Panasonic's vision of the digital future is driven by the needs and aspirations of its business customers and millions of consumers around the world who use its products every day. The company shares their dream to live a fuller life by providing ways of working smarter and enjoying the rewards of technological advances.
The SC-HT05 home theater system from Panasonic makes it easy to bring the cinematic experience into your home. The SC-HT05 packages a home theater receiver with six surround-sound speakers. Connect your TV and a DVD player to the SC-HT05 and you have an instant home theater. You can take advantage of the receiver's versatility by connecting other audio and video components, as well.
At the heart of the SC-HT05 is a sophisticated, flexible, easy-to-customize core component for both audio and home theater. The receiver's Dolby Digital and DTS decoders provide crisp, clear sound, and Dolby Pro Logic II Surround yields richness to movies and music. The SC-HT05 has three surround modes: movie, music, and panorama. The adjustable music and panorama settings add surround effects to stereo sources. These settings can be altered to fully customize your audio experience.
Panasonic's Sound Field Control gives your sound further definition with six preset modes for music and an additional six settings for movies and television audio. With Sound Field Control, you can make adjustments based on what's important to you. You can enhance the dialogue in dramatic movies, enhance the crowd noises for sporting events, or simulate a live club sound for your favorite music. Dynamic range compression allows you to listen to content recorded with Dolby Digital at low volumes while maintaining audio clarity. It's a perfect option for late-night viewing or listening.
The SC-HT05 receiver supports a wide array of audio and video components: CD players, DVD players, DVD recorders, VCRs, and more. An AM/FM tuner is built into the unit with 30 presets for your favorite stations. The unit features a variety of audio and video inputs, including composite audio/video inputs, and a digital audio input connection.
The speaker set includes two front speakers, two surround speakers, a center speaker, and a subwoofer. The front-channel speakers put out 30 watts per channel and the subwoofer kicks out 110 watts per channel.
The SC-HT05 features a unique set of controls to completely customize your speaker placement and configuration. When you set up your speakers, you can optimize the sound by selecting the appropriate speaker size. The large speaker setting reproduces a full sound range, especially the lower levels of bass. For small speakers, the setting makes automatic adjustments to the bass range reproduction to avoid distortion and speaker damage. The pre-set adjustments can also be manually changed. The receiver's versatility allows you to configure an array of both large and small speakers in a surround-sound setup. You can also focus the sound of your home theater by inputting the distance of your front, center, and surround speakers from your primary seating location. The easy setup can be adjusted quickly if you change the layout of your room, or if you add speakers.
The universal remote control included with the receiver allows you to control the other components in your home theater, as well as all six speakers in the multichannel audio array. The SC-HT05 also includes a sleep timer to shut off the unit at the end of the evening.
What's in the Box
Home theater receiver, 5 satellite speakers, 1 subwoofer, speaker cables, system cable, AM loop antenna, FM indoor antenna, remote control, 2 AA batteries, owner's manual.
1 This Home Theater Won't Disappoint
We've been wanting to get a home theater audio system for some time so when our anniversary came around, we decided it was the perfect time to purchase one.
I went online and did extensive research on different home theater options. We opted for an HTIB due to its cost and ease of installation/use. Since we already own both a dvd/vcr combo unit as well as a dvd recorder, we didn't want to purchase an HTIB with an included DVD player and in essesce, pay for another DVD. We narrowed it down to the Sony HT-DDW760 and the Panasonic SCHT-05. They are both good choices for an HTIB without an included DVD player. While the Sony HT-DDW760 has more inputs that its little brother HT-DDW660, it still only has two digital inputs which had us leaning towards the Panasonic. We went down to our local electronics store to listen to them. Unfortunately, they only had the Panasonic hooked up but it was enough to convince us. We purchased an SCHT-05 that evening.
The setup was relatively simple. All of the speaker wire goes into the subwoofer and out into the satellites. Panasonic sets up many of their home theater systems this way with the sub containing the amp for the whole system. Then, there is a single proprietary cable that connects the slim silver receiver to the sub. Several people recommend that you spend money to upgrade the speaker wire. We had some 14ga stranded speaker wire that we wanted to use. However, the connection slots for the speaker wire proved to small to use the 14ga. Be aware of this if you want to use heavier wire than what was supplied. We ended up using the wire provided with the system.
The three digital inputs were a huge draw for us to get this system and we haven't been disappointed. There are two optical and one digital coaxial. We had purchased cables on eBay and it made hooking up our a/v components a breeze. There are also generous RCA stereo inputs as well, if your components don't have digital audio outs. We used the three digital inputs for our digital cable, dvd recorder, and dvd part of our dvd/vcr combo unit. We then hooked up the vcr via the stereo RCAs.
There are four levels of subwoofer output. It's very simple to change. While I know there are more powerful subs out there, the one included in this system rumbles, shakes and vibrates the house capably. Also the speaker setup mode makes it easy to ensure that the speakers are balanced for your room.
We have an open concept floorplan which means that our living room area is quite large. The Panasonic SCHT-05 can amply fill the space with sound. The Dolby Digital and DTS decoding are excellent. We still are shocked at times to hear all the sound effects when we watch a DVD. It freaked out our poor dog to hear sound coming from so many directions. The system adds immeasurably to the movie watching experience.
You can fine tune the sound settings if needed but we didn't find it necessary. The Dolby ProLogic II works great. Since so many programs on cable/satellite are in stereo, the PLII converts two channel sound into surround. It makes the system much more usable.
In short, you can't go wrong with this system. While it doesn't have component video switching or similar high end features, it does an excellent job of what it's designed to do. The low cost and easy setup makes it a perfect addition to any home that already owns a DVD player. We couldn't be more please with our purchase.
2 Great sound, but if you have problems, beware Panasonic!
I love the sound on this machine, however, I bought a slightly older model from Overstock as a refurb (SA-HT05 instead of SC) and there were problems with dolby digital decoding (random high pitched noise on one of the channels). From what I've read on the internet, it sounds like only these earlier models had problems so this one should be fine. The sound is good (WAYYY better than the Sony products in the same price range, in my opinion), lots of inputs, but there's not much control over balancing or equalizer settings -- you can't really adjust any eq settings/balance/fading in 6 channel analog input mode, for example. So the product itself gets 4 stars.
With that said, Panasonic is SOOO SLOWWWWWWW to respond to service problems. The service center estimated a couple days, or a week if they needed to order parts. They couldn't figure out what was wrong, escalated it to Panasonic, who didn't know what was wrong, so they contacted a field rep, who didn't know what was wrong... Everyone said to expect progress soon, but except for the customer service reps, and then only sparcely, rarely followed up with me. Tthree weeks after I bring it in, after NUMBEROUS calls myself to "Cusotomer Service" (so-called) they FINALLY decide to replace it, which will take about another 20-25 business days (which I assume means 4-5 normal WEEKS). So I'm still waiting... I'm used to customer service like Dell; yeah, you wait on hold for an hour and a half, but when they diagnose that it's broken, they UPS next-day a replacement. I still don't understand why Panasonic didn't just 1) Establish that it is broken, not my fault, and then 2)send me a new one right away. I can't imagine how much they had to pay the service center, and the field rep, and the customer "service" reps, for the time they've put into this little case.
3 Good Home theater system.
Pros: Good Sound reproduction. Number of digital connections (2 Optical, 1 coaxial). Styling.
Cons: Limited remote functionality. (To store radio station information, the remote can't be used. Eventhough the buttons are laid out and marked with the same information).
Digital connections are much better than analog ones. If you have a HDTV receiver and a DVD player, then use the Digital connection as they use 5.1 digital sound. Many other HTIBs with DVD players don't have Digital inputs.
4 Best HTIB in its Price Range
I bought this system a week ago, and I love it. The sound is excellent, and thanks to its 3 digital inputs (not 2 total inputs as another review claimed), I have my DVD, Satellite receiver, and PS2 all connected digitally. The receiver also has a number of analog inputs. The receiver also comes with video jacks, but I don't recommend using them, since they are only RCA jacks. I use S-Video and Component connections for my video, which are much higher quality.
When you're watching TV, the receiver will automatically switch between Dolby Digital when it is offered and Dolby Pro Logic 2. For DVDs, the receiver will also decode DTS.
All of the speakers attach to the sub, which is quite sizable. The other speakers are small, and pack a lot of power for their size. The receiver is more compact than any other I have seen, and is actually smaller than my DVD player. A lot of receivers are bloated with a lot of empty space inside, thankfully Panasonic didn't follow that trend.
As noted in another review, definitely DO NOT use Panasonic's speaker cable. It is really thin, and will kill the quality of the audio. Buy some speaker cable and also tips, which make life a lot easier.
My only (minor) complaint is the remote, which needs a better layout. At the bottom of the remote, there are 4 rows of 5 identical-size buttons.
For $200, this is a great system. Most systems at this price point don't have as many digital inputs, and the speakers are great. I highly recommend this system.
5 The best in its price range!
This little system is the best for Dolby Digital and DTS in its price range! If you've got a small-to-medium sized room, you won't be disappointed.
Inputs:
- 1 Coax Digital Audio input (for your DVD player)
- 2 Optical Digital Audio inputs (for your CD player, PlayStation2, etc.)
- 4 Audio inputs (for TV, VCR, Tape, etc.)
Of course, there's more than just the inputs. The system really does sound good and everything, from the center channel to the surrounds to the subwoofer, works very well together.
If you like to tweak, the system has a test-mode so that you can adjust the level of the speakers to make some louder or quieter. The subwoofer can even be adjusted on-the-fly during TV/CD/DVD playback with the remote -- good for when there's too much or not enough of that big bass sound!
Along the same lines, you can enable a sort of night viewing mode that's actually called "Dynamic Range Compression." This feature will take the really quiet sounds and make them louder and take the really loud sounds and make them quieter. Unfortunately, you can't enable this feature from the remote, so you'll have to press a series of buttons on the unit itself. (This is my biggest complaint and the reason I'm giving 4 instead of 5 stars.)
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this system as much as I do!
6 Stay away from Panasonic!
Customer Service - the Panasonic website claims this is very important to them. I had my home theater only 3-4 months when a VCR tape got stuck. I has now been at the service center for almost 4 months! When I am lucky enough to get a response from Panasonic (which is rare), they make promises of completion and/or replacement. But promises won't play the DVD's my family would have liked to watch together over the holidays. When we finally got through to the customer service center on the phone, they had the nerve to hand up on us twice. IF YOU WANT A COMPANY TO STAND BEHIND THEIR PRODUCTS - STAY AWAY FROM PANASONIC!!! I have truly given up hope of even getting my home theater back from the Panasonic service center.
7 Not enough audio inputs
The problem with this system is it only had 2 audio inputs. I could hook up my DVD and VCR, but not my new HDTV or any other components, such as a CD player or iPod. There are several other Home Theaters of similar quality and price that have 5 or more audio inputs.
8 Random squeals and buzzing using digital input
This system sounds great and is easy to set up. I would give it 5 stars if it worked 100% of the time.
However, my first one has squeals and buzzing happening at random times when using the digital audio input (both coaxial and RCA). There have been multiple reports of this on cnet's user reviews as well. It doesn't happen on every system, but when it does, you'll know it. I'll be returning the system today. I'll try one more time, but if the second one doesn't work, I'll go with Sony's equivalent even though it has one less digital audio input.
9 Awesome System & Awesome Price
I bought this Panasonic system a few days ago and I love it! The installation was a little confusing at first, but then I figured it out.
The system looks really awesome with it's silver finish and the chrome accents on the subwoofer and receiver. I think this system is perfect for a bedroom, which is where I placed mine. It really fills the room with sound.
One thing you will need is a Coaxial Audio Cable to hook up a DVD player to this. They run for about $15-20 at a local radio shack. The cable really makea a difference in the audio. I was surprised the cable wasn't included in the box, I luckily had one already.
10 Great Value
If you have a small to medium sized room this system should work great. It has many input options for expandability and it really has great sound. Don't expect extreme volume levels. Take care to set things up correctly. This system really works well, the bass is very powerful and the overall sound quality is very good.
11 Great Bang for the Buck
We settled on this system because:
- We already owned a 5-disc progressive scan DVD player
- The size of the room and seating position eliminated 6.1 systems as a possibility
- Two optical inputs
- Two-way front and rear speakers
This system sounds great with both the Pro Logic II applied to PCM stereo content (like the Band of Brothers reruns on the History Channel) as well as quality 5.1 content. We watched The Last Samurai with this system last night and were very impressed. If having your dogs constantly jumping up thinking someone/thing is outside is a measure of system quality, then this one is a beauty. The rear surrounds got them started every time. As for power, I haven't had any need to crank it past 50% volume yet.
The only other consideration you may want to make is that the power supply and amp are within the subwoofer, and the control and power cord from the sub to the receiver is only ~6ft, which does limit sub placement.
One tip if you decide to purchase this system: go out and get yourself a roll of 16-gauge wire. They supply ~105 ft of pre-cut wire (5 sections) with this system, but it is a bit thin. You'll need connectors if you want to go 14 gauge or thicker based on the speaker connection size.
If you've got a smallish room and already own a DVD player, consider this system.
