After being bought a 32" Widescreen TV by my wife in January 2001, we decided that it would be a good idea to replace our old stereo system, which comprised of Sony separates built in the early 1980s and an Alba CD player (apart from anything else, they wouldn't fit in the TV cabinet!)
As we were replacing the whole lot we decided to look at home cinema DVD systems. We looked at offerings from Sony, Panasonic and this one from Pioneer.
Our main concerns were how good the system sounded (which counted out the Sony unit we looked at - the sound was terrible on that) and how good it looked (which discounted the bulky Panasonic unit - BTW the looks thing was my wife's input to the buying process!!!) I searched the internet for the best price I could find (I think it was about £500 but I might be wrong), printed off the details and took them to Kendals in Manchester who subsequently honoured their price match guarantee (even though they were selling the same unit for over £600)
When we got the 3 boxes home, we spent about 2 hours setting the system up and connecting it to our TV. We were quite happy with how the sound was set up straight from the box and only changed the settings when we moved to a bigger house.
In the past 6 months, the system has developed a problem where it will not recognise audio CDs - it still plays DVDs with no problem. On contacting Pioneer Customer Services they directed me to an approved service centre who are going to charge £40 just to look at it! After having my previous system for considerably longer (and a cheap one at that!) I can honestly say I am disappointed with the reliability of this machine. My only other problem with the machine is that the remote control has so many buttons that it is somewhat overwhelming - especially when your wife wants to use it to control every appliance in the house!!!
Overall I have been quite happy with the unit and, if you can get one for the right price, I would still recommend getting one.
More details
Ease of Installation
Average
Remote Control
Satisfactory
Instructions
Quite Helpful / Understandable
Durability
Poor
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