The DAV-HDX576WF is the top-of-the-line home theater system in Sony's HDX series. It boasts powerful surround sound, iPod® connectivity, and a very simple multi-room audio setup. It even gives you a wireless connection to the rear speakers for room-filling music and surround effects.

But I wanted to know, can this compact system really deliver on all those fronts? I'm used to my home theater system at home — which is made up of separate components that I've paired together — and I was interested to see how an "all-in-one" system like this compares. I also wanted to check out how easy the '576WF is to set up, and see how well Sony's wireless connectivity works.

The Sony DAV-HDX576WF offers extras you don't see with a lot of other surround sound systems, like wireless rear speakers and an iPod dock.

Samsung LCD TV that I used. The two rear speakers stood vertically on a table behind me, but they were also wall-mountable. And I liked the nicer metal casing on the receiver/player, instead of flimsy plastic.

The speaker setup was incredibly easy since all of the wires were conveniently color coded. The wireless rear speakers saved me from having to run speaker wire to the back of the room, but they weren't completely wireless. Both speakers connected to a small separate receiver/amplifier that plugged into the wall — it provided power, as well as the audio signal from the main unit. The package also came with a transceiver card for both the receiver and for the main unit that needed to be inserted into each device in order to transmit wireless audio signals.

The unit came with a standard composite video cable, but I used an HDMI cable to make sure I got the best video quality. Since I was testing out the system on a nice LCD HDTV, I wanted to get the benefit of the '576WF's upconverted 1080p picture.

On-screen setup
The first thing I did was use the system's automatic speaker calibration to properly set all of the speaker levels. It took a lot of the time and guesswork out of the process. I just plugged in the included mic, selected "auto calibration" from the menu during setup, and the system did the rest in less than two minutes. While the receiver sent test tones to the speakers, I got to see which speakers it was testing on the screen. Later on, I found I wanted to boost the surround sound speakers a bit — just personal taste — but this got me most of the way there.

Next, I made some simple video adjustments to specify my TV's aspect ratio and picture resolution. I also adjusted the audio settings, so that the system would always play in surround sound if it was available. All in all, total set-up time was only about an hour. I followed the tips found in Dave's article on setting up a home theater system to get things right. So if you're interested in putting together your own system, or if you've just recently put one together, you might want to check it out.

A couple of hang-ups
While programming the right A/V settings wasn't that tricky, it took me a while to get used to the '576WF's menu system and remote. Both were clunky and hard to navigate. Tiny buttons closely packed together, hard-to-read labels, and no backlighting made the remote less than ideal. It took some flipping back and forth to get to the main menu to change the settings — there was no single 'main menu' button. I had to refer to the owner's manual quite a bit at first to get the hang of it.

Fortunately, the on-screen menus weren't something I had to use very often after this initial setup. But I'd definitely recommend getting a nice universal remote. I've got a Harmony remote at home, and I missed the convenience of large, contoured buttons with easy-to-read labels and backlighting.

My only other gripe was that I had to turn the rear speakers on and off manually using a large push-in button on the front of the rear amplifier. There was no "stand-by" mode, so I had to get used to turning the rear amplifier on and off whenever I wanted to use the surround system. As a personal preference, I decided not to leave it on all the time so that it wouldn't eat up an unnecessary, albeit small, amount of power.