i am having three choices. Sony DAV-DZ550 and Sony HT-DDW870 and panasonic SC-HT880 home theater system. i want to know which will be the best choice in terms of sound quality , reliability and performance. please give me advice on which should i choose.
i practically saw the demo of Sony DAV-DZ550 and panasonic SC-HT880 system. The sound seems to be OK. May i know on what basis you find these systems not good. can u also please tell me which brand home theater system and model is good , so that i can buy it Thanks
I did not say that it was not good. What I said was "one is as good as the other".
It is a Home Theater in a Box...it will work for it's intended purpose and you can compare it to other HTIBs in its class. Listen to other units and make a decision. Chances are they only differ in shrillness and detail or lack thereof.
It will perform as well as any box set would, short of bargain/cheap HTIBs.
If you want performance, try looking at separate units that are made with better components and prepare to spend more money.
Of those 3 the 550 and 880 are probably better since they appear to at least have digital amplification (tiny slimline receiver). Those 2 seem to cost around $500? For an extra $200 you can get much better components (separate receiver, DVD/CD, speakers and a real sub) online.
Thanks for your replies for my queries. Initially i was planning to buy denon 1706 receiver. but then i have to buy the speakers and dvd player separately. Hence i decided to go for a home theater in box system such as sony DAV-DZ550. Another thing is that this sony system has passive subwoofer. what is passive and active subwoofer, and which is recommended in based on performance. Thanks
A passive sub depends on the receiver/amp for power. An active speaker has it's own amp which is tuned and filtered to run just the one driver. Way better.
After reading your comments i visited the yamaha showroom and saw the demo of yamaha RXV357 receiver with bookshelf speakers. The demo engineer played a 5.1 channel movie and 5.1 recorded audio . the things which i noticed is that the sound is coming very good from the center,front left and right speakers. But the sound from the surround speakers is coming very very feeble and it can be heard only if we go near to the surround speakers. this receiver is having any problem or it is the limitation of the receiver. But this same movie and audio sound good in all the speakers in the sony DAV-DZ550 system. Thanks
It could be that the setup of the system wasn't particularly good and so the surround seemed feeble. That said, it could be that the Sony demo had the rears set too high in order to impress you. This is a common trick!
Home Theatre in a Box is a very nice concept which is becoming more popular. They vary in price from bargain basement to really quitre expensive. (Linn and Naim Audio have HTIB solutions which cost over $10k including speakers).
Mr.Frank, Thanks for your wishes. What u said is correct. The demo person of yamaha RXV357 could have reduced the sound of surround speakers. Does the home theater in box system seems to be better than seperate AV receivers and speaker systems?
No. Generally speaking, the separates solutions allow you to setup the system a bit more accurately since they have more facilities which allow you to ensure the setup is correct. In fact it got so complicated that some mid-range receivers now come with a microphone and automatic setup software so that provided the speakers are in approximately the right place, then the receiver works out what the settings should be after just a few minutes of measuring noise against the microphone.
Traditionally, HTIB systems aren't that hot, but I was just pointing out that there are a couple of exceptions. Some people really have space problems which mean that the HTIB is the best solution for them, and my point was that good ones exist, but they're rare.
Incidentally, it's more likely that the Sony demo person turned UP the rears!
another thing i noticed in the yamaha rxv-357 is that it doesn't have on screen display for displaying the menu screen of the amplifier in the TV. whereas the sony DAV-DZ550 and HT-DDW870 has on screen display. Will this on screen display matters more, because each time for scrolling down the menus we have to go to near the amplifier.
