Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony BDVE500W 5.1-Channel High-Definition Blu-ray Disc Player/DVD Disc Home theater System (Black)
Sony BDVE500W 5.1-Channel High-Definition Blu-ray Disc Player/DVD Disc Home theater System (Black)
See it at Amazon.com for $799.99Average Customer Rating
(5.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
Most Helpful First | Newest First | + Share18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Great sound, better than Bose, Go for it
(5 out of 5) by S. Misal on Sep 5, 2009 (SFO)Great product from Sony, I have had it for about 2 weeks now, I have played it every day made it go through some rigorous tests. Works perfect, I did a compare with Bose 321GSX and found this to be a lot better for half the price!.
Excellent surround sound effect, IPOD dock works great, rear wireless speakers are amazing, even though Sony says not to keep the unit under the shelf, it still works great and the rear wireless work perfectly.
Easy setup, and looks great, I even hid the subwoofer behind the TV and did the auto calibration..sounds great.
I'd recommend a 100% buy.
Excellent surround sound effect, IPOD dock works great, rear wireless speakers are amazing, even though Sony says not to keep the unit under the shelf, it still works great and the rear wireless work perfectly.
Easy setup, and looks great, I even hid the subwoofer behind the TV and did the auto calibration..sounds great.
I'd recommend a 100% buy.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Plenty of features for a HTIB
(5 out of 5) by HP on Oct 21, 2009 (Flower Mound, TX)This system is awesome. I've had it for about a month now and watched a few movies with it. I'm not an audiophile and this is my first surround sound system for my primary living room theater.
I picked this system mainly because of the tower speakers and the S-AIR module. It's a all in one system with a blue ray disk player that supports about 5 different digital audio codecs. It's a clean minimalist design. I was surprised by the depth of the receiver. It's bigger than I expected and fills the majority of shelf space in my entertainment stand.
One thing that bugged me are the the buttons on the top front edge of the receiver. They are small, the same shape and color which force you to read the label to tell what they are. This makes it even more irritating because the remote doesn't have an eject button and I had to learn which of those tiny buttons would eject my disk. I guess I'm really lazy.
Assembly took all but 15 minutes. It took more time to arrange the pieces around the room. There's a quick setup guide that will calibrate your system with an included microphone.
One thing to be aware of, as with most HTIB, there are no video inputs. What this means, is that you'll need to connect all your video sources directly to the TV or a HDMI switch. However, there are mutliple audio inputs. So for example, if you wanted to connect your XBOX 360 to this unit, you'll have to connect your HDMI to your tv and then use an optical cable to route the audio to the receiver. Or you could use the optical out from your TV. This is not ideal, in my opinion, but then again that was not a goal for me.
The sound is crisp, and clean. The sub-woofer gives strong enough punch that you can feel in your chest.
Blue ray disks load quicker than my LG blue ray player.
I'm very happy with my purchase. This was the right unit for me and I would recommend this unit to anyone else looking for an all in one system.
I picked this system mainly because of the tower speakers and the S-AIR module. It's a all in one system with a blue ray disk player that supports about 5 different digital audio codecs. It's a clean minimalist design. I was surprised by the depth of the receiver. It's bigger than I expected and fills the majority of shelf space in my entertainment stand.
One thing that bugged me are the the buttons on the top front edge of the receiver. They are small, the same shape and color which force you to read the label to tell what they are. This makes it even more irritating because the remote doesn't have an eject button and I had to learn which of those tiny buttons would eject my disk. I guess I'm really lazy.
Assembly took all but 15 minutes. It took more time to arrange the pieces around the room. There's a quick setup guide that will calibrate your system with an included microphone.
One thing to be aware of, as with most HTIB, there are no video inputs. What this means, is that you'll need to connect all your video sources directly to the TV or a HDMI switch. However, there are mutliple audio inputs. So for example, if you wanted to connect your XBOX 360 to this unit, you'll have to connect your HDMI to your tv and then use an optical cable to route the audio to the receiver. Or you could use the optical out from your TV. This is not ideal, in my opinion, but then again that was not a goal for me.
The sound is crisp, and clean. The sub-woofer gives strong enough punch that you can feel in your chest.
Blue ray disks load quicker than my LG blue ray player.
I'm very happy with my purchase. This was the right unit for me and I would recommend this unit to anyone else looking for an all in one system.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Outperforms Bose
(5 out of 5) by J. Velez on Aug 17, 2009 (Florida, USA)Greater quality than Bose systems that go for more than twice the price of this system. Sound is very realistic and it includes a few very nice extras such as the ipod dock and the wireless adapter for the back speakers. Very good purchase and relatively inexpensive if you compare it to another systems.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Good but over priced
(4 out of 5) by J. Akins on Oct 24, 2009 (Duncanville,TX USA)I purchased this set after reading all the 5 star reviews here on Amazon.I have to admit setup was very easy and it worked great right out of the box.My disapointment came when I found the subwoofer was passive.Nothing I had read mentioned This important fact.For this price I had expected a Powerd subwoofer.Even though I hate to be the first one to break the 5 star streak on what is an otherwise outstanding HTIB.I had to knock off 1 star for a unit of this price having a passive subwoofer.However I do Recomend this product to anyone who does not care about having a powerd Subwoofer.For those who are Interested.With power you controll the amount of Bass you get,Without power you have to take what you get and if you want more you are just out of luck.The wireless speakers work great although a little weak and are overpowered by the front speakers.I suggest experimenting with the positioning of them before commiting to anything permanent.I will say that the Operating Instruction Book looks like it may have been written by LARRY,CURLY and MO.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Great sound
(5 out of 5) by P. Ford on Sep 14, 2009 (OR, USA)This system has everything we wanted all in one box. We have it hooked up to a Samsung 52" LCD tv. It was a quick setup and we love the effects of the sound. The blueray player is excellent. Movies are clear as a bell. It's great that we don't have cords running to the back of the room. Overall, we couldn't be happier with our purchase.