Rating: Summary: Great product Review: This product is great! I would call it a "passive surround sound system" since it is perfect for background sounds (while reading a book or having a chat)that won't annoy you due to too much subwoofer power. It is not recommend as a audio system for dance partys since it is really designed for TV surround sound and background music only. The subwoofer is not that intensive but very pleasant since it does not shake up your furniture. You can leave the system on even when you're watching news channels without getting annoyed by too much and intensive sounds.
Rating: Summary: Great unit, great deal, add your own fan to avoid problems Review: This unit looks great, sounds great, and the price is unbeatable. The overheating seems to be causing a lot of people problems, if not for that I would give this unit 5 stars. If you have some guts and some basic knowledge about electricity and electronics you can avoid these problems. I got a really good deal on one, then found out about the overheating. Not wanting this to be a problem I decided to investigate. I popped off the back panel of the sub to find that the fan wasn't actually working. I imagine that it is supposed to kick on when things start getting hot, but my unit was already really hot. The heatsink inside was almost too hot to touch. The fan is 80mm so I took a standard led case fan and replaced the stock one. The stock one has some non standard screw holes so I had to use some strong adhesive foam tape to hold the new fan in place. Then I ran the wire outside the sub and rigged up a small ac/dc power adapter to power the fan. It took about 30 minutes to do and now my unit runs very cool, and has a cool looking blue glow on the wall coming from the fan to boot. You could just use the stock fan and rig up an adapter to it but I didn't want to cut off the connector in case I needed to take the unit back. For the adapter use something between 7 and 12 volts, lower voltage = quiter fan but less airflow. If you don't want to open it up, you could just mount a fan right on the outside of the vent. I think the major problem is there is a defect in the board that doesn't turn the fan on, and you don't want a bunch of really hot electronics with no airflow.
Rating: Summary: Quality...Sleek Design...Economical Review: Those are the three words that best describe the kind of system I was looking for. Quality means that the product has the picture and sound clarity to rival $1000+ systems. The center speaker does most of the work by spitting out crisp dialogue that captures your attention. The four "tallboy" speaker's work perfectly with the center speaker to fill in the background noise to surround you with whatever you're watching. I prefer a more powerful subwoofer than the one you get, but that's just because I'm a "basshead". Don't get me wrong, the mid bass is clean and tight, and the lows are impressive but only when you're watching DVD's. The bass is unnoticeble when you're watching regular tv. Panasonic could improve on this system by adding volume control on the subwoofer unit so that customizing bass level is not a problem. This system's design fits perfectly with silver plasma's because of it's sleek look but it would still look great next to any silver tv because of it's built-in speaker stands, which by-the-way would cost you at least $... if you bought them seperately. I paid a little over $... for this system and I feel like I'm in my own little theater when I watch movies now. I was thinking about a more expensive system with a more powerful subwoofer but I don't see how they can improve on anything else. I would end up paying almost double if I added the optional speaker stands.
Rating: Summary: Feature Packed with great sound Review: Very attractive system with many features. Progressive scan DVD player looks great on my projector, thanks to the high end video circuitry in the 5 Disc DVD changer. Sound is very clear and accurately reproduced though the six speakers. Movie dialogue comes through very naturally. Does a fine job at decoding Dolby Surround. Movie "bass" effects are clear and pronounced through the active subwoofer. I've tested this system in store next to an expensive Bose and the quality is more or less comparable. It is a known fact Panasonic DVD players are among the best in the business. Many more expensive DVD players(costing considerably more than this system) made by other brands use Panasonic internals for their players. All DVD players must contain an MPEG decoder. In addition, progressive scan DVDs must contain a special device called a deinterlacer. Interlaced video frames are sent to a television in two pieces, by first drawing all of the odd lines, then the even ones. The deinterlacer essentially doubles each frame of video(producing a very defined picture) by filling in missing information. That is the true meaning of "progressive scan." This is the basis for HDTV, and be aware that your (Projector,TV,LCD) must be able to display HDTV or progressive to take advantage of this great feature. As with any other product, deinterlacers vary in quality and must be able to handle various film encodings. Panasonic uses top notch internal hardware to perform the deinterlacing(DCDi) and decoding. The results are spectacular! Don't expect the bass to blow your ears out - no system at or near this pricepoint will. The subwoofer is powered but yet conservative (but more than other systems in its class). Don't buy this unit to play at maximum volume. System can be cranked up to loud but not extreme voulme. Sound will be more than enough for rooms <250 sq ft. I would say the same thing about the expensive Bose. The true measure of a system is not how it plays at maximum voulme, but rather the accuracy and clarity of the sound. This unit also makes a great system for listening to FM Radio, CD/R etc. Unit supports many types of Discs. Music seems rich and pleasing, in some cases exceeding much more expensive units. The speaker stands will save you the cost of buying wall mounts. This system has a plethora of features that are stated in the manual. For example, there are multiple surround modes, seating placement adjustments and digital input capability. Unfortunately the owners manual is written like an engineering course lab manual - so it may take the non- technical some time to learn all of the arcane features. Also, you should purchase at least a 16 gauge spool of speaker wire - do not use the doorbell wire that is supplied with the unit. Overall I will give this unit 5 stars, because it is priced very well with respect to its competition (Sony Dream system 990) and it exceeds that and other products in its class in terms of quality and features. On the other hand, if you desire a very loud, extreme bass systems - don't consider a home theatre in a box. Purchase a component receiver/amp with large poweful speakers. And of course, a Panasonic progressive DVD player for the best video!
Rating: Summary: Problems...not many. but pixellation appears Review: Well the panasonic hometheater system sound is great and the picture is great, however the popping sound only appears when i play my vanilla sky, matrix reloaded and l.a. confidential dvd's. the first 2 dvd titles show a small amount of pixellation...there like little color squares that appear for less than a sec and sometimes interrupt sound but not everytime i play the disc. I tried those dvd's on my sony dvd player and the discs are perfect. No scratches, no fingerprints, no pixellation and no dust. My l.a. confidential dvd never plays well with the panasonic system, with the sony it is perfect. If someone can tell me why i get this little color squares but the discs are perfect. This panasonic home theater dvd really disappointed me when i played those discs, and how nows what other dvd's get those little annoying squares and what annoys me the most is that they dont always appear on the same chapter, sometimes not at all and sometimes they do appear. 1 star for the problems, cuz the sound and picture is great but the little squares really tick me off. is there something i can do to stop that from happening?
Rating: Summary: Worked fine till 9 months into usage.. Review: Worked fine till 9 months of usage, then the system started to emit loud pops in all speakers. After looking at the reviews, I wish I would of read them before this purchase, but it was a Spontaneous buy and I am not in the habit of reading reviews for products, prior to buying them. I guess I should change my ways. I am a technician, so I did a little looking into the problem, and did notice that the fan does not work. In troubleshooting, I changed out the fan itself and noticed the whole circuit is not working feeding into the fan. And a few components internally have overheated already, with the caps leaking fluid, and burn marks at certain points near resistors on the circuit board. All and all, I am still covered under the warranty, but do not look forward to the wait time in order to get the system back, as well as keeping my fingers crossed that it won't happen again.
All and All, I will try to neogiate with the actual store in giving me credit to buy a whole entire different system.
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