Home Cinema System Reviews
Pioneer DCS-340 Review - The Pioneer DCS-340 is very impressive for the price. It looks nice, performs well for a budget system, and supports lots of different media formats. It is still no match for a full blown, more costly system, and the addition of progressive scan would be nice, but if you're not willing to fork out for something really special then this is a solid and reliable choice. Read the full review here
KEF KIT200 Review - The KEF KIT200 blew us away. It looks superb, it produces breathtaking audio and great video, the specifications and media support are brilliant, and there are enough inputs and outputs to keep even the most geeky home-cinema obsessive satisfied. Yes, its not cheap - its almost 4 times as much as many very decent home cinema systems, but if you're willing to pay the extra you will absolutely not be disappointed. Read the full review here
Bose Lifestyle 48 Review - The Bose Lifestyle 48 is a major disappointment. For an asking price of around £4,000 the functionality provided is slim and the functions that are provided don't seem to work properly anyway. However, the audio is exceptional, so if you're wanting a top quality system to use with your music collection, then it might be worth it, especially if you have a DVD player already that you can use. But just for home cinema - you'd do better with the other much cheaper units. Read the full review here
Philips HTS8000S Review - The Philips HTS8000S is surprisingly excellent for a 2.1 system. Although lacking the detail and full sense of 3D emmersion that a 5.1 system would provide the audio is really not too bad, and the picture quality is excellent. Progressive scan, RGB Scart, a wide range of supported media, good decoder support and a great set of value added features all add up to make this definitely worth considering. For our money, we'd rather buy this than some of the cheaper 5.1 systems out there. Read the full review here
Pioneer DCS-232 Review - The Pioneer DCS-232 is on the surface a good home cinema system, but it lacks on key features especially sound quality, which is too bassy and loses definition in the higher tones including dialogue. The lack of video in makes it rather inflexible for use with other devices and its added-value bonus, the Front Surround enhancement, is rather pointless and disappointing. On the plus side it does produce great visuals and comes with good media and decoder support, but for a real home cinema experience we'd recommend that you look elsewhere. Read the full review here
Panasonic SCHT840 Review - The Panasonic SCHT840 is a good all-round performer, with good visuals and nice, powerful audio, even if the sound does lack ever so slightly in the details. It supports a really good and wide range of features and media formats, and it provides not only S-Video and RGB Scart outputs, but also progressive scan. What makes this stand out from the crowd though is its support for both S-Video and RGB scart inputs, which makes it one of the most flexible devices we've used. Oh, and it looks super too! Read the full review here
Toshiba SD63HK Review - The Toshiba SD63HK is a really shockingly good system for a good price. Its some-love-some-hate design has certainly been created lovingly and with care regardless of what you think of the end result, and the specification is pretty damn good. Its just a really shame that the Progressive Scan feature is for NTSC TVs only. To make up for that though, it produces wonderful visuals and superb audio worthy of a much higher level system, and users who can find space for it in their living room will not be disappointed by its performance. Read the full review here
Philips HTS3300 Review - The Philips HTS3300 is a good all-rounder at a super price. It is easy to set up and configure, works nicely and intuitively and plays reasonable audio and video. It looks very pretty, and comes with great media and decoding support. On the downside the low RMS voltage makes the sound suffer a bit at low volumes, and miserable video input support means its not for those that want to route their PC or games console through it. But for your average user, it definitely could be a lot worse. Read the full review here
Sony DAV-DZ100 Review - The Sony DAV-DZ100 is a nice home cinema system. It has good support for a wide range of media and supports all of the most common audio encoding. Its well priced, looks reasonably nice and produces some great sound and vision. It falls down with a distinct lack of input support and S-Video out is very badly missed. If you're wanting to keep your setup simple, go for this. If you want to do something a little cleverer with your system and use it with other input hardware, its not for you. Read the full review here
Panasonic SCHT880 Review - The Panasonic SCHT880 is overall a very decent home cinema system. Good sound and great picture, supported by progressive scan, help make the best of a great line up of decoder support and disc formats. Awkward assembly and interference from the AC adapter are the main annoyances, and the sound loses sharpness a little at low volumes, but all of these are solvable. Generally recommended and well priced. Read the full review here
Denon DHT500SD Review - The Denon DHT500SD is not just a great looking piece of kit it is also very good under the bonnet too. As a good all rounder in terms of media support and audio decoding formats, and with progressive scan image enhancement, it will work perfectly for even the fussiest home cinema buyer. It looks great on screen and in the living room and sounds awesome - what more does one system need? Read the full review here
Panasonic SCHT330 Review - The Panasonic SCHT330 makes for a good all-round low price home cinema system. Its support for almost every media format under the sun is impressive, and it doesn't lack on audio decoders either. The S-Video out, RGB Scart and progressive scan technology all make for good image presentation and the sound quality is decent for the price. Let down a little by its looks and menu interface, but otherwise very reasonable. Read the full review here
LG LHT250SC Review - The LG LHT250SC is an able home cinema system . It is well specced with good added value features and provides surprisingly good video and audio quality. The low number of input and output port options and the rather uninspiring design are the only things that let it down. Read the full review here
Sony DARRH1000 Review - The Sony DARRH1000 is a superb home cinema system. It has a great feature set, brilliant visual and audio impact, and beautiful looks. It supports almost all of the common input and audio formats, and it has a good range of outputs. The combination of HDD and DVD recording is nice and the user interface is intuitive and easy to use. Just would be nice to see SACD and DVD-A support for it to obtain perfection. Read the full review here
Proline DVD350HT Review - The Proline DVD350HT has very little to shout about apart from its exceptional price. The picture and sound quality are not really home cinema, and the unit looks ugly. However at £50 you can't really complain and it will certainly do for the casual video enthusiast. Read the full review here
Sharp HT-X1H Review - The Sharp HT-X1H succeeds on all of the points that will get it into the average living room and impress the neighbours, and all at a budget price. Unfortunately it fails on the bits that matter most to film buffs - video quality. If you've got an average size monitor and are looking for a beautiful compliment to your living room furniture, reasonable performance and great sound, look no further. If you're wanting something to make the most of your DVD collection and your big screen TV, maybe you have to go a little more expensive. Read the full review here
|