| Product: |
JVC TH A35 |
| Date: |
29/04/04 (666 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Sound and picture quality, A host of features, Value for money
Disadvantages: DVD unit is quite heavy!
I thought I would put together a quick review of this JVC home cinema system that I purchased a few months back.
The JVC TH-A35 comprises of a DVD player, amplifier and 6 speakers packaged together. I bought this system from Currys for the very reasonable price of £199.
The heart of the system is a DVD player, tuner and 325 watt amplifier combined together in a compact, although slightly heavy box.
To give the home cinema effect, six speakers are provided. These comprise of a sub-woofer and five satellite speakers. These speakers seem pretty robust and to seem handle the output from the amplifier well.
Features
For the money the features are pretty impressive. The DVD player will handle playback of the the following formats: CD, DVD, DVD-R, CD-R, VCD, SVCD, MP3 and JPEG.
You are given a choice of Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro-Logic II or DTS surround sound options. Also included is a DSP mode which allows the simulation of different sound environments such as a theatre, concert hall or stadium.
The combined 325 watt output from the amplifier I would think is more than sufficient for most houses, certainly mine!
The addition of a FM/AM tuner is also quite handy if you fancy listening to radio broadcasts in surround sound.
Another feature I found useful is the auxiliary input, which allows you to run your TV through the system, to give the surround sound effect to normal TV broadcasts.
The remote control is pretty comprehensive and can be a little bit daunting if you are like me and don?t bother reading the instructions first! After a short while though you learn where the most useful features are.
Setting up the system
It proved pretty easy to get the system unpacked and set up. The DVD player can be connected through the TV using the scart socket. The speaker outputs are colour coded which is very useful as you just need to find the corresponding colour on t
he speaker wires and the plug it in.
A bit of care needs to be taken with the placement of the satellite speakers as this affects how well the surround sound works. Placing each speaker an equal distance away from the listener will give the most impressive effect. This however can be a bit difficult if your lounge, like mine, is not a square shape! After a bit of experimentation though I found what I thought were the best locations for the speakers.
Playback and Sound
Hearing DVDs for the first time in Dolby Pro-Logic and DTS surround sound is most impressive and really makes a big difference to watching films!
The sub-woofer on this system is quite large and gives and nice bass rumble. The satellite speakers throw out a strong sound and the overall effect really enhances any movie you watch.
If you run your TV through the auxiliary input, you can then use the Dolby Pro-Logic II feature on TV broadcasts and this also makes a big improvement to the sound quality.
The DVD picture quality is good and it has so far handled any format I have tried to play.
If like me you are using a standard TV screen the addition of the Zoom feature is most handy. Some DVDs have a widescreen effect that makes the images a bit too small on the screen if you aren?t using a widescreen TV. The zoom feature on this system allows you to increase the size of the image on the screen, which is good, although you will lose more of the edges of the picture the further you zoom in.
Conclusion
I am pleased that I chose this particular system and think that it is very good value for money.
I would recommend this system to anybody who is thinking about getting a home cinema system. For under two hundred pounds you can?t really go wrong, especially with the amount of features that are on offer.
In terms of reliability, I can?t really comment on this as I have had the system for only a short time. How
ever I have used quite a few JVC products in the past and have found them to be of a good quality, so I am hoping that I will have long and trouble free use from this system.
Thanks for reading!
Summary:
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Last comment:
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kimking - 29/04/04 I would like one of these. |
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