|
Strengths: Price, Styling.
Weaknesses: Input connections, strange volume display.
Summary: SC-HT05
First off, I just want to say what a great enjoyment it is to experience surround sound with your senses stimulated by 6 speakers all around you. I think the Panasonic SC-HT05 achieve that swimmingly. There are a few caveats I want to point out as well as some snag that I hit setting up the system.
The caveats: I am not an audiophile by any means though I am sure I can tell distortion if I hear one. This is the first audio home system I’ve ever purchased so I’m not very discriminating. I haven’t tested this system side by side with another one so I can’t compare it with a super duper expensive system. I don’t think there are many people who can do so except in a showroom. However, since the acoustics in a showroom is different from your own room, a true comparison is impossible anyway. Also, each person’s furniture in a room is set up differently as is the placement of the speakers and noises coming from outside a window etc., the sound may be better in one setup than the other. I haven’t crank up the volume to test it since I live in an apartment and people do complain and since I can never listen to it so loud that it rattles the floor, there is no sense in trying.
Okay, now about the system. It is not the cheapest but instead of getting some junk brand like Apex, I feel better getting a respectable brand like Panasonic. It is compact and stylish. I love the very light (about 3 lbs) receiver and its low profile (2 in high). I read that some of the circuitry is in the subwoofer so that’s why it’s so light. The subwoofer IS rather big and heavy but aren’t they all. The wires are thin but again, without stretching the limits of the system, thicker wires may not make any difference anyway. The set up is easy but the operation is a bit confusing if you follow the manual. I also created some of the confusion since I want to route my video signals from the DVD player and VCR to the TV instead of the receiver. The reason is that the TV has component input and the receiver doesn’t. It does have an S-video input which I use for the VCR but my TV has 2 tuners and I can watch TV and the VCR at the same time (PIP, picture-in-picture) if I route the VCR signal to the TV. Anyway, sorry I digress. But the point is you can feed the video and audio signals to the TV and receiver separately.
One idiosyncrasy of the system is that the loudest volume is 0db and the quietest is -65db. So it goes the other way. I called Panasonic and tech support confirms that this is so and pointed out the negative sign in front of the numbers. I noticed that but didn’t believe it could be so counterintuitive. Not a problem. The one big problem that I finally solved last night was that I couldn’t get Dolby Digital 5.1 (DD) sound from the system after trying many DVDs. I could get DTS though. The system verifies that by lighting up the DTS icon and the 6 speaker icons on the main unit and sound also comes out from all the speakers. Although all the speakers can produce sound without it being a 5.1 encoding. You can get a surround sound experience when you apply Dolby Pro Logic II or Panasonic’s own Sound Field Control (SFC) to Dolby stereo sources like from a VHS tape or TV show. However, when you are in DD 5.1 and DTS, you can’t apply Pro Logic II or SFC. So, my problem was that I couldn’t get DD 5.1 when I selected it through my DVD player. Also, you select 5.1, DTS, or stereo (2 channels) through your DVD player, the receiver doesn’t control that. I called tech support twice and they are no helpful to say the least. They’re not tech savvy and put you on hold constantly while they consult some manual. Anyway, after going thru every control on the system to no avail, it suddenly dawned on me that maybe I need to set something on the DVD player. Well, call me dumb, but when I first bought the DVD player, it was hooked up to the TV with only stereo sound. Within the DVD player menu, I can choose whether the input source can decode stereo, DD, or DD & DTS. And of course, I chose stereo and forgot all about this until last night when I was dreading that the system is defective and all the trouble and cost sending it back to get a replacement. All for nothing! Thank goodness. Although I don’t know why it worked with DTS and not DD 5.1. Anyhoo, just some pitfall to share. One more watch-it. The system has 2 optical audio inputs and one coaxial input; it is set up and labeled for the first optical input to use with a TV, the second optical input to use to a DV Recorder and the coaxial to use with the DVD player. I bought an optical cable beforehand but it’s okay since you can reset the combination thru the main unit. It is in the manual.
In conclusion, it is a very nice looking and sounding system, especially for a sub $250 price. It may not decode DD EX and DTS ES or have all the connections (component input) you want but it’s perfect as a first time system, until one gets richer.
 92% of People (46/50) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
 There are no comments for this review. Post a comment.
| 
Report this as 
