With the rise and rise of sound bars, could AV receivers are on the way out? Ask any home theater enthusiast and they'll tell you "no," but for many buyers who just want better sound for their TVs and music, a massive, black, input-infested box is much more intimidating than a skinny bar.

Sony tries to counter the increasing complexity of the modern receiver with its new STR-DN1080. Though it boasts the wealth of features and inputs typical of the breed, the company has applied a user-friendly sheen to help the receiver should appeal to both newbies and old hands.

The Sony STR-DN1080 is the follow-up to the outstanding STR-DN1070, our favorite receiver of 2016, and it patches that unit's only significant hole -- the lack of Dolby Atmos. The two receivers do sound a little different, with the older one sounding a little warmer and the newer a bit more home cinema focussed.

In terms of features the Sony offers pretty much everything you could want in 2017, and it sets a high bar against this year's competition. We can't call it our favorite yet until we can review similar models from from Denon, Onkyo/Pioneer and Yamaha, but we like what we see from Sony so far.

The STR-DN1080 is available now for $599 or £600, and while Australian pricing and availability have yet to be announced, we expect it to be the same as the outgoing model at AU$1,399.

Design

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While Sony's receivers from the last decade really pushed the bar when it came to design with their bulldog-like visage, more recent models have been a little less striking. The design of the STR-DN1080 is pretty blocky -- it's a solid, rectangular box with a thin glossy strip for a readout. It comes with a volume knob and a smaller selector knob next to it.

One thing that you wouldn't notice unless you put the receiver next to last year's -- as we did -- is that the 1080 is a little smaller than the 1070. Peering inside both we didn't notice much difference in the internals of the 1080, it's just that the new model seems to manage empty space better.

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Receivers' on-screen displays languished in a user-hostile jail for much longer than on any other home cinema gadget. Blocky white text on a black background? Yuck. So when you come across something as lovely as the Sony's interface, it almost erases memories of the past. Big, friendly tiles on the front and readable text once you get one level in. The only downside is that the streaming services need a phone to work -- no point-and-click with your remote.

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Just as OSDs have had a spit and polish in recent years the same is true of remote controls. Gone are the "Apollo mission control panels", now replaced with a stripped-down candy bar with the Sony STR-DN1080. If you need anything more complicated than what's presented, that's what the on-screen interface is for.

Features

The STR-DN1080 is a 5.1.2 (or 7.1) receiver that now offers Dolby Atmos and DTS:X at a more affordable price than the company's ES receivers. Last year's 1070 seemed like it sorely wanted to be "atmospheric"-compatible but the designers just ran out of time.

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While its competitors shaved down the number of HDMI ports in the move to 4K/HDR-compliant versions, Sony managed to keep the number of HDMI inputs at six. The only real change is that one port moved from the front to the back. The receiver has two HDMI outs, which means it is able to distribute 4K video and surround sound to two different TVs and zones.

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Other connectivity is a little sparse, with a coaxial and optical digital, Bluetooth plus Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

With internet connectivity comes an excellent selection of streaming options, including Chromecast built-in, UPnP and Spotify Connect. Chromecast support means that you can cast audio from any Android phone or Chrome browser as well as dozens of smartphone apps.

You can also control it with your Google Home smart speaker, although unfortunately, that function didn't work in our testing. Attempting to control the receiver via voice only resulted in a "something went wrong" message, even after rebooting the router, Google Home and updating the Sony firmware. This feature worked fine on the 1070 from last year, and we were able to cast to the 1080 from our apps -- it's only voice control that wouldn't work. We reached out to Sony for an explanation and will update this section when we hear back.