★★★★★ 5
Upgrading Home Theater to 4K, SONY STR-AN1000 7 has Awesome Surround Sound and Stunning Pictures
After many years of enjoying my Epson 2150 Home Cinema and my SONY STR-DN1080, I decided to upgrade to a 4K projector. I use my projector as a television, to watch movies, sports, etc., on a daily basis. Upgrading to a 4K projector required me ass well to upgrade my home theatre receiver to 4K. Both of my previous devices were 1080. I upgraded my receiver to a Sony STR-AN1000 7.2 Channel (7 x 165 Watt) Surround Sound Home Theater 8K A/V Receiver and my projector to a LG CineBeam UHD 4K projector. Immediately upon connecting my new 4K devices, I experienced difficulties. The picture was jumpy and intermittent, and I could not seamlessly switch from one input on my new home theater to another. Before the upgrade, I would regularly switch among all of my playback and streaming devices. I started panicking thinking I would have to return all of my new equipment, reconnect my old home theater receiver, and put my old projector back into the ceiling. I decided to call customer support. First, I called LG support. Then I called SONY support.
The SONY tech support figured out that the SONY equipment was working properly, but that the LG projector was not receiving the signals from my various devices. He told me the problem was that I needed also to upgrade my HDMI cable to a high-speed 4k cable. That immediately freaked me out because I have a 100 ft cable embedded in a ceiling that had been finished over the cable. No way I was going to rip apart the ceiling (thousands of dollars) to replace the HDMI cable. But his insight set me in the right direction. I did some online research and came across a solution that worked perfectly. Rather than tearing up my ceiling to install a new, high-speed HDMI 4K cable, I invested $39.00 in a HDMI 2.0 Repeater. This super mini HDMI repeater works by decoding and then re-encoding the HDMI signal to a new standard HDMI signal. It also extends the range of the signal. I was now getting perfect pictures from my Firestick and Fite TV Cube and was able to switch freely between them. I changed some of the display settings in the Fire Stick and Amazon Cube. However, I could not pick up the Xfinity TV signal on my LG 4K receiver. Picking up that signal required one last piece of equipment upgrade. I called Comcast technical support and determined that swapping out my Xfinity 1080 boxes for 4K boxes was an option available to me. Therefore, I returned my Xfinity 1080 cable box and swapped it out for an Xfinity 4K cable TV box. Problem solved. Now, I am receiving a perfect 4K image on the LG from all devices, and I can easily switch from one to the other.
Now, let's talk about the SONY STR-AN1000 features.
SONY STR-AN1000
This is a powerful and well-engineered home theater receiver. For me, the only reason to buy this receiver at this point in time was to upgrade my TV/ home theater watching from 1080 to 4K. My SONY 1080 still works fine. I have to figure out what I am going to do with it. The surround sound is awesome on the new STR-AN1000. It has this new Dolby Speaker Virtualization sound field simulation that totally immerses you in surround sound. You can control the SONY STR-AN1000 with your smartphone using the SONY Music Center App. There are plenty of digital and music streaming options. You have multi-room audio and video options using zone 2 and zone 3 outputs. Six HDMI inputs allow you to connect all of your media playback and streaming devices – Blue Ray player, Fire Stick, Fire TV Cube, ROKU Streaming stick, Cable/satellite TV Box, etc. Like my previous STR-DN1080, I can connect 7 speaker sets, including 2 sub-woofers. You can change the settings or switch from one input source to another easily. The on-screen display lets you make adjustments to your settings while looking at your TV screen. You can connect to the internet wirelessly or via an ethernet port. The only major feature this receiver is lacking is a phono input. I don’t mind that because I have another receiver from which to connect my turntables or record players. The remote control is much smaller than previous SONY home theater receiver remotes, making it more user-friendly and easier to understand. The Audio Return Channel (ARC and eARC) allows you to set your system up without the need for an optical audio cable. In my case, that means I don’t have to run an extra cable into the ceiling for the audio to work because the ARC and eARC transmit the audio signal. This receiver is capable of upscaling your video to both 4K and 8K. However, in my case, I found it necessary to get an Xfinity 4K cable box to watch my Xfinity programming. I am totally, 100 percent pleased with my SONY STR-AN1000 4K/8K home theater receiver. This is the fourth SONY home theater receiver I have owned. I have no complaints. The picture quality passed through from all of my playback devices to my LG 4K projector is stunning. There are so many other features to this receiver; however, those are best explained by an audio/video expert. There are many such reviews available online. But if you are a layperson like I am and you want to know whether this STR-AN1000 home theater is a good investment, my answer, based on a few weeks of viewing and my over a decade of experience with other home theater receivers, is that this is a very good investment. The quality and features you are getting are well worth the purchase price, and I am confident you will be watching a TV or projector hooked up to this home theater system for many years to come. I highly recommend it.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2024
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