Sony HT-IS100 / Sony DAV-IS 10

[admin_exported]

Hi there,

I've found a few references to a Sony HT-IS100 Home Cinema System, which seems to be an "new" version of the DAV-IS 10 system with a higher spec but no DVD Player. The availability is supposedly July/August 2008. Is this something you guys are aware of and will be reviewing in due course?

I'm primarily interested in this due to the golf ball speakers as they will fit into my lounge and I don't really want large surrond sound speakers, plus I aready have a DVD recorder and so the DVA's DVD player would be redundnant.

Many Thanks

Aswad

 

[Andrew Everard]

Aswad:Hi there,

I've found a few references to a Sony HT-IS100 Home Cinema System, which seems to be an "new" version of the DAV-IS 10 system with a higher spec but no DVD Player. The availability is supposedly July/August 2008. Is this something you guys are aware of and will be reviewing in due course?

We read about it in the US dealer launch earlier this year, but as yet no word from Sony UK about availability. We will, of course, be requesting a sample if and when there is any news of its availability.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Andrew.

 

[Anonymous]

Apparently in stock
http://www.superfi.co.uk/print.cfm?product_id=4145

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info.

Just checked with Sony, its release date in the UK is July 08, so I guess some retailers may be jumping the gun a bit to get their orders in.

Andrew - Any idea of when this might get reviewed, would you expect it to be as good as the DAV-IS 10?

Aswad

 

[Anonymous]

The HT-IS100 really appeals to me and hopefully it will be released on that date and we will get a review soon

 

[Anonymous]

I went into my local Sony shop to see this at the weekend, they hadn't yet taken it out of the box yet but when asked, connected it up for me to listen to. Whilst the set up wasn't great i.e. the rears weren't placed correctly, all the speakers were placed near the 46inch Bravia. I did get to watch Spiderman 3 via a Blu Ray and it sounded fantastic. - Not an ideal environment however and I would hope to see a review of it soon before I buy. I don't have a Blu Ray player yet but this has now sparked my interest!

The sub is wider than the DAV- IS10, and has a glossy finish which looks a lot nicer. There is a display on the front of the sub towards the bottom half, loads of connections at the back too. They didn't have any info on the wireless option (esp price) as yet but the IS100 looked and sounded great.

Aswad

 

[Anonymous]

I want a one-box home cinema kit to go with my Sony Bravia telly that has wireless rear speakers - so I've been looking at the new DAV-IS50 (£499-£549) or the HT-IS100 (£399) + S-AIR (£149).

They're both 5.1 systems, so does it matter whether I connect my PS3 via optical or HDMI? What difference does 'HD audio' make when you only have 5.1 not 7.1?

If there is any significant difference in quality?

 

[professorhat]

Yup, depending on the transfer used by the studio for the soundtrack when creating the Blu-Ray disc. At its best, I've seen uncompressed tracks with 7 Mbps transfer rates on an uncompressed PCM soundtrack which is more than 10 times more detail than the equivalent 640 Kbps rate you can get with a standard Dolby Digital soundtrack on Blu-Ray if you were using the optical cable. 5.1 / 7.1 doesn't really come into it here, it's the amount of detail in the soundtrack.
So basically, if you're buying new, make sure the amp can accept 7.1 LPCM signal through its HDMI socket from the PS3 (even if you're system is currently only 5.1) to get the best out of it.

 

[Anonymous]

does that mean the sony ht 100 aint as good as some other amps out there?

 

[Anonymous]

Compared to a £1000 amp? Of course.

 

[Anonymous]

Pretty sure the HT-IS100 does accept the uncompressed PCM signal from the PS3; that's the difference between it and the DAV-IS50 (which has no HDMI in as I understand it, only optical). The other difference being one has an upscaling DVD player and one doesn't.

So is it as simple as more detail = it sounds better, even if you've got 'only' six speakers, and a one-box system (and not an expensive amp)?

And professorhat, as you seem to be a PS3 expert, do you think a £100 Pioneer would upscale significantly better than the PS3? Watching Transformers at the w/e I noticed lots of artefacts around text captions and fast-moving robots. Obviously one can't expect miracles and I should probably buy the BD, but I do have a big DVD collection...

Cheers!

 

[professorhat]

hungoverdrawn:So is it as simple as more detail = it sounds better, even if you've got 'only' six speakers, and a one-box system (and not an expensive amp)?
Well, as I say, a lot depends on the movie studios transfer - more detail does not necessarily mean better sound in itself, but in most cases, if the transfer is a good one, then yes it will. Remember this is also only comparing an amp with itself i.e. connecting an amp with optical compared with connecting to the same amp via HDMI and using the HD audio soundtracks. It could well be that a top of the range Denon / Yamaha amp will sound better using Dolby Digital than a bottom of the range Sony will using Dolby TrueHD. But that's not really a fair comparison!
hungoverdrawn:do you think a £100 Pioneer would upscale significantly better than the PS3?
Assume you mean a £1,000 Pioneer TV? If so, I haven't actually seen one in action to compare but have seen many Pioneer owners on this forum who say they are better at upscaling and I have no reason to disbelieve them

 

[Anonymous]

professorhat:hungoverdrawn:do you think a £100 Pioneer would upscale significantly better than the PS3? Assume you mean a £1,000 Pioneer TV? If so, I haven't actually seen one in action to compare but have seen many Pioneer owners on this forum who say they are better at upscaling and I have no reason to disbelieve them

I have a Sony KDL-40V4000 - assumed the PS3 would do a better job of upscaling than the telly, is that not the case? Letting it upscale my R1 copy of The Princess Bride from an old Philips DVD player looked a bit ropey, but maybe it's just a rubbish DVD.

 

[Anonymous]

HI,

Any update on whether the HT-IS100 will be reviewed any time soon?

Also, what about the DAV-IS50 - is there any difference between this & the outgoing DAV-IS10? (apart from the Wireless Rears)

Thanks!