Home Theater Systems Help

Great sound and picture. Panasonic SC HT95 Theater System IntroThis is my second home theater system. The first system, I bought five years ago, was bulky, lacked power, a...

Panasonic SC-HT95 Theater System Product Technical DetailsTechnical Details:SC-HT95 Key FeaturesIncluded Components:...

The skyrocketing popularity of movies on DVD has spurred an interesting new trend in consumer electronics: the super-cheap all-in-one home-theater system.

Super-Cheap Home Theater

I can walk over to my local K-Mart and pick up a Venturer Electronics STS32B, with a combination CD/DVD player, AM/FM tuner, amplifier, five surround speakers, and a subwoofer for $199.99.

It’s not Macintosh (the audio manufacturer, not the computer company) or anything, but it works, and it sells for less than what you would have paid for just a DVD player two years ago.

Systems like the Venturer STS32B grow out of similar, but more expensive all-in-one setups that Sony, Panasonic, JVC, Bose, and Onkyo have had on the market for the past few years.

Panasonic SC-HT95 Home Theater System

Panasonic’s SC-HT95 is the latest addition to their line of these systems, following on their very similar HT70 and HT80 products and selling for $500 at full-retail outlets such as Circuit City and Best Buy.

I recently had a chance to evalute a DNW (perfect condition, customer Did Not Want) HT95 loaned to me for a couple of weeks by a friend who manages a large electronics store in New York City.

Performance

Overall, I was favorably impressed by the performance of the HT95. While it doesn’t escape the basic axiom that “you get what you pay for,” it provides a decent value and a high degree of ease of installation and use by putting everything (except the TV) in a single package.

As far as video output, it will give you as good an image as you will get with any interlaced-scan DVD player. In fact, video performance from one DVD player to the next tends to be identical. The standard DVD resolution, 480-interlaced (480i), is actually limited by the format, not by the capabilities of any particular player.

The HT95 will also output DVD video at the 480-progressive (480p) resolution. Since you can only use the higher 480p resolution with pricey HDTV-ready sets and HDTV’s, which generally sell for at least $1,000, the inclusion of this feature is a bit of a mismatch, but it doesn’t hurt to have it. Just remember that this won’t give you any performance advantage with a standard (non HD-ready) TV because a progressive-scan signal simply will not display on a standard TV.

The audio playback performance of the main unit itself is decent, but the small plastic speakers Panasonic throws in don’t really give the HT95 a chance to show what it can do. Likewise, as the audio ouput is quite modest (rated as about 50 watts-per-channel but those figures are probably extremely optimistic; Panasonic just gives the raw numbers without any frequency specifications or distortion levels). If you want to move up to better speakers down the road, you will probably need to replace the HT95 main unit as well.

Another disappointment is the subwoofer, which is a passive unit with a smallish (6.75-inch) driver. Powered subs, which, to be accurate, should be called “self-powered subs,” have become a standard for home-theater speaker configurations. Because of the heavy demands placed on the amplifier for a subwoofer, it makes much more sense, just in terms of cooling ability, to mount it on the back of a subwoofer. With the HT95, the subwoofer-channel amplifier is jammed into the small main-unit case, along with all the other amps. Things are likely to get pretty hot in there.

I’m not saying you could fry an egg on the top-right side of the main unit case, which surrounds the final-stage amp transistors, but you could probably fry an egg on the top-right side of the main unit case if it didn’t have that cooling fan.

Looks

As far as looks, the HT95 main unit case is silver, as are all the speakers. The front face is made from a reflective silver metal-and-plastic layered material which looks a bit cheesy, in my humble opinion. Of course, the silver color scheme will the many new TV’s from Panasonic, Sony, Phillips and others which are now available in that color.

Playback Modes

The five-disc changer will function with DVD-Video, DVD-Audio (a high-rez audio format which is a nice extra at this price, but the wide-range audio reproduction will be wasted on these rudimentary speakers), VCD’s (extremely popular in the People’s Republic of China), Audio-CD’s, DVD-R’s, CD-R/RW, and MP3 CD’s.

Inputs/Outputs

Inputs and outputs include a pair of spring clips each for FM and AM antennas, respectively, spring clips for all six speakers (five surround plus sub), L/R phono jacks for VCR, TV, and Aux audio in, L/R phono jacks for line level analog audio out, and jacks for composite, S-Video, and component-video output. Since there’s no digital-audio input, it will not be possible to use the HT95 with the digital-audio datastream, either via a coaxial or optical connection, from a satellite tuner or HDTV over-the-air tuner. You could still use the analog output from such a tuner, connecting it to the Aux-in jacks, but you would sacrifice DD/DTS surround modes.

Speaking of surround modes, the HT95 will process both Dolby Digital (DD) and DTS from your DVD’s. In addition, it will process Dolby Pro Logic from a DVD, VHS tape, or broadcaset input from your TV. Unfortunately, the HT95 does not include the new Dolby Pro Logic II mode.

Remote

The included remote will also control some TV’s and VCR’s. Most of the frequently-used buttons are near the top and you should be able to use it without having to look at it, which is handy, since it’s not backlit. The less-used buttons are behind a slide-down panel on the lower section of the remote.

Speakers

The front-left/right and center speakers are fairly hefty. In fact, it appears that Panasonic chose to take the center-channel speaker from their old HT70 and HT80 home-theater systems and use that same speaker for the entire front array (L/R/Center) on the HT95. These speakers each have a 4.0-inch mid-driver and 2.375-inch tweeter. The surround speakers each have a single 3.125-inch mid-driver. All speakers, including the subwoofer, are in plastic enclosures.

Conclusion

If you shop around carefully, you can probably get a bit more value for your money by buying a separate receiver, DVD player, and speakers, especially if you add a piece at a time and spread out the financial outlay. On the other hand, the HT95 is a far better value than a system such as the Bose 123, which sells for $999.95 with dealers not allowed to provide discounts. The HT95 is covered by a one-year warranty.

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