The Sony STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver features the hallmarks of the Sony brand - incredible sound, a bevy of cool features, and will far and away give you the most bang for the buck when you are starting to assemble a high-performance home theater.

While most people think of Sony as making amazing TVs and projectors, their home theater AV receivers are highly regarded by home theater enthusiasts. But it has been almost a decade since Sony showed us new models.

Features & Technology

With 11 powered channels built-in, the Sony STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver will let you put together a fully immersive home theater experience with front speakers, a center, surrounds, rears, and two pairs of Atmos speakers. These will be powered by an amp section rated at 130 watts per channel with two channels driven. When you look at the massive power supply and the fact that it weighs 42 pounds, you know it will be able to deliver some real punch even for hard-to-drive speakers. By the way, you have preamp outs for all the channels should you want even more power.

Sony has upped its game in the network side of things as well. The STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver is outfitted with Bluetooth, Chromecast, Wifi, Airplay, Spotify Connect and it integrates seamlessly with Sonos.

Video-wise, you get 8K & 4K/120 HDMI Connectivity with HDMI 2.1 and HDCP 2.3 with support for HDR, Dolby Vision, HDR10, Hybrid Log Gamma, and IMAX Enhanced. Four inputs on the rear handle 8K, with two on the rear, and a convenient HDMI port on the front provides 4k/120.

Gamers will love that the 4K/120 inputs support ALLM and VRR for the best in low-latency gaming. This AV receiver can definitely aid in your online gaming victories.

How Does the AZ5000 Sound?

The audio side of things is where the STR-AZ5000ES takes it to a new level. We’ve never seen tech like this before in any home theater receiver. It’s as though Sony wanted to cover every possible situation you might run into in your home to allow you to get immersive surround even if you are unable to physically run speaker wire.

For immersive surround, the Sony STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. To help those who may not want to run cables for some speakers, all of Sony’s new AV receiver models support adding Sony’s wireless SA-RS3S and SA-RS5 Wireless Surround Speakers, as well as SA-SW3 & SASW5 Wireless Subwoofers.

These are a great sounding wireless surround speaker option. While I would much prefer adding speakers that match your main brand of speakers, this is a pretty cool option for apartments or living spaces where it is impossible to run wiring for surrounds. You could use either of the wireless surround speaker options to at least get more immersion than you would without them.

Along the same lines, they also all let you use the speakers in a compatible Sony TV for your center channel. Again, we would not recommend this unless you had no space for a center channel, but it is wonderful they took the time to cover all possibilities.

They also have a phantom rear speaker mode that you can turn on to simulate rear speakers. This is not a simulation of your main surrounds, but the rears in a 7-channel bed layer system. This worked quite well in our testing.

In a lot of new construction installations in family rooms, we see people do three in-ceiling speakers for the left, center, and right. In the earlier models, Sony added a feature to make it sound like these were more on ear level and it worked well. The updated tech in the Sony STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver takes this idea up a notch.

If you have played around with home theater receivers that automatically adjust the distance for your speakers based on test tones, you probably know they can be off by what can sometimes be several feet.

Sony has turned that idea on its head and asks you for more measurements than we’ve ever seen. Before you start calibrating any of these new Sony receivers, you’ll probably want to get a laser tape measure.

The on-screen menu is a home theater dream come true. It is a big grid, allowing you to assign video and audio to any input. You can also do a custom mix for sports or listening to your favorite streaming music service. You have offset levels and default surround modes for each one and can assign up to a 300 millisecond delay for any lip sync issues your source may have. You can even turn on or off the sub output for each input.

Next, you jump to the speaker settings. We love the visuals Sony uses here in the speaker pattern section. With all of the different types of speakers you could use for home theater, the names can be confusing, but seeing the type of speaker and where it's placed makes it perfectly clear what you see on-screen matches your speaker layout.

You’ll first enter the normal settings of where you are from each speaker. You’ll then enter the distance each one is from your screen. You’ll see green lines to help you get a reference point for accurate measurement.

Next, you will input how far each speaker is off the floor. Finally, you’ll input the distance your ears are from both the floor and ceiling. While this may seem like a bit of extra work, it gives Sony’s Digital Cinema Auto Calibration IX and 360 Spatial Sound Mapping more data. In theory, this should give you a more immersive surround with objects better placed in the space. In our listening tests, all of this was proven, making the STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver one of the most accurate AV receivers on the market, on par with what I’ve heard out of a $20,000 + Trinnov AV receiver.

Performance

When we first got our sample of the Sony STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver, we set it up in a high-end two-channel system to test its audio performance quality. The sound was pretty amazing for a home theater receiver. To us, it sounded like a high-end British amp with a completely neutral sound that does not lean toward warmth or bright, but right in the middle where it should be.

Popping the cover off and looking inside, it's easy to see why the STR-AZ5000ES sounds so amazing. Sony starts out with a sturdy frame that was made thicker for the 2023 models to stabilize all the components and its massive power supply. It is attached to anti-resonant feet. The digital circuit board even has different length fins designed to reduce resonances, which is next-level attention to detail. The 32-bit DAC has a new analog power supply for a purer power feed. You’ll also see these unique-looking resistors called Fine Sounds Resistor by Sony that use a high amount of copper for a purer sound. Sony even developed a special ES high-purity solder for better sound.

After the two-channel listening tests, we set the STR-AZ5000ES AV receiver up in a theater in one of our demo rooms. We went through inputting all of the measurements, then got to the special microphone, which has two wings clearly labeled left and right mic. Even the auto-calibration will ask for some of the measurements we did earlier. You do two passes with two different points for the microphone that are practically impossible to mess up as the little stand has cutouts for the Sony mic. I also like the fact the whole assembly had a threaded insert for a tripod stand.

In our testing, we did come up with a way to take measurements that we felt gave far better results. When you purchase your Sony receiver from Audio Advice, we’ll provide you with our special tips and tricks that cover what we learned to get the most from your system.

We played some of our favorite Atmos test tracks. The dive bomber scene from “Midway” really stood out. We could practically feel the bullets and shell fire tracking above and around us. The gaming experience includes precise placement of everything around you, possibly giving you a leg up on the competition.

It was clear to us that there was truly something to all of the data Sony asks you at setup.

So with all of its greatness, what is there not to like? Well, not much. We do wish it had separate subwoofer outputs that let you calibrate multiple subs individually. However, this is less of a big deal with so many new subs coming with room calibration built-in. You do get two parallel sub outputs and could easily set up dual subs to get great performance. Check out our video on subwoofer setup.

Watch Our Subwoofer Setup Video Now>

Overall Recommendation

When you consider the price point of the new STR-AZ5000ES and how it places immersive effects into your room with precision, it has to be one of the best value home theater receivers for those of you looking at a higher channel count. We highly recommend this incredible receiver as one of the best AVR’s on the market for the cost. While it's been a long wait, it was well worth it.