This loyal servant to my home entertainment needs is finally about to be replaced by a new Blu Ray surround sound system! I bought this about 7 years ago and it's still a fins piece of equipment to this day. I recently bought a new HD TV so I am looking to upgrade purely because of this.

Firstly, the appearance is a bit of a mixture. The actual DVD player looks fantastic. The front is essentially a mirror and the buttons are shiny and metallic and the unit is nice and compact. This is all fine and well but the DVD player is often hidden away in furniture or on a shelf that no one looks at. If the DVD player is in site then once turned on the power light is a very bright blue and this can be annoying if it is in your sight when watching the film. The sub-woofer is a bit of a beast in it's size and the speakers are a just grey, 3-d rectangles. They are simple but not very attractive.

In terms of set-up, the system was very easy to install. It was basically just plug and play although there are plenty of things to mess around with to tweak the sound once the speakers are in place. I seem to remember that the rear speakers were very quiet to begin with but this was easily rectified.

There are no HDMI connections due to the age of the product and so connection is usually with a SCART lead which is now a little dated, especially on the bigger HD TVs.

The one issue I do have with the unit is that it's a bit fiddly in terms of configuration and menus. I.e., if you're watching a DVD with subtitles on then it can take a while to figure out how to move the screen about or change screen dimensions. This is because the menus are done by scrolling through a number of sub-menus which are not too clear. I have a foreign flat mate and the number of times we've had to restart a film after 10 minutes trying to get the subtitles in the right place is crazy!

The picture and sound are both very good and I've never had an issue with either. Had I not bought a new TV I would have kept the system for ever more. Listening to CDs is a good experience and the 5 speakers can bring out sounds that you can't hear on a regular stereo.

All in all, it's a very good system with a couple of minor faults but for the price I paid at the time it's been an excellent purchase.