps laid out with these new esabrs from Sony and that makes a big difference since Sony knows there are many more novices interested in home theater ever since covet so yes even though I wish the price was reduced by a few hundred dollars the az3000es is a fantastic nine Channel AVR in today's market if it was 16.99 and it had a full set of pre-outs I'd be 100 on board take all my money but honestly any update to this AVR maybe they'll call it the AZ 3100 es or something I think it should have a full set of pre-owns just saying Sony just saying thank you for joining me on this review of the Sony az3000es AVR and now it's your turn what's your take on the price are you convinced that the trifecta of digital cinema Auto calibration 9 speaker relocation and 360 spatial sound mapping is a tour de force in making a listening space sound incredible let's start a conversation people as always please be kind to each other out there don't just watch TV and movies experience them through your az3000es and of course always be listening foreign

Channel: Ealan Osborne

Views: 22,482

Keywords: home theater, home audio, home cinema, cinema, audio, sound, hifi, hifi audio, hifi sound, loudspeaker, surround sound, film, films, movies, tv, television, uhd, 4k, dolby atmos, dts x, auro 3d, imax enhanced, imax, immersive audio, immersive sound, 3d audio, sony, spatial, spatial audio, 360 spatial sound mapping, spatial sound mapping, digital cinema auto calibration ix, acoustics, product review, product, receiver, avr, price comparisons, buying guide, wireless, sony es receiver

Id: uI8ERSgSgCE

Length: 31min 37sec (1897 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 07 2023