Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Because I had little desire to wire my living room for surround sound (much less to convince my wife of the benefits of doing so), I researched 2.1 home theater systems to mate with my Hitachi plasma.
My first pick was the Bose Cinemate, which in a word was underwhelming. Not much kick, if any, from the subwoofer (perhaps that's why Bose clumsily calls it an "Acoustimass module" instead).And the satellites didn't provide much improvement in clarity or range over my TV speakers.
Then I got this system, and boy what a difference it made! First, I could distinctly hear and enjoy sounds not previously audible over our TV speakers, and less noticeable over the Bose. Second, the subwoofer packs quite a powerful punch despite only 40W of power. In fact, to balance the sound output between the three speakers, I had to turn down the subwoofer's level three notches. Now the system produces sound that has theater-like presence, and matches the image quality of our HDTV.
Speaking of image quality, the included DVD player outputs excellent visuals. Its upconversion of resolution to 1080i noticeably improved image quality over our one-year old (non-upconverting) Phillips player.
Set up was simple, especially using an HDMI cable (a Belkin PureAV 8' cable, which on Amazon was almost half the price at Circuit City).
I have only two niggles with this system. First, the DVD player takes a little long (about 10 seconds) initially to read a DVD. Second, because of the proprietary connections between the speakers and DVD player, if any part of the system goes, then unless Sony offers replacements a la carte, the whole system may need to be replaced. However, from several weeks of use, this appears to be a quality system, and hopefully I'll never have to look into replacement options.
One final word about surround sound. I've never been that impressed with the surround sound aspect of home theater systems. Occasionally hearing a noise from behind me never added much to my enjoyment, and in my judgment was not worth the hassle of wires and rear speakers. This system, like the Bose, purports to create simulated surround sound, but really doesn't live up well to its promise (at least not in a half open living room). Nonetheless, I didn't buy this system for surround capabilities and I don't miss it. Watching DVDs through this system still puts me in the middle of a theater-like experience, and that's what I was looking for.
UPDATE: I've had this system for over 3 years now, and it still works as well as it did on day 1. I've replaced the 42 inch HDTV I originally paired with it, but I still use it for DVDs and for outputing sounds from my PS3 (gaming and blu-ray) via my new HDTV's optical video output. Also, in 2006, I paid around $600 for this, which I thought was worth it. Now, in 2009, some vendor here is offering it for $999, which I do not think is worth it. You can get a PS3 or other blu-ray player, receiver, and stand-alone speakers to build your own "dream system" for that amount of money, or you can purchase other home-theater-in-a-box systems with a blu-ray player.
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