Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema (4Xsats,1000W)
- 5.1 Channel Sound
- Integrated Dock for iPod
- Blu-Ray/DVD/-R/-RW/+R/+RW Play
- SD Memory Card & USB Port
- 1000W Total Output
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…. more >>
Rating: 
(out of 4 reviews)
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Review by Eric Ambleside for Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema (4Xsats,1000W)
Rating:
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.
Review by Mr. D. P. Williams for Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema (4Xsats,1000W)
Rating:
Received yesterday, nicely packaged with clear instructions – several amendment sheets were present but nothing major.
The speakers are a doddle to set up – firm spring clips at the speaker end and colour coded connections at the player/amp unit – you just can’t wire it up wrong !. Speakers seems pretty well built and finished for their size. subwoofer isn’t very big (approx 15″ x 12″ x 5″), but on this sort of system thats more of a bonus. Some internet forums said the wires to the rear surround speakers were too short – i just managed OK to run them around a 3.5 x 4.5m room and mount them 4 feet off the ground. A larger room or higher locations might be an issue, although i had spare cable with the front speakers i could have used to extend if necessary. The main unit looks sleak, ipod dock is great for those that like their gadgets. Sound and picture quality seem good out of the box, i’m sure it’ll improve when things bed in. Turned the volume up to 50 and its plenty loud enough for me, plenty of rumbles from the subwoofer in action movies. Setting up the speaker balance is easy enough, but i’d have preferered a little more adjustment options.
For the money and the specification, its a very ample all in one solution, easily integrating into any living room environment without making it look like a branch of Dixons.
Review by T. Seldon for Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema (4Xsats,1000W)
Rating:
This is a great little setup. Sound is excellent despite the diminutive speakers. This is not a system for shaking the walls, but is a system for clear accurate sound. The whole thing came in a box that was smaller than the sub-woofer on my old LG system. Basic Blue Ray/DVD handling is good with very clear easy to use controls – however I do miss having an eject on the remote. The internet functions were easy to setup but I feel a little pointless if you already have a PC. Once connected the first thing it wanted to do was a firmware upgrade this was painless but a little worrying – it takes a long time and just switches off when finished. I haven’t tried streaming from my own PC yet. No HDMI/Video input, means that although the unit is quite capable of playing sound from other sources it has to be done via an optical cable. I have this arrangement with my sky-HD box. This works fine for normal TV – but I don’t get sound when playing back a recorded program (Haven’t figured that one out yet!). This arrangement works but is a bit complicated – switch on sky box, switch on DVD, change TV to DVD/SS to view menus, select the correct AUX input, select SKY on TV leaving sound through DVD/SS – remember which remote does what.
Review by Marcus Cator for Panasonic SC-BT230EB-K Blu-Ray 5.1 Home Cinema (4Xsats,1000W)
Rating:
Reviews for this product were good. They did not do it justice! Picture quality is fantastic and sound quality is superb! Only learning point, unit will not work through an EOn powersave plug, as it uses so minimal power whilst loading films the power save thinks the system has gone into standby and shuts down the power supply. Otherwise fantastic and will be buying second unit for family member.