Sony Debuts Multi-room ES Receivers, in HD and iPod Link Style

The Elevated Standard receivers from Sony aren't dead yet; as a matter of fact if you thought you've gotten rid of them I must tell you that you haven't: not only aren't they gone, but they are back, with a bang and in serious style. The ES series receivers from Sony has been re-modeled and has itself received some most neat improvement sworn to make your life better and easier, now allowing you to interact better with your modern gear and media alike.

The three new models, 5300ES, 4300ES and obviously 3300ES are to be gradually released later this late summer/autumn each one at a time, so people will not feel overwhelmed. The leading model is the 5300, a first step for Sony on the way to the multiple-room standards; it can administer both audio or video to a second zone in your house and even allow you to monitor what's going on in there in a picture-in-picture display.

Even more, the Sony 5300ES allows for no less than 6 HDMI 1.3 inputs that should be enough (at least for now) for pretty much any home user, no matter how demanding. Well, it's true there is no limit to what one could ask for when it comes to multimedia, but any decent human being should settle for six HDMI for now. The 5300ES also comes with a 7.1 channel sound system and a 120W amplifier that can handle Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD Master Audio formats.

The other two models are a tad more oriented towards "calmer" users: the 4300ES sports a 100W amp and has just 3 HDMI 1.3 inputs while no longer boasting the multi-zone feature. The Sony 3300ES looses the advanced Dolby and DTS decoding while retaining the amplifier and the HDMI feats of the 4300 model.

All three receivers sport Blu-Ray support and Sony's proprietary iPod dock, a Wi-Fi link and receivers for both Walkman and Bluetooth devices. The 3300ES comes first, expected in August for $1,000, followed by 5300ES in September and 4300ES in October, for $1,700 and $1,300, respectively.

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