This low cost system is a rival to systems costing much more.

This low cost system is a rival to systems costing much more.
I bought this system cheap at a discount store to tide me over till I could afford something better. But I have discovered that I don't want anything more. I have a small acoustically difficult living room. (The front speakers are placed equally spaced in one corner and the rear speaker are place diagonally in the opposite corner).

The system comes with a built-in calibration system with an included microphone. Plug in the microphone and connect it to a camera tripod (or whatever you have to get it at ear position) at the listening position. Then press the auto calibrate button and the system adjusts channel gain, and delay for each speaker. Leaving you to input speaker height (high or Low). This extraordinarily accurate speaker timing more than makes up for any short comings.

Listen to Seven Bridges Road in DTS on The Eagles-Hell Freezes Over DVD and you will hear just what I am talking about. The Sub Bass output from the small Sub-woofer is respectable. The Transformers movie had a good foundation. The time accuracy of the speakers is very evident watching star wars.

The system includes both optical and coaxial digital inputs and has a DTS decoder. (You can easily connect digital out on your digital TV and digital out on your DVD player.) The front panel calibration "mic" input also doubles as an IPOD or mp3 player input. It has a several analog RCA inputs as well.
A wide range of choices are available for sound fields Multi-stereo is one of my favorites, two channels time corrected from front and rear speakers with a huge stereo field! Great when you want to crank it up. In movie mode the system creates five virtual speakers for each rear surround speaker and you can optimize for general, effects or music. A full compliment Dolby pro logic and Sony sound fields are available too.
Sony did a fine job of including everything you could want while keeping it simple. The cost savings come from the use of a switching power supply and low cost speaker enclosures The cost cuts in my opinion do not effect the sound.