Home Theater Systems Help

This review covers the Kenwood HTB-503 which is similar to the HTB-504 (the HTB-503 is not listed here).

Even though I used to consider myself well informed on stereo components, I had lost touch over the past few years. I wanted to get a home theatre system but was intimidated by the huge number of choices in the components and features. Since the budget was somewhat limited, for my first home theatre I decided that a “home theatre in a box” might be the best route.

I got the Yamaha system to provide home theater sound and video for my new wall mounted plasma screen.

The YHT-800 system is really more of a collection of Yamaha parts, in one box. The 5 disc cd-dvd player has all the latest gadgets (progressive scan, 3:2 pulldown, DCDi Faroudja processing, etc), and the video looks great. The dvd picture is much better than my old Toshiba 1600 player.

The HTR-5550 receiver is a solid 5.1 unit. There are many reviews of it available online.

The speakers look great, and sound good. I live in an apartment, so clarity at loud volume isn’t required. The sub is fine for my needs.

It has been 60 days since I sent my product in for an exchange and still nothing. I was first told that I would get a unit shipped to a nearby UPS store for an exchange but after 20 days of waiting I called back and they said “we’re sorry we only do that for cell phones.”

I then sent my unit in and it took 3 weeks for them to “receive” the unit after UPS tracking said it arrived.

I have no idea what these other people are talking about, but this system sounds and looks absolutely astonishing. It has the deepest bass, clear highs, and great compatibility with my video i-pod. The DVD/CD player is amazing. It stores tons of songs, and it was able to read CD’s that neither my car cd player nor my old dvd/cd player were able to read. It must have a better sound processor. Moreover, it looks BEAUTIFUL! Every single person who has come to my apartment after I’ve had this installed is dazzled by the system’s looks. The speakers are tiny, and the main unit looks futuristic. They’re amazed that such huge sound can come from such TINY speakers - and so am I. I mean, it’s relatively easy to get clear, loud noise out of a big bulky ugly squarish box, but these things are tiny little cubes. It’s a step forward for mankind if you ask me. Look at it like this, a big american muscle car might make 400 horsepower using a 6 liter v8 engine - big deal, they’re big ugly cars with big ugly engines. You expect them to have a huge amount of power. A Porsche 911 turbo can make more horsepower out of a mere 3.6 liter v6 engine- huge power out of a small, well engineered, attractive object. That’s the difference I’m talking about.

I am often called in to sort out problems with home theater systems. My friends get them and wonder why they don’t sound as good as they did at the store. A recent visit to a certain person’s house (who shall remain unknown) yielded the the Bose lifestyle system. Seems his recent encounter with the cable man resulted in a crewed-up wiring plan. He paid the cable guy to install digital cable and also hook up a DVD player. The guy really screwed up his system by incorrectly wiring the equipment. After I hooked up everything correctly I started playing with the system. I was amazed how thin the movies sounded. keep in mind the owner of the house thought it sounded great. "WOW" he said. "Thanks for fixing it up!"

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If you are currently in the market for a moderately priced Home theater system, most likely, you have been looking in Circuit City’s or Best Buy’s fliers, that so magically happen to appear on your doorsteps every Friday morning – just in time for the new sales of the week on Sunday.

But, how much are you planning to spend?

I’d like to review the system but mine didn’t work out of the box. After running all of the wires and setting everything up, I powered it and the right front channel was all static and made popping noises when I adjusted the volume. Yes, I know troubleshooting and it was definitely the receiver/amp and not the speaker or wire. I packed it all back up and sent it back to Wal-Mart.

Also, the fiber connector on the back wouldn’t hold in the cable connector. I can’t tell if it’s the cable or connector.

The remote is tiny with tiny buttons. That’s a pro or a con depending on your preferences.

The installation and operating instructions are very low quality. There was very little information. The operating instructions are printed on a brown tissue-like paper and won’t last long.

I did like the auto select feature. It switched to the device input that had a signal and it auto-selected the type of signal, analog, digital, Dolby etc.

An odd thing is that that HTP-2700 is not even listed on the Pioneer Web Site. This set seems to be a custom packaging of a 2600 or a 2800 for Wal-Mart.

We bought this system because we needed a stereo that would fit into a cabinet that is only 13″ deep.

Our other requirements were for a 5-CD changer, and a subwoofer.

We were willing to pay a high price, but this inexpensive Sharp was the only system that fit those 3 requirements.

It sounds ok. I was happy enough with the sound that I threw out the box and decided to keep it. Now, I wish I hadn’t because I realized the 5-CD changer is totally LAME for 2 big reasons:

The first dvd player we ever bought. Worked awesome and the surround sound was just like the theater. Very easy to set-up and operate. But, after 6 months it was starting to get picky about which dvd’s it would play. Kept giving us a message on screen that the dvd was bad no matter which one we put in, even though they all worked fine in our other dvd players. Still plays cd’s and those disney sing-a-long dvd’s but will only play certain dvd’s. When we called the customer service number to try and get some help with this they told us that our manufacturer’s warranty was already expired and that they could give us a mailing address and we would have to mail it to them, they would fix it at our cost and then we would have to pay shipping for it to be mailed back to us. The woman we spoke to was very short with us in the fact that she could not give us any more info and that there was not any other number we could call to see if the kids had possibly pushed a wrong button to change something on it. Well, having paid around $225 for this it just seemed like we would be putting more money into it than what we paid for it. Because the surround sound is excellent and it does still play cd’s we do still use it for those things.

I stumbled across this system at Etronics.com and the price was in my budget range, at $139.00 plus $35.00 for shipping. But at the SSI home site it sells for $199.00 plus $15.00 shipping. So after talking via E Mail to a shop in Canada that carrys the system for $369. They answered all my questions and I bought one. Gregs Electronics was the shop in Canada, real nice guy. Anyway, I swear it sounds and looks better than most systems available fro up to $300. at stores like Circuit City and Best Buy. It is also rated in true watts,(RMS). which is unusual. Has super good sound and looks nice too. matches all my other components which are black, instead of this silver they are pushing these days. The channel separation is excelent with Dolby surround DVD movies, and the stereo has many inputs, for VCR, Cd player, etc. I am so glad I bought this one. It’s fantastic. Has 4 different output sound modes for choosing between a movie or music etc. At a total of $176.00 with the shipping , I’d recomend this to anyone. They even give plenty of speaker wire to run the rear speakers as far as needed in most any room. So easy to set up also. Etronics. com sells it for best price @ $139.99 plus shipping. Great piece of equipment. for the money. Room shaking bass, good mids and highs. Speakers are black wood grain laminate, and look pretty nice.better than them little silver ones that come with most systems out there.