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JVC Theater Pack TP230 JVC DS TP230 Theater System A great buy at $380 (includes shipping). Very capable sound with plenty of volume that gives enough output to ple...

JVC DS-TP230 Theater System Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:dstp230 Key FeaturesIncluded Components:...

The gist:

* Relatively inexpensive all-in-one solution

* Perfect for the small home/apartment

* Mind-boggling to set up

It’s not that I hate my neighbors. From what I’ve seen of them, they seem like decent folk. Perhaps it’s the ol’ Y chromosome kickin’ in again, then, that makes me want to bring the plaster down on their heads.

For Christmas my father gave my girlfriend and I a $400 gift certificate to Circuit City. We have a decent TV and a nice DVD player, but I felt that what the whole home theater experience was missing was solid, in-your-face sound.

We focused on the JVC DS-TP230 system for it’s price and for JVC’s reputation for quality. It was selling at Circuit City for about $400, which was right in our price range, while most other systems sold for $500 or more. The one cheaper system — a Kenwood selling for about $300 — had lesser quality sound and a passive subwoofer (meaning it drew it’s power from the receiver rather than from its own power source).

At about 600 Watts with 5.1 channels, we felt the JVC would be more than adequate for our small one-bedroom apartment while providing extra power for the day when we moved to someplace bigger. We bought it that evening along with a optical cable (to connect to the DVD), two stands for the rear speakers and three DVDs to test the thing. Altogether, we walked out paying about $550 ($150 with dad’s gift certificate).

Buying was the easy part. Configuring it, on the other hand, was a whole different story. We immediately misplaced the manual and nothing else to go by other than a one page sheet that cryptically attempted to explain how “simple” it was to connect all of your components.

An hour later, after following the directions to the best of our ability, we still had nothing more than decent front-channel sound and nothing else. We couldn’t get the digital sound to come out no matter what we tried.

The next night, we went back to Circuit City to return what we thought was a defective optical cable. We talked to the guy who sold us the system and asked him for advice. First off, he said, we’d need to get a digital coaxial cable to connect to the DVD, despite the fact that the DVD did, indeed, have an optical output. He said that was the default way the system was set up and, after trying some voodoo with the controls, determined that that was the best way to handle it.

He also showed us the complicated menuing system. When we found the manual, this all made more sense, but it was absolutely counter-intuitive otherwise. One would think that, to get digital reception, you’d simply need to hit the “Digital/Analog” button and cycle through until you got to the proper digital encoding (DTS, Dolby Digital, etc.) Instead, there was a process involving two unrelated buttons just to get it set up properly.

After fiddling with it himself a few times (and, mind you, he was uncharacteristically knowledgeable for a Circuit City employee) he, too, gave up and explained how to get the bare bones sound out of it.

Upon arriving home, we plugged in the coax digital cable (about $50 — same price as the optical cable) and fiddled with the controls as he had shown us. 45 minutes later, we were hearing missiles coming from behind the couch and surrounded by explosions, but left with the question whether it was really worth it.

Of course, as soon as I popped in Apocalypse Now, the answer revealed itself to be an overwhelming “YES”. But it still had the power to make me feel like a technological moron. The horror… the horror…

Some quick tips:

* Don’t lose the manual. Unlike most pieces of home stereo equipment, this one isn;t simply a matter of connecting plug A into port B.

* Consider buying good speaker cable. Like most systems, the JVC comes with wimpy, thing stranded cable that are good enough but could be MUCH better.

* Make sure you know what kind of cables your existing system takes. For instance, does your DVD and TV support S-VHS? Does your CD player take optical cable? Does your DVD take Coax Digital? You can adjust the system to take advantage of all of these technologies, but it can be difficult.

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