JVC TH-S55

fantastic

It's worth noting that the JVC TH-S55 DVD home cinema system has been superseded by the TH-S66 (It has tallboy speakers. Although I believe that is the only difference) and the THR1 recordable version now, so this review will probably be only useful for eBay/JVC repaired units/2nd hand.

The satellite speakers are 140W, which is pretty high, and you would expect to only be on the first notch, but the volume on the DVD (centre unit) goes to 60, and I have mine on 45 - 50 for Sky and DVD in a 7 x 6m room, so bear in mind that although the speakers can handle it, the amp doesn't pack a lot of punch. The rear surrounds are omnidirectional for spatial sound. The setup is easy, and uses JVC's hand clap for fine tuning (just clap your hand and it will adjust the delay of the speakers in ms). The subwoofer driver is 16cm (6.5in?) and rumbles nicely. It needs to stay within 2.5m of the DVD (centre unit) because of the system cable which makes it difficult to hide.

The DVD player is slim with a sleek blue strip power light. The only problem I have with the design is the display, which is thin and barely readable from a distance.

As far as I know this system does not support AC3. I did try a DivX/AC3 on CD and got no sound, and the manual does not mention it either. I would assume that any AC3 .avi's would need to be converted to DVD to work.

All in all I have to consider that this only cost £130, which is within the "budget" range of home cinema systems, so I would give this a near excellent 8/10 for the price.