Just to be thorough...

Sony STR-DE 197 review
by CheapboxAudiophile

This unit is a far far cry from what you could call audiophile grade equipment. I only bought one because I needed a cheap poweramp for my TL subwoofers. Its use in my system is confined to the sub-50 Hz frequency range.
However I did test it for music reproduction using a pair of cheap loudspeakers (Eltax Millenium rears). This was just because I don't expect this 100 $ cheapo receiver to match
my >$1000 loudspeakers (I also found the idea of A/B testing it against my Marantz amp quite ludicrous).

Build quality
The unit I bought was made in Malaysia. Frontplate is all plastic including the volume dial. The quality of the switches used in it is at best mediocre. The LCD is bright enough to be readable in broad daylight. When you increase the volume using the remote the volume dial does not rotate (this actually indicates digital volume control, a good thing in this price range - cheap analogue controls tend to be noisy and unreliable). The speaker connections in the rear are however the worst kind (clip-type). Trying to hook up decent cable resulted in the conclusion that... the cable is too thick. Actually the cables I tried to use cost more than half the price of the receiver so I gave up and used a smaller diameter power-cord type wire for the connection to the speakers.
The remote is sony's RM-U185. It looks solid and has quite a few functions on it.
On a scale from 0 to 10 I'd say the build quality gets a 6.

Interior
I took a look at the interior through the ventilation grid at the top. PCB is standard and looks ugly. There are only 2 large electrolytic capacitors in the power supply, and I think total capacitance is somewhere around 20000 microfarad which is a bit on the short side, to say the least. The heatsink runs parallel to the frontplate and believe me, it is SMALL. I've seen larger heatsinks in 30 Watt amps! I don't expect this unit to last very long with that tiny heatsink.

Inputs/Backplate
The inputs are RCA type and no, no gold plating here. There are also line-outs for the video2 and MD inputs. The unit does not have a phono input for connection to a turntable.
This unit has a "switched" power outlet at the back rated for 100 W - handy if you want to use the remote to power up a third-party CD player.
The speaker connections are double and there is corresponding switch on the front plate which lets you select A/B/A+B. This is actually a good thing because this unit is capable of running a single pair of 4 Ohm loudspeakers (or two 8 Ohm loudspeakers in parallel) ;).

The noise tests :D
1. Muting: pressing the muting button on the remote only appears to mute the unit. Moving closer to the loudspeakers you will notice low volume signal still present with lots of
loud clicks and pops. Absolutely ludicrous.
2. No signal input: Very audible clicks and pops (well above the -30 dB limit). The power supply does not provide adequate isolation against streak interferences from the power line.
3. The GSM test (TM): Using a GSM mobile phone in the immediate vicinity of the unit does not result in audible interference (Thank God!)

The music tests
I tried and played some audiophile records through it... the results were disastrous. Instruments that i knew were there did not show up. The highs were clouded, foggy and could
no longer shine through. Transparency is at its lowest. Bass performance is however adequate (must be because I don't like emphasized bass). I also tried the bass boost button
(Yep i know it's stupid... but this is a 200 buck system) and found that it does the job (100 Hz boost is well placed for the small speakers at hand). The mids sound very
electronic and non-transparent. The soundstage is very weird (actually... it's rather missing... the soundstage I mean). It resembles the stereo "expand" switch on my 25-yr old portable jvc boombox. Roomy, but you cannot "locate" the instruments properly (must be my fault since i didn't bother to position the speakers in various places to find the best setup).
Things that I found are "listenable": pop music (mtv style), hip-hop, rap, house and trance "music". Stay away from female voice, 'cause it's gonna hurt (ouch!).
Before disconnecting the unit I checked the temperature of the case. As expected the small heatsink does not dissipate much heat. This could mean 2 things: 1. The heat will be frying the transistors or 2. This is not a 100 WPC amp.
On a scale from 0 to 10 I'd say the sound gets a merciful 5.

Possible usage
Computer amplifier: will fit in properly in a game/MP3 setup
Subwoofer amplifier
Rear channel amp in a multiamp setup (think movies)