Home Theater With Shielded Subwoofer

Review by CRP Ag : Great Blu Ray HTIB Solution!

We owned a Bose 321 for several years and used the unit in our family room. Over time the Bose was dying in slow motion, we recently had to have the volume set at 80+ for the same movie we used to listen to at 40. We had other issues as well. In any event,we were looking for a simple solution, that would not make our family room look like a frat house with giant speakers everywhere, and ideally would use or easily incorporate a Blu Ray player. We found everything we wanted and more in this system. It arrived right on time (had to sign for delivery, no problem with that). It was nicely packaged, and clearly labeled. It was interesting to me, one of the selling points of the Bose system was how "easy" it was to set up, and it was, but I can tell you this Panasonic system is so well laid out and so intuitive, it is just as easy. The surround speakers are a bit larger than we expected, but can be tucked out of sight. The wireless "base" module for the surround speakers is quite small and easily fits under an end table totally out of the way. The speakers themselves give great sound! It is amazing how much better, richer and fuller this is than the 321. Dialogue is crystal clear and the "true" surround really creates a theater like effect. The Blu Ray itself is amazing, even watching old non blu ray DVD's it is great, very clear and sharp. We are using this with the Oppo HDMI switch, which is another 5 star product if there ever was one. Overall, if you are not going for the true audiophile experience, and are interested in a simple, great sounding Home Theater solution with a Blu Ray player, look no further, THIS IS IT! I recommend this without hesitation or reservation.

Review by Rachel P "rachel" : Awesome System!

I just bought this refurbished from Good As New Electronics for half retail price. They were great to work with! The system looked brand new out of the box - I looked all over for a blemish and found none. The set up was easy. Basically, you just plug in all the speakers, the HDMI cable and toslink digital audio cable (both of which I bought on Amazon at the same time I bought this) and your AM/FM intennas and you're done! I played a DVD the first night and was amazed at how much better it looked on the Blu Ray than it did with my DVD player! Today I put in my first BD and WOW! Amazing technology! The sound is INCREDIBLE! Picture is awesome (I have it hooked to a Panasonic Viera LCD TV). I played my IPOD and my music has never sounded so good. I love that I can scroll through the music via the remote! I am totally impressed! I also took the SD card out of my camera and put it in the SD slot and viewed all my pictures from Nepal. This is the ONLY way to show off your travel pics :-) The only gripe I have (and it may just be my learning curve) is that if I want to listen to the TV with the home theater, I have to go to the box itself and cycle through about 5 option before getting to D-IN to turn on the surround sound. Learning to use all the functions on the remote is challenging, but this is fairly high tech, so I don't expect to be comfortable with all the functions for a few days. I think anyone would be impressed by the quality of this system. Highly recommended!

Review by Dr. Pavan K. Auluck : Great system, just don't pay full price

I think that the other reviews have done a fair job pointing out this systems pros and cons. I'd just like to add two things: 1) When using the Veira link, the TV comes on and off with the home theater system. Not a problem if you just want to watch BDs, etc. with it. But if you want to use the system to play music, then the TV stays on. There is supposed to be a way to turn the TV off w/o turning the player off, but there may be bugs with it. 2) If you use a digital optical audio connection, you can use the player's speakers when watching TV. If you have multiple HDMI or component video inputs on your TV (as most HDTVs do) , then you can use them and *still* have all the sound come from the home theater system. So you really don't need extra HDMI inputs on the player as other have complained about. Overall, a solid 4! Great for apartment/small home living. Not what you need if you plan to set up a "movie room."

Review by jcdagget : Perfect for apartment living...

I received Monday night and had it up and running in less than two hours. I was impressed by the solid quality of the speakers. I was even able to fit the SW neatly behind my lcd tv. iPod connectivity is great and am already running the cable box sound through it. Yes, no HDMI pass-through but so what? While I agree with the other reviewer in that the menu system isn't terribly intuitive -- that it'll just a matter of time to get used to. Bottom line is: great picture (Blu-Ray or upconverting), good sound and good versatility. Would I like more inputs/outputs? Sure, but do I miss not having them -- nope. If you are in the market for an all-in-one HTIB Blu-ray system, you won't go wrong with this one.

Review by someguy : Good,,for htib

NOTE: I HAVE ADDED ADDENDUMS TO THIS REVIEW, MAKE SURE AND READ THE COMMENTS A search of the internet will quickly reveal many in the audiophile community bashing "home theater in a box" (htib) systems like this, and many of their entirely valid criticisms of such systems apply to this unit, but it has a lot of redeeming qualities too that make me overall convinced that this is a good buy for anyone whose needs match what it provides. Also it is a pretty high end htib so the sound quality will exceed what many would expect. A quick word on settings: This unit comes with a number of effects such as surround enhancement and some pre set EQ settings. Don't use them. Maybe turn down the sub a bit and turn up the center channel, but your goal with movies is to ACCURATELY reproduce the sound as it was intended to be heard. Keep everything flat and you will hear how the movie was meant to sound. That's how I know this is a quality htib: It sounds good with everything flat) This is a good system for what it is, namely a way to get both blu-ray and 5.1 surround in one convenient and affordable package. The rear speakers are wireless, as in there is a second amp that connects wirelessly to the main amp so you don't have to run cables from the front to back of the room although you do have to run cables from the second amp to the rear speakers. The rears are very light and thus easy to mount on the wall, and I don't worry about that lack of weight too much because surrounds really don't need much power as they just add effects. The fronts and center are much beefier and are two-ways with what appears to be real crossovers so that's pretty good for a home theater in a box. The subwoofer is (unfortunately) passive but its driver is bamboo so I don't think it has the paper-driver problems of other htibs. It seems to cross over at a decent point as the bass stays properly nondirectional. All in all, in my fairly small room it sounds really great for me, and it's pretty cool how it has all the latest surround decoders including Dolby trueHD and DTS HD. All that said, this system definitely has some typical htib limitations: It has proprietary speaker connections so you can't use other wire without splicing. You can, however, use other speakers because the speakers themselves use standard connections (only the amp-end connection is proprietary). You can also expand to 7.1 sound either by another proprietary (and wireless) panasonic amp or the unit actually does have wired surround outputs so that you can plug in other amps and speakers for the front and back surrounds. However, the proprietary wire is permanently implanted in the subwoofer and naturally there's no way to get a nonamplified subwoofer signal out of this amp so even with some wire splicing ability I doubt you could add a powered sub. So you could upgrade the speakers but not the sub. But again all the included stuff sounds very good so I don't regard this as a dealbreaker. In addition to a passive, nonupgradeable subwoofer and the inability to use your own speaker wire (although you can use your own speakers), the unit is VERY skimpy on inputs. No HDMI passthru, and only ONE toslink/SPDIF in, and one conventional component audio in. This means that, unless you get a switch or are willing to swap out, you can only use one source other than blu-ray with which there will be "true" surround sound. This is a problem for me because my TV does not allow the SPDIF out to output any audio except for the ATSC tuner (copyright issue) and I have both a cable set top box and an xbox 360 that I want to get surround sound from. Remember, if you plug standard RCA stereo plugs into this thing you will not get real surround, just pro logic type matrix encoded stuff. All in all, this is still a good buy. These days you can get a 42 inch lcd 1080p tv for about $1000, and you can get this system for about $1000, and you'll have a complete home theater with display, sound, and blu ray player (which is a good final standard profile player which will support all special features except bd live), all for about $2000 and no hassles. As usual with htib, you will sacrifice upgradeability and connectivity for this convenience, and you will have a passive subwoofer. But trust me, this sounds very good for htib and at this pricepoint I recommend it highly for anyone who wants the modern high def home theater experience on a limited budget, because on that, it delivers. You will really enjoy watching movies on this thing and in the end, that's all that really matters.

Review by B. Vincent "bvseattle" : Won me over.

UPDATED 9/9/2008 after several months of use... I've updated my review to reflect that I'm very pleased with this unit. I originally give it a strong three stars, I'm now giving it 5 after some use. I thought the initial learning curve a little steep, but after figuring out how to run every feature I now feel like a king. The picture quality and sound have been impressive to say the least. I'm also addicted to the iPod dock. Likes: 1. Sounds is excellent. Great quality for movies or music. 2. iPod integration is excellent. 3. Bluray picture quality is excellent. 4. Unit is very attractive. Doesn't look like a elephant in a nice living room. 5. VIERA link technology provides many conveniences for those using a Pansonic VIERA TV. Dislikes: 1. Unit start up is very slow and takes a good minute to boot. Not like old school amps which click on in a second or two. This can be annoying when you are just booting up to eject a rental disk to return. 2. Remote and software is superior to most, but still not completely intuitive. Does take quite a few hours to learn all advanced features. 3. "Viera Link." Is powerful but still not enough to get you completely to one remote between your TV and HT. 4. Could use a second or even third HDMI for those with gaming consoles.