Panasonic SC-HT940 Theater System

I was in the market for a home theater system to hook up to my Mitsubishi 62" DLP Television, but I did not want to have a bunch of wires running across the room to the surround speakers.

While at COSTCO one day I saw the Panasonic HT940. The two things that stood out about this system was the price (around $400) and Costco also included the wireless transceiver (SH-FX60 around $100 value) for the surround speakers.

Rather than buy the system right then and there I decided to go home and do some Internet research on the product. While researching, I generally found that the system was well regarded, but nearly every reviewer had complained about the small gauge speaker wire diminishing the sound capabilities of the speakers. Also, this same setup was retailing for around $600 plus at other stores like Circuit City and Best Buy.

So I returned to COSTCO and happily paid my $400 for the system. I also stopped by Home Depot to pickup about 40' of 16 AWG speaker wire. I also picked up some surround speaker stands from WalMart. All told I probably dropped another $60 on the speaker wire and stands.

I had read enough reviews to decide that I did not even want to waste my time trying out the small gauge speaker wire that came with the system.

At the time I thought I had done adequate research. But one thing I failed to take into sufficient account was matching up the outputs from my HDTV with the inputs available with the Home Theater System.

After I set everything up, I soon realized that I could only get true 5.1 surround sound while playing a DVD. If I watched regular TV even an HDTV channel with 5.1 audio, the best I could get was just regular stereo.

As a DVD player and Home Theater, this unit is great. I think the audio sounds quite rich and the surround sound aspect of the system works well despite my room not having the most desirable amount of space behind the viewer for the surround sound. I think if my room were such that we had the desired several feet behind the viewers head for the surround that this aspect of the system would be excellent. The sub-woofer is quite powerful and can easily jolt a sleeping spouse out of bed (1 floor up)during late night movie watching.

I have had about four DVD players and I think the one included with the HT940 is by far the best. DVD's look fantasticly clear and detailed. The clearest DVD picture I have seen. I am also very happy with the color reproduction.

My biggest regret with this unit is that there does not appear to be any way for me to listen to 5.1 surround sound on broadcast and cable channels. I can only get this by playing a DVD. Although I cannot completely fault the Home Theater System - my HDTV can only output regular stereo, but my COMCAST cable box may be capable of outputing a digital audio. Unfortunately, the Panasonic HT940 does not appear to have any digital audio input. I thought this odd as I have had other Panasonic DVD/VHS players and they supported digital audio input. In fact other less expensive units at COSTCO had this feature (even other Panasonic DVD/VHS combo units).

A nice feature of the HT940 is that it can take audio input from an iPod. There is an audio jack (Music Port) on the front of the main unit (DVD player) that will accommodate an iPod (with an output cable) quite easily. Also, the wireless transceiver (connecting the wireless surround speakers) also has an audio input (Music Port) so you could theoretically connect an iPod at either that point.

One other nice feature of the HT940 (although probably not unique to this system)is that it can play CD's with files in MP3 format and DVD's with HighMAT, RAM, and DVD-R/-RW disks. Additionally, the HT940 also has an AM/FM radio integrated into the DVD player.

The HT940 is quite configurable and the speakers can be programmed to take room size and layout into account. I do think some of the buttons on the remote could be laid out a bit better.

We did quickly notice that using a laptop to wirelesly connect to your local network in the same room as the HT940 (while using the HT940 speakers) was a futile effort. The wireless signal to the surround speakers will knock laptops off their wireless network. Supposedly, the wireless speaker transceiver will detect that a particular channel is already in use and jump to an unused wireless channel. However, every time we have tried this, the laptop is always knocked off the wireless network even when it was their first.

I would recommend this unit to others. However, it is a bit disappointing that I have yet to find a wiring scheme for my setup that would allow me to hear 5.1 surround from broadcast or cable television.