Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony DAV-S550 Home Cinema System

The hardest thing about reviewing the SONY DAV-S550 HOME CINEMA SYSTEM is finding enough words to clearly show how good this equipment really is and how it totally improves the quality of the sound in your own living room. I was a sceptic about have the "cinema experience" at home but this system proved me wrong in every way. The quality of the sound is superb - the system is easy to understand and use - what more can you say. if you get the chance, BUY IT.

This was my first purchase of a home theatre system and it looks great, especially the small and stylish surround speakers and the fantastic luminous remote. It is also easy to set up.

However, it just fails to pack a punch where audio (cd / mp3) is concerned. Sound quality is fantastic for movies but if you're a music fan you'll be disappointed by the lack of depth in the sound. Another slight problem is that it is slow to react to commands, especially when skipping tracks / scenes which does get annoying after a while.

I would recommend this system as a first-time home theatre purchase as it represents excellent value for money and looks the part. For those of you who are music lovers, those with a large sitting room or high performace expectations, not for you!

I really think that this home cinema system is the best for the money, it shows fantastic ranges in frequencies and looks really stylish. It plays MP3 CD's which is really useful as many similar genre players do not include this. Overall a 5 out of 5 for value and performance.

I bought this to replace my Sony DAV S500 which didn't have the Dolby Pro-Logic II. It works brilliantly as an external 5.1 surround/pro-logic II decoder but you try to play any discs on this machine for any length of time it will eventually start CARVING GROOVES into your precious DVDs! Big, concentric circular scratches in the playing surface of your expensive DVD/SACD collection!

A device that damages the media simply does not deserve a rating no matter what its strengths.

Great sound, great looks, but I had to send it back twice because it kept gliching on DVD playback - always towards the end of the film. Out of warranty now, and it happened again - stuck a bigger fan on and all is well.