Customer Reviews

Panasonic SC-PT480 5.1 Channel Cinema Surround Home Entertainment System

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Ok first of all coming into this don't expect this system to blow you away. This is a pretty small little surround sound system and packs a pretty good punch for its' size. On the other hand it is not going to sound as good as the higher end surround sounds(obviously). I bought this for a system to use in my bedroom and it works great for that. Now don't get me wrong it does pack a pretty good punch, just nowhere near as good as the bigger systems. If you are looking for a good cheap surround sound this one will do just fine though. If you have never had a better system then you will probably think it is amazing.

My recommendation though is if you can afford it I would go for a higher end model. I went into this one not expecting much, so I wasn't disappointed, but if you are expecting it to blow you away you will be.

The bottom line is this system is just average at a very low price.

I have a Panasonic Plasma in our Apt and I love it! So i wanted to get a Panasonic HTS to match it. Not to mention i wanted to try out the Viera Link option which ended up being just an 'OK' feature. Basically i can control my TV(not cable) and my HTS w/ just the Home theater sys controller. But it still lacks the important controls for the TV (i.e. pic format and pic mode) so its really not all its cracked up to be. I was trying to decide on this unit and the Panasonic SC-BT230 5.1 Channel System. The BT230 has a blu ray player. When i compared the 2 systems the only difference was the blu ray player along with some web features(youtube, pandora, netflix). Also the BT230 has decoding for newer audio codecs(DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD).The web features i could care less about bc i have a computer hooked up to my TV. The blu ray wasn't worth the extra 130 dollars to me considering i could buy a blu ray player for around 100 bucks. Plus i want to wait for the price of blu ray disc to go down before i invest in a player. They will only get cheaper as time goes on. Anyway, when comapring the 2 HTS's, the SC-PT480 has the almost the same surround sound sys as the BT230. Both are 1000 watts -RMS- (both really only put out 446 watts -FTC-) and both have the SAME Speakers. So if you're looking for an inexpensive 5.1 system and aren't ready to dive into blu ray yet, then go for it. The bass is pretty powerful, IMO. I kept it on the lowest setting when I tried it out on an episode of True Blood and then a few scenes from The Dark Knight. Like the other reviewer said, it does pack a pretty good punch for its size. Now I can't wait to get Halo Reach this month and try it out on the 360.

Pro's:
Inexpensive
Small speakers
Small DVD unit
sleek design
Strong sound for small-medium sized rooms
DVD up-conversion
HDMI port
5.1 Surround sound
Front speaker surround sound mode (surround sound from all speakers set up like in the pic above)
Ipod/Iphone ready
Easy set up

Con's:
Not 7.1
Not many ports on back
No fine tuning
No DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby TrueHD

This 5.1 DVD system has a specific niche - This system takes up very little space and packs a good quality sound for the price. I listen to music, view DVD's, and sports and movies sourced by an HD cable STB. The surround speakers do their job just fine. My test DVD that I used was Diana Krall's "Live in Paris". It is a standard 480p disc and my DVD player in the LR is also standard. The LR speakers are KLM with two 12" woofers in each and bright dome tweeters. The subwoofer is a passive 15" and has a huge magnet. The music is clean and has a good "sound stage". Jeff Hamilton's impactful drums and the acoustic bass played by John Clayton are replicated as if they are in the room. (So it seemed was Diana.) In the bedroom where I placed the Panasonic (easy install)I had to turn down the db's for the center channel and was able to drop the subwoofer (four settings available) output so it was cleaner and not so "boomy". The subwoofer has a very small footprint (5.5Wx10Dx11H). The system pleased me in its playback, and the up-conversion on my 37' Visio at 720P was a delightful surprise! I was given deeper and more vibrant colours and better detail in the fabrics, hair and so forth - much more realistic. The optical audio cable was run from the STB and gives me great 5.1 sound while viewing HD sporting events and HD movies. As I wrote in my above preamble this system is for an intimately sized room - our BR is 14x18 and was filled with sound beautifully.

......that this is not a $1000.00 system. Having had an older Pioneer 500W/chnl, JBL spkrs, powered JBL 500W-sub Home Theater System(HT), this system should not really compare, but considering the difference in price this does a pretty good job. The sound is really quit surprisingly good. We are right now watching/listening to "Avatar" and I have to admit the sound is really full; deep punchy, almost floor shaking bass, good separation, and clear center chnl vocals. In our 20'X15' room it seems to fill the room quite well. We bought this system to add to our recently acquired flat screen TV -Vizio 47in HD- that only has optical digital for an audio out and cr@ppy internal sound. My old Pioneer/JBL HT system does not have the optical inputs nor the 1080 DVD player. Speaking of DVD player, we are really impressed with the 1080 up-converting DVD player. It has been great re-watching our old movies in near HD quality. Considering that my old Pioneer/JBL system was about 10X the cost of this Panasonic PT-480 and that this has probably close to 80% - 85% the sonic response, and with the 1080 DVD player, I'd say this system is a very good value. I cannot attest to the reliability as we've only had it hooked up for a couple of weeks. Note: do not try setting this up in a hurry in low light conditions, it is too easy to get the purple and blue leads mixed up and it will sound like cr@p : ).

It's not so great if your looking for a 'shake the house sound'(like the movies), but it does pack a pretty good punch for a small system.The price was right'so I'm ok with it for now.

the pt480 is good for the money $300nz on sale from $400 thats what got me to the store (dse nz) you dont get much for that down here . very easy to set up i found the fm stations almost preset them selves 'a surprise as i wasnt aware it had fm ' how ever the surround speakers are a little lite weight and need to be placed at ear level to notice any noise from them . quality is good but where they get 1000 watts rms from i dont know sounds more like 350 watts to me , but at 75% volume thats still enough sound to fill an average sized room to the point you wont be able to hear the person sitting next to you . ipod dock and the ability to play cds are great features .
the ideal place for this unit i think would be the bedroom or a games set up .
if your really price conscience the sc-pt70 would be a better buy

I bought this system because I needed one and plus it was affordable. This product didn't come with a HDMI cable or optical audio cable so I ordered those on Amazon as welll. The HDMI was only 2 bucks and the optical was like 7. The bass on this system is fantastic. It shakes the room very well. It gets verrrryyyyyyy louddd when u max it. I would never max it. you would probably get deaf easily. The volume has a max of 100, but its very loud at 50. Only problem i have is it took a little while to setup, but i didnt know where to put all the speakers so i had to think about that. Too many wires. it drives me crazy but i love the system. ipod dock built in is a big plus. it charges it while its connected. it doesnt play videos though. if it played videos it would be even better! just dont know how to get all speakers working on same volume. the rear speakers arent as loud as the frount ones. it plays on either front left and right, surround left and right, and sub. or it plays on all front ones plus sub and center. sub isnt that big but bass is great. really shakes the floor. wires are longer then needed for my room. its about 10*10ft. all in all great system, you just have to mess around with the settings.

Don't bother with this system! We received it as an anniversary gift and it has been nothing but trouble. We set it up and tested it out - it sounded great! We were very impressed with the quality for the price, until a few minutes later we turned it off only to get the message "erase" followed by "REQ". They system was completely frozen. The power light was still on but unresponsive. You couldn't turn it on or off or eject your disc. We unplugged it and plugged it back in again and nothing happened. It was completely fried and wouldn't turn on. We drive 2 hours back (one way) and returned it and the store gave us another identical system. We set it all back up (which takes a while with arranging the speakers in the room) and watched a movie. When we turned it off afterwards the same message came up and it completely froze and died again! We drove all the way back and the store refused to give us anything other than the same system unless we forked over at least 100 dollars to upgrade. So we went back home with our third system - surely three of them couldn't have the same defect! NOPE. Same thing happened. This time we called panasonic and they had no clue what the message on the display meant. They directed us to a service center. The person at the service centre said that when he called the panasonic help line for service technicians like him that they said that they didn't know what the "erase, REQ" message meant. I don't understand how you can program that into your system's electronics but not know what it means! After THREE MONTHS of it being in the shop we finally got it back. We set it up and it worked. YAY! We were happy to finally be done with that annoying problem. It wasn't fun spending all that time and effort to get something fixed. My parents had spent all that money on a gift and it was 4 months later and we had only gotten about 2 hours of working use out of it. After being repaired we got 2 months of use out of it and last night the same message came up! We are completely frustrated! If this system breaks so easily and the only thing we can do is wait months at a time for it to be repaired then as soon as the warranty is up you are screwed. Don't buy this product, you will regret it!

Little unhappy with the balance of the system, or at least the capabilities of such. I have a large room so its understandable. In a smaller environment it would be fine. None the less its a good system. It is a little difficult to get set up, the instructions are pretty sad for a novice. It does work good with my panasonic TV and the xbox system. Cost wise it is the best unit I found for the money.

I have had this system for about a year now,(in my bedroom) and i have had great success playing movies, my xbox and music through my ipod on this system. The speakers are very small so you can fit them just about anywhere, and the subwoofer is good for most uses but it will not shake the floor and it is not very powerful. One of my main problems with this system is that the receiver lacks inputs, it has one optical audio input, analog and one HDMI out, so you cannot connect a Blu ray player to it. I am now upgrading to the Onkyo HT-S5400 7.1-Channel Home Theater System, but this has been a very good little system that packs great punch for it's size and price.