The DAV-FZ900KW is Sony’s 5.1 Speaker Wireless DVD Home Theatre System, suited for any living room packing 1000W RMS. The speakers include a sub woofer, a stream lined centre speaker and four tallboy speakers. The system comes with an external iPod dock so you can connect your iPod to the system without requiring any additional audio cables. In addition, it’s also got Sony’s stylish slick black finish that looks great with a PS3 and any black LCD or plasma.

Home Theatre in a box
The Home Theatre System comes packaged in one box. Once you lay out all the pieces, you notice how crammed all the pieces where – and as it was a review product, I wondered how I was going to cram everything back in.

Setting up the system took about an hour and a half. This included unpacking the wrapping, attaching the bases to the tallboy speakers and connecting all the cables to the amplifier and TV. At this point I had to read the manual; the system isn’t really a straightforward plug-and-play unit. You need to set the speakers and the wireless adapters. But the wireless setup is pretty simple, after you follow the manual. All you need to do is connect one S-Air card on the receiver and the other on the surround amplifier. S-Air is Sony’s wireless technology, and it uses the same signals that are used on your wireless network connection.

The audio setup is pretty easy too – once you find the instructions on the user manual. When you access the system’s on-screen setup screen, you simply follow the instructions. The quickest way to get your system up and running is by using the calibration microphone, which does all the guessing work for you. Position the mic in the central listening point, and the system will measure the correct volume for each of the speakers – easy, and it works really well.

Wireless – but not completely
The Sony DAV-FZ900KW is not a true wireless Home Theatre System. This can be a good thing because true wireless systems may suffer from latency – meaning that the sound signal does not match the video signal. But latency issues can be fixed and you don’t have to deal with cables. So what’s wireless about this Home Theatre System? Well there are no wires connecting the rear speakers and the receiver. You don’t need a cable to run from the front of your living room to the back. With Sony’s S-Air wireless technology, you purchase an additional wireless music distribution system that allows you to use the system to play music from your iPod connected to the receiver from another room, and while someone is watching a movie.

The DVD/Receiver comes with a HDMI Port; this port is common amongst Plasma and LCDs. The port converts Standard Definition DVDs to High Definition DVDs. The receiver does not include an S-Video port, so old TVs will need to use the standard RCA video output. The front of the unit has a built in USB port for connecting a USB drive or external hard disk, and Sony’s USB connection also allows you to record audio CDs directly to your USB device. When you’ve got a USB device connected, you can also copy data from a data CD to the USB.

The DAV-FZ900KW allows you to play MP3s in various ways. The first is the iPod dock; once the iPod is plugged into the dock, you can control the device using the system’s remote control. Music files may also be played via the USB port. The DVD player supports data CDs with only MP3 files. The receiver however supports MP3, WMA and M4A audio file formats.

Sound Check
With 1000W RMS altogether (with RMS being the measurement of the sound’s overall consistency), the Sony DVD Home Theatre System has plenty of power. The subwoofer is 280W RMS and the tallboy’s and centre speaker are 144W RMS. Playing MP3’s at 320 and 192kbs sounds pretty clear at a moderate volume, and impressively, the subwoofer does not overpower the front and centre speakers at a really high volume.

Watching movies at 5.1 resulted in a clear sound, with no distortion – however, at high volumes the tallboys did distort. The centre speaker with the same RMS as the tallboys does cope well as it is much smaller and thinner, especially on scenes that have sound effects, music and people talking. I did find that recalibrating the speakers from time to time helped keep that sound consistent.

Conclusion
For a Home Theatre in a box, the Sony DAV-FAZ900KW is great for a medium-sized living room, and Sony’s slick product design works well with any living room setup. With support for your USB, MP3s and iPod, the Sony Home Theatre System integrates well with all forms of accessing movies and music.