Panasonic SA-XR50S Slim Design Receiver (Silver)

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't like optical input (?)
Review: I give this unit 2 stars because it has excellent features which drew me to make my purchase initially, however I had a long, frustrating experience dealing with the Panasonic customer support and authorized "service center"...

I have had a long few months trying to get this receiver repaired when it started giving me an error code "F70 DSP" during play of CDs thru one optical input or DVDs thru another.

I followed the manual, and contacted Panasonic about the problem. I was asked to drive 30 minutes to the nearest "authorized servicer" and have the unit serviced (for free at least). When I received the unit back with the servicer claiming they had "soldered some parts", the same problem repeated itself the same day! I went thru the same channel, took the unit in for service. The servicer said the unit is working perfectly. Contacted Panasonic again and their local field representative agreed with the servicer that the problem is outside of their brand new receiver.

Apparently both of my devices, with different brands of optical cable (one is a Monster cable) are both producing bad input for this wimpy receiver, so I have a $300 paperweight.

I hope you get one which performs as expected, because it seems my receiver does not process input audio very well at all, and the Panasonic customer support felt like a runaround which got me nowhere. Hopefully my credit card company can help me and do a chargeback for the receiver still, since Panasonic has wasted months of my time with no improved result.

Rating:
Summary: Great device for the price!
Review: I recently purchased this Receiver for a family room home theater set-up. It operates wonderfully, the set up was a snap, and the controls are much more intuitive than the Sony STR it replaced. The digitial sound is noticably bright, but the unit itself generated very low heat in my entertainment center which was a desired feature. I wish they had large speaker connectors for more that the front speakers, and more than 2 optical inputs would be nice. Overall this is a great "family" receiver.

Rating:
Summary: great receiver!!! Highly recomended
Review: When I was planning to buy a surround receiver I was not even considering Panasonic, mostly because I was not aware that they made any separate hi-fi components and receivers.
One of my main concerns was that all the surround receivers appeared to be too bulky and too heavy and I was little worried about placing a receiver on a glass shelf under the TV.

After doing one last research on the Internet and audio/video articles I stumbled around only good reviews and praise about Panasonic line of digital receivers and their amazing sound quality. What really got me was the weight of this unit - less than 10 pounds! and its slim line design - easy to fit in my entertainment center.
I was definitely looking for audio quality more than the receiver's footprint, but there it was the perfect product - Panasonic digital receiver w/ all the bells and whistles for only $220 online!
I couldn't be happier with my purchase!
This receiver has no problem powering a set of 200-watt front speakers and 4x100-watt surrounds incl. the center channel!

The sound is just amazing! Lots of configurable options (might be little overwhelming at first and may require you to spend some time listening to your system to tweak it to your liking) and plenty of analog/digital inputs/outputs - the back panel of this unit is just filled w/ them incl. analog 6-channel input for DVD-audio or SACD (super audio CD) player.

The receiver lets you choose the size of your speakers, cut off frequencies, which are to be redirected to the subwoofer, or it will automatically redirect all the bass to the fronts in case you don't haveone or define a one. I actually got rid of mine since my front speakers go down all the way to 35Hz and now my system sounds even better, it's like having two subwoofers, one for each channel! It also let's you control the volume of each speaker and the subwoofer separately from the fronts so it becomes fairly easy to build your own home theater using different brands and/or sensitivity of speakers.

For the price it might be very well the best surround receiver out there! Panasonic just released a 70 model, which includes large speaker terminals for both A/B fronts and the capability of bi-wiring your fronts (if your front speakers support this) and also features HDMI input/output, on screen menu as well as Dolby Pro-logic IIx support. However the 70 series one is almost twice as expensive but might be worth considering if you're looking for even more.

There are only couple of features that I miss:
The receiver has large speaker temrinals only for the front speakers - all the surrounds are regular push-pin type. (Probably slim line design of the receiver didn't allow for much room to fit these in).
It would be nice to be able to adjust tone - bass and treble for the fronts while in surround mode (this can be done only for stereo sources).
Some of the options cannot be accessed using the remote - for example A+B speaker switching in case you plan to use it in stereo mode only or in a multi-room configuration.
I guess that's it.
Overall I highly recommend this receiver and rate it 5 out of 5!
Job well done Panasonic!

P.S.: don't forget to check out the reviews for SA-XR50, which is the same receiver just in black color.