Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema
Posted by Notcot on Jun 7, 2010 in Home Cinema & Video |
Product Description
Blu-ray Disc Home Cinema System. By using combination of real speakers and virtual speakers, the listener is encircled by surround speakers and more natural and smoother surround can be enjoyed especially in action scenes such as car chase scene, as if you are sitting in the centre of the theatre. With the new bamboo cone speakers the sound becomes much more responsive. Vocals are more pure and clearer, and the dialogue being crisper and easier to understand than ever before.
- 5.1 Channel Sound
- Integrated Dock for iPod
- Blu-Ray/DVD/-R/-RW/+R/+RW Play
- SD Memory Card & USB Port
- 1000W Total Output
This isn’t the most expensive home cinema set up out there, landing in a middling price range that makes it attractive if you are looking for decent performance but are not in the market for “proper” kit i.e. separate AV amp and all the gubbins. DVD and movies are very much secondary to music for me, so I’m happy with this performance point.
This neat little pile of kit ticks the boxes very nicely. It is compact in size: the player is full width (430mm) but shallow, while the speakers are small and discreet and the sub woofer is not as big as it could be (mercifully – are they ugly beasts or what?). In black it fits nicely into the heap of other kit, and the fascia and display of the player is pleasingly restrained with a minimalist LCD during playback. This cut down approach does make some of the options via the remote a little less than intuitive, so some manual reading is required.
Set up was a piece of cake, requiring no dramas or even reading of instructions – just follow the screen prompts. Gripes: (1)the speaker cables are very white (!) … which is not that attactive in the average living room. (2) the only inter-connect supplied is a cheap as chips phono cable for video. Nothing for sound back from the TV, and no HDMI. A little on the cheap side.
Performance? Flipping excellent … blu-ray playback seems pretty darned good to me (although to be fair I’ve little to compare it to) and audio is really very good indeed, way, way ahead of the Sony home cinema kit that I’ve replaced. Music DVDs were always a problem for me on my old set up, with boomy, muddy sound a regular issue; this is mostly resolved by the B230. Playback of non-blueray discs is excellent and the iPod playback is surprisingly good – although I’ll probably never use it again (I can imagine it would be useful to some people). Note that iPod control is not that great from the DVD remote – like many things related to iPods, it seems to work on an initial premise that your music collection adds up to about 30 CDs.
You can (should you so desire) add wi-fi dongles for both internet connection (Youtube, proprietary content, etc) and rear speaker cable replacement. Quite fun, but rather expensive -I doubt if I will bother. Firmware upgrades can be done via writeable disc, you won’t be handicapped by not having a net connection.
Overall, for the price, I’m really pleased with the BT230. Nice picture, great sound, simple to use, sleek but tasteful looking, and a very impressive all round package.
Rating: 4 / 5