Features

Sony has positioned the HT-IV300 right in between a standard home theatre system and a high-end home theatre systems that comes with an AV receiver. So you won’t find a ton of inputs and output connectors to play around with, but in our opinion, they are more than enough for most homes. For starters, you have only two HDMI-in ports that let you connect the speaker set to a DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a gaming console, a laptop or even a HD set-top-box. You can also connect your HD set-top box directly to the speakers with the help of an optical input. This makes it easy to set up the speakers to enjoy your favourite TV shows in surround sound. It even lets you preserve the HDMI ports for other sources. The HDMI-out is also an ARC port, which also lets you save the need for another HDMI cable, running from the TV to the speakers. For audio output, you also have a coaxial and audio analog port.

The USB port is used to play multimedia content off a USB pen drive or hard drive. It supports practically all popular formats such as MKV, MP4, AVCHD and many more. 4k formats aren’t supported, but it will upscale full HD content to 4K resolutions if you connect it to a 4K TV. The most common audio standards available are Dolby Digital Pro Logic II and DTS Neo 6 for Cinema and Music. Besides those, you also have a 2-channel stereo sound mode for music.

In terms of wireless connectivity, the speaker supports Wi-Fi 802.11n. It supports Wi-Fi Direct and DLNA, which means you can stream music or movies from your smartphone or tablet directly to the home theatre system. With the help of Wi-Fi Direct, you can also mirror the smartphone screen on the TV connected to home theatre and enjoy games with 5.1 surround sound. For wireless music streaming, you can also use Bluetooth and pair you device instantly with the help of NFC.

One of the advantages of the HT-IV300 over an AV receiver is that it’s quite simple to use. It has the same graphical interface you find in any other Sony home theatre. There are short descriptions for every icon in the menu, so you won’t have the trouble of going through the interface. The only thing we didn’t like about it is that it didn’t let us stream music using Bluetooth while browsing through the main menu. The moment you press the Home button on the remote, the connection between the device and the speakers is lost. There aren’t a lot of shortcuts present either. If you want to switch between any of the audio modes, you have to stop what you’re playing, go to the audio settings, change them and then come back to the content. In other devices, this is usually done just with the press of a single button.

Design and Build

The receiver unit of Sony HT-IV300 is designed to look like a DVD player. However, it’s pretty compact compared to an actual disc-based player. Sony claims that it takes about 40 per cent less space than a conventional home theatre system. The front panel has a digital display and underneath that, a white LED light that turns on when you switch on the system. It adds to the look and ensures the console doesn’t look out of place.  

The 5.1 speakers are designed to look good, no matter where you place them. Their unique hexagonal shape don’t just add to the style of the room, but also give the freedom to place them in the best angle possible, to get the best sound. This is something you won’t get to do with conventional rectangular speakers. Although they have a plastic build, they feel quite sturdy. At the front, you see a metal grill that protects the drivers, and on the sides you have a metallic silver finish that give them a premium look. The subwoofer is front-facing. The drivers are built into a wooden cabinet with a metal grill at the front, with a Sony logo. There are thin rubber pads at the bottom that help reduce vibrations.  

The speakers are connected to the amplifier using pigtail connectors, which are simple to plug in, and stay firmly in place. Both the cables and the connectors are marked with the help of colours, so the setup is relatively easy. The only problem you might face with the cables may be the length of the cables heading to the surround speakers. At 7 metres in length, it really depends how far you want to set up the rear speakers. The remote provided with the IV300 doesn’t look any different to the one bundled with other Sony home theatres. It easy to use and doesn’t look very confusing compared to an AV receiver’s remote.

Performance

Setting up the HT-IV300 was easy. It’s not nearly as difficult as setting up an AV receiver. After placing the speakers in the right places, the first thing we did was to configure the sound. The speakers only let you adjust the sound by setting the distance from your seating arrangement. You can also increase the volume of specific speakers individually if you like.

Once the configuration was done, we tested the speakers by playing some music and movies on it. We have to say that the Sony IV-300 is loud and powerful for its size, no matter what kind of content you’re playing on it; although there were some issues. One of the first things we noticed is the heavy bass. It’s pretty tight but not very clear. It overpowers the finger details from other speakers while playing music. It’s not just the subwoofer, but even the speakers are a bit tuned towards the lower frequency. Because of this most of the songs we played had bassy effect to them. None the less, the speakers still do a good job while playing songs from almost all genres. Tweaking the subwoofer does help fix things to an extent.

Heavy sounds are the most prominent. The sound of a gunshot or the impact of a punch, are prominent and clear. The subwoofer is loud, but it does distort a little on high volumes. The highs aren’t equally clear but they could be heard without having to put any additional effort.

The interface although easy to use, wasn’t very responsive when we attached 1TB hard drive to it. There was a little delay when we were scrolling through all the full-HD videos in the drive. We found it to work a lot better with pen drives. Connecting the smartphone using Bluetooth is very simple.

Verdict

From what we heard, we were pretty satisfied with the HT-IV300 for the price it is offered at. It is loud for its size and manages to produce a good stereo and surround sound effect. Of course, you do need to tweak the sound a little bit if you don’t want all of your songs and movies to sound too bassy. It’s also very important to have a good quality source. For us, one of the biggest disappointments was the interface. It’s a little slow and lacks the important shortcuts to implement some of the most basic settings. All things said, we still think that the Sony HT-IV300 is a good idea for someone who wants a little more from their basic home theatre system but isn’t ready to invest in an AV receiver.