Rating: 
Summary: The Dream System At A Fair Price!
Review: I really searched around and cannot believe this system sells for under $500, much less $400. It took me less than two hours to completely set up the system and it was step-by-step easy! The tower system is attractive and I did not need to buy extra 'stands' or 'wall mounts'. The central speaker is small but delivers s high-powered sound. The subwoofer is powerful as well and has four levels of intensity - I like heavy bass, but set mine at level 3. The actual DVD/CD receiver is very slim and easy to maneuver. I had some trouble setting up my TV with the unit's somewhat complicated remote, but finally figured it out after several runs. You are able to adjust the sound to nine positions, depending on where you re sitting. You don't have to be front and center. The system looks very sleek in my home and the sound is just incredible. The rear speakers play the 'echo' or 'audience' sound without heavy vocals on the 'live' recordings. It is true 5.1 digital sound. My only regret is that it does not play SACD's. Listening to my old CD's all over again is like the first time I ever listened to them. The 5.1 surround brings out sounds I never heard before and makes clear distinction between acoustic and electric guitars, multiple keyboards and backing vocalists. A great CD to test on this system is Pink Floyd's "Dark Side Of The Moon", but any classical recording sounds like you are in the theater! This is the real deal and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: kick @ss stereo
Review: I think this is a really great sound system. it has great clear, crisp sound, and its easy to use. tons of options for customing the type of sound u want in it to make it sound just perfect to what u like. It has all together like 6 options for what level and type of surround sound you want. it also includes pre-set speaker settings such as soft, clear, live, disco etc. If u set it to the right sound settings and close your eyes u cant tell where any one of the surround or center speaker are. then if that isnt enough customization for u, then u can choose what u want the volume to be on every single individual speaker. and the bass.. the 240 watt bass is very very very satisfying. so far i only use this sound system for music, so if the dvd options are as kick@ss as the sound end of it, then its a perfect entertainment system. i highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Buyer beware
Review: If you purchase this product, I hope you are completely satisfied. It is my opinion that the reliability of Panasonic products has slipped in recent years, and this was confirmed to me when a product I purchased quickly failed. The reason I'm posting this is to warn you that the warranty that accompanies Panasonic products only has value if the company chooses to stand behind it. In my case, they weaseled out of it, leaving me with a total loss and no further recourse. Good luck with your decision.
Rating:
Summary: AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME
Review: Just hooked this up to my Hitachi 60" LCD/Projection TV and am very pleased. You may read reviews from "bass-heads" who are only interested in ridiculous thumping, not purity of sound, but I can tell you this system sounds fantastic. My family room is 20 X 15 and these speakers fill the room with a rich, vibrant sound rivaling that of a Bose system (costing twice as much) that I tried and returned. The subwoofer is perfect for the system - it adds rich base without sounding like one of those "installed by a teenager" car systems you hear so much of today, and it doesn't take up the entire floor to do it. We couldn't reach full volume before the system was too loud for comfort. 12dB on the dial was enough to drown out any attempts at normal conversation. The surround sound is phenomenal (Matrix Reloaded played Progressive Scan Component Out was our baseline movie). The manual is a bit tedious. I'm pretty technically inclined, and this was a bit of a challenge for me. The fact that the remote has a Shift-key says a lot. Plan to spend some time mastering this thing. Bottom line: If you're looking for a chest-cavity shaking, hip hop dance club thumping system, buy discreet components. If you're looking for an attractive, affordable, incredibly clean sounding system with very high quality components, this is definitely the system for you. Easily 5 stars for this price.
Rating:
Summary: Sounded Great at First
Review: My wife selected this system because of the speakers and stands. I must admit that it sounded great for the price, at first. Several months of use and we got the same heart attack inducing popping sounds reported in most of the reviews here. The subwoofer/amp is extremely hot and the fan has stopped working. Panasonic was less than helpful, so I pulled it apart and found that even though the fan was good, the board would not supply any voltage to it. I would highly advise to go with another brand, as I will myself will be avoiding anything marked "Panasonic" in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Sleek but FRUSTRATING
Review: Panasonic SC-HT900. My Rating: FRUSTRATING I bought this unit new in the box from Circuit City for $479 in July 2003. The Good: Sleek design for a small cabinet volume. Speakers are unobtrusive, they don't hog my living room. Holds 5 DVDs with Progressive Scan capability. The Bad:
1. If a DVD is playing, then when any other input is selected (such as TV to check sports scores, or FM), the DVD player stops and returns to the main menu! That's right, it has no knowledge of where it was in the movie if you either mistakenly or intentionally change the input. 2. From the remote, it can be put into a mode where no sound comes out when playing a DVD even though the video portion appears on the TV. Selecting FM or turning the unit off then on will force it to output sound, but again, you've lost your place in the movie. When in this silent mode, other buttons on the remote do not, by themselves, force audio output. Perhaps a sequence of button pushes will wake the amplifier up, but I don't have the patience to try sequences. 3. The confusing remote has some buttons whose sole purpose is to control other components (if Panasonic provided codes for your particular units). The AV System button can turn your TV on but it doesn't select the TV input on the SC-HT900. TV/Video can change the video input on your TV, but it doesn't select the TV input on the SC-HT900. Several button functions are shifted. You have to HOLD DOWN the shift button while pressing another button. This is a three handed operation. One hand to hold the remote, one hand for pressing the shift button, and one hand for pressing the desired function. Good luck! The buttons on the remote are discrete, whereas those on the receiver are toggles. The receiver has Disk Skip, on the remote you must press Disk then a number between 1 and 5. The receiver has a Source Select button that toggles between the 7 inputs, the remote has 5 unshifted buttons and 1 shifted button for the same purpose. 4. The amplifier is too weak and fails at normal loudness levels. The volume function is calibrated in dB from -68 to 0. At any level above -22 on my unit, the amplifier will eventually fail while watching a movie or listening to a CD. At -20, this typically takes about 45 minutes before a loud POP is heard through all speakers followed by a severe decrease in volume. After a few seconds, the volume returns to normal. Several minutes later, another POP is heard, and the sequence repeats with the interval becoming shorter between POPs. I assume my unit is defective in this regard, but I haven't wanted to extract the unit from its cabinet to take it in for service. I play movies and CDs at settings -22 and below. 5. The optical digital input on my unit doesn't work. No sound is output, although the front panel light is lit, indicating that the optical input is selected. This input's sampling frequency for Dolby Digital is supposed to automatically switch between 32, 44.1, and 48 KHz rates. I've tried connecting a few optical output devices with two new cables. My SC-HT900 does not output any sound when the optical input is selected. Two other surround systems in my home work fine when connected to the same components with the same cables. Since it is still under warranty, I'm taking it to a service center to get item 5 corrected if possible. Since it takes more than a half hour for the problem in item 4 to happen, I don't have much hope of getting it fixed. Since the DVD player and receiver are in the same thin unit, and the amplifier is in the subwoofer enclosure, I have to take both units to the shop. If they are not repairable, I'll have to get a new receiver and a new subwoofer. The subwoofer does not appear that it can be driven by an RCA jack or otherwise from a standard surround sound receiver. I wish I had considered the interrelationship and marriage of the DVD/Receiver and the Subwoofer/Amplifier when I bought it.
Rating:
Summary: Looks much better than it sounds
Review: Pro:
1. Nice speaker stands - very practical and sturdy
2. Video output is nice - as with most other component output Con:
1. Speaker cables are as thin as a couple strands of hair & you cannot upgrade because it's hidden in speaker stand
2. Sound quality is really [bad]. You'll have to crank it upto near max level to hear anything (I've tried it on over 20 DVDs, CDs, VCDs)
3. The bass is a JOKE. Can't believe they call it a woofer.
4. Although they claim it plays CD-R, I've tried a few and they all skip or causes errors. Those CD-Rs play fine on my Toshiba DVD player. All in all, this system looks nice but it's not worth spending over [money amount]for. The sound is so weak that you'll do better with nice TV's build-in speakers (I know 'cuz my Sony Trusound speakers sound way better than this system). I'm taking mine back to circuit city for a refund.
Rating:
Summary: Great unit, great deal, add your own fan to avoid problems
Review: The good news: attractive product, reasonably good sound and features. Please see many of the other reviews for more detail. The bad: I had owned the system for several months when I started experiencing 'popping' sound through the speakers. And when I say 'popping', I mean truly heart-attack causing, like a lightning strike-very disconcerting. Being a good techie, I immediately assumed I was experiencing power surges...although my surge protector wasn't tripping.
Step Two: Check all connection. Still have the problem.
Step Three: Waste an entire Saturday completely disassembling my AV setup (dvd, tv, VCR, Satalite, XBox), check every wire and connection, completely and carefully reassemble. Same problem.
Step Four: Search internet to see if anyone else has problem.
Bingo! (Note to self: Next time search internet at Step Three, instead of wasting Saturday...)
Known problem of overheating of circuit board in subwoofer. Game over.
Neat system, but appears I now have to replace the system; from what I have read, fixing is not going to be cost effective, and no guarantees that the problem goes away.
Buyer beware; there are a lot of people who are happy with this system, but a substantial number of us have had the same issue, and I wouldn't be surprised if more folks see this happening over time.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good system for the price
Review: The HT900 is a very good system for the price. I originally was going to buy the system in a retail store but came here since it was a hundred dollars cheaper than national chain stores and no tax. I listened to other systems in the stores but nothing could compare to the HT900 for the price. The system takes about two hours to set up (assembly and placement) but all that moving was worth it. The sound is pretty good with very good bass from the powerful subwoofer/amplifier. It may be a bit confusing for new users to understand the features available to them but most can understand the instructions very easily. Only con I can see right now is the lack of more disc support in the player. DVD+R/W and DVD-RW would have been nice instead of just the Panasonic supported formats of DVD-R and the dying DVD-RAM. Overall, this is a good system and I'd recommend this system. You can't find anything else with the same sound quality and feature set for the price tag of $400.
Rating:
Summary: Very good system for the price
Review: The HT900 is a very good system for the price. I was originally going to buy the system in a retail store but came here since it was a hundred dollars cheaper than national chain stores and no tax. I listened to other systems in the stores but nothing could compare to the HT900 for the price. The system takes about two hours to set up (assembly and placement) but all that moving and effort was worth it. The sound is pretty good with very good bass from the powerful subwoofer/amplifier. It may be a bit confusing for new users to understand the features available to them but most can understand the instructions very easily. Only con I can see right now is the lack of more disc support in the player. DVD+R/W and DVD-RW would have been nice instead of just the Panasonic supported formats of DVD-R and the dying DVD-RAM. Overall, this is a good system and I'd recommend it. You can't find anything else with the same sound quality and feature set for the price tag of $400. It looks pretty darn spiffy as well.
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