Customer Reviews

JVC THC60 5.1 Channel DVD Home Theater System

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Sound is very good for the price, especially after replacing the worthless speaker wires with some decent 12 gauge ones. The sound difference is very audible.

Pros:

Great price.
HDMI upconversion looks very nice.
Good sound for the price (after swapping out in box wires with 12 gauge).
Headphone output.
Thin design considering 5 disc changer.

Neutral:

USB support for music / video play back. It has a bit of problem with skipping if the usb device is fairly large. I dedicated 8 gigs of my creative zen vision:m towards usb drive and it will often skip while playing divx files off it unless I change the capacity to ~1 gig.

Cons:

Minimalistic inputs and outputs. If you have the cash, buy a decent receiver and build up your own system. This system completely lacks flexibility. My solution for the lack of audio inputs was to purchase a toslink switch.
Disc swapping is very slow.
Horrible remote (this isn't too big of a problem if you have a decent universal remote).


Edit:

Update: I've lowered my rating for this to 2 stars. This is due to a major draw back: the HDMI output cannot handle 4:3 aspect video. It will simply stretch it to 16:9. If you have any 4:3 video and you plan on using the hdmi output, avoid this.

Edit #2:

Update: I'll raise this back to 3.5 stars. The above mentioned problem can be overcome by manually changing the output to 480p before playing the video and manually setting it back to 1080i afterwards. The "auto" feature doesn't actually change the settings to 480p even if it is a 4:3 ratio.

Update concerning the skipping: It appears that the skipping is the result of drawing power through the usb port. If you use an external hard drive that has an ac adapter, it will run very smooth.

This is wonderful. The picture quality is amazing and the sound......oh the sound. The range is fairly good and the highs are bright and crisp. For an overall system this is just right. The ease of installation and the remarkable sound makes this theater system a great deal. I would recommned this to every one who wants a cut above the average.

Pros:

High power and good sound clarity. Note: I am not an audiophile.
All four satellite speakers have stands.
Supports USB devices, plays MP3s and MPEG-4 .AVI files. The manual says that it supports only DivX and ASF, but I've found that Xvid (a more popular Internet format) works well also.
Has an AM/FM tuner with external antenna.
Low price compared to similarly-featured systems (S*ny this means you).

Cons:

Only 1 auxiliary input. The input can be analog, coax-digital, or optical, but only 1 jack will work at the same time.
The subwoofer/amp and the DVD head unit use some kind of proprietary connector cable; they cannot be used independently with other components.
The DVD playback hardware is on the slow side---there is a noticeable delay before resuming from pause or scan.
DVD changing is slow, but I understand that most compact changers are like this.
The DVD "resume memory" forgets its position if you change discs or select another input.
The USB feature is slow for devices with lots of files (like my MP3 player). Your MP3 player can always be hooked up to the aux input so this isn't a big deal.

My wife is a musician and has an excellent ear for sound. We listened to several systems before finally settling on this one. This system has the best sound in its price range.

I bought this system because of the power handling, but didn't know what to expect sound-wise. I have to say this is one of the best systems I have heard in a long time. My mother has the bose 6.1 system and I can't tell the difference between hers and this, besides the fact that this system is 1/3 the cost of a bose system.

I just bought this system for Christmas. Hooked it all up yesterday morning. Pretty straight forward and easy to do. First reaction was, that the speakers were larger than I had thought when I saw them on display at Best Buy. But I just decided to use the stands for the rear ones instead of placing them on a shelf behind the couch. Will probably give me better coverage throughout the room anyway.

The sound is great, listened to a CD, some FM radio, then watched some TV, Tivo, and a DVD. The first strange thing I noticed was that when switching between radio, CD, DVD, Tivo, and TV I had to increase the volume respectively to get the same sound output. So when switching from TV back to radio or CD I have to make sure to lower the volume a lot first, otherwise the music will come through suddenly blaringly loud.

I also found that after I calibrated the speaker delays for there distance from my optimal viewing spot, when watching TV and trying Stadium surround sound setting, the sound came through delayed. But I don't think Stadium setting is suppose to be for Movie or TV watching anyway, so that is probably how it should be.

Watching the DVD connected through Monster HDMI cable (not included) on my HD TV was aweseome! The picture was so clear and crisp, it was a computer animation film, those look best on my TV. The sound with the surround sound on Dolby Digital, was fenominal! One point had a rumbling train pulling up and it rumbled the room so much I paused the movie to make sure it wasn't coming from outside the house. Sweet!

Remote is not a replacement for any of mine, just another one for the collection. Only controls the basic functions of my TV and won't do anything for my Tivo or Xbox of course. But then again, now with this player, I probably won't ever use my Xbox as a DVD player again, so that remote will probably go into storage.

Great system overall so far, I am happy with my purchase. Just need to get some more speaker wire so I can reach the wires around the room to the rear speakers instead of across the floor.

Sound is very good for the price, especially after replacing the speaker wires with some decent 16 gauge ones. The sound difference is very audible. Instruction manuel is very difficult to follow.Great system overall so far, I am happy with my purchase.

You can't beat the price and free shipping on amazon. I looked...

I really enjoy the sound quality in this system. The subwoofer is fantastic, no distortion with excellent tone at all volume levels. I would wish the speakers were a little beefier, they start to lose sound quality near the 52+ volume range, but that would probably be solved by switching to a 14 guage or better wire, as they only come with 20 guage.

Overall it is an excellent sounding system and my recommendation for anyone looking in the $300-400 range.

We received the unit from Amazon after only a couple of days. When I hooked it up, it worked right off - sounds great!

- I thought that the DVD changer would be slow but it is amazingly quick; I like it better than the carousel kind that I thought I wanted.
- DVD played to HDTV is phenomenal! Clear picture and great sound. We played two non-digital DVDs and then one with Dolby - WOW! and then I discovered that it wasn't even in surround - double WOW when I turned that on. Maybe we're just easy to please.
- lack of outputs is a pain.
- the description of the connectors and how to connect is weak; doesn't even describe how to use the HDMI; doesn't describe how the optical input is used in conjunction with the HDMI (if even needed)
- description of how to set it up is also weak. Like they are afraid to explain anything. Several notes are used to state what it won't do, but it was terribly unclear what they meant.
- doesn't describe how to use the device with other audio and/or video external devices; nor does it say you can't.

The system is very good for the price. It has HD upconverting DVD player which isn't something you see too easily in HTIBs in this price range. The system is good for a small to medium size room.

Negative - The system doesn't have an antenna input. It can be okay as a audio receiver but I would not count on it for video inputs. If you have a TV with many video inputs then you are covered.