Customer Reviews

Zenith DVT412 200-Watt Home Theater System with Progressive Scan DVD

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

 

 

I am not an audiophile, but I have been very skeptical of these small home theter systems for many years. They're just so small, especially the speakers, that I couldn't believe the sound was very good. Well, I was wrong. I bought this system because we bought a new television for our bedroom. I had attached some JBL bookshelf speakers to our old set, and they were so nice that I wanted to use them for the new set, too. Well, as I expected, the new TVs don't come with external speaker jacks anymore, just audio outputs for amplifiers. So, because of the limited space available, I decided to buy one of these systems to kill two birds, as it were, by replacing the old DVD player with a combination DVD player and Dolby surround-sound amplifier. The set comes with 5 micro-speakers, but I used my 2 JBL's for the front left and right. Easy install. Comes with miles of speaker wire, so no worries there. Right away, the quality of the sound impressed me. Good depth, nice separation, and healthy volume. I could probably have done away with the JBLs and been just as happy with the micro-speakers, as they were more than adequate. I balanced them with the built-in controls and am very happy. Surround sound is a very different experience from standard stereo, and the 5 channel sound really does enhance movie watching. My only regret is that if I'd known how good these small systems were, I might have bought one with more power. The maximum volume this system delivers isn't going to bowl you over, so if you're looking to have the same deafening sound levels you find at your local cineplex, move upscale. But I think most people would find this system has more than enough oomph. The subwoofer will do justice to everything from overtures to battle scenes. I could nit-pick the Zenith DVD player about the clunkiness of the hardware and tiny buttons on the remote, but overall we're tickled with this little beauty. It makes a great add-on to a new TV.

Super easy to set up, on screen set up was wonderful. Took only a few minutes to set up, and picture and sound were good.. until about 30 mins into playiung the disk something in the unit "popped" and then: no sound.

Had a lot of fun taking it apart and returning it.

Worked great for first month. Now no longer plays DVDs. Will still play CDs. DVDs either not recognized by player or will freeze if the player by chance recognizes the DVD. BTW, the DVDs are not the problem since they play perfectly fine on another DVD player.

System worked great the first 12 months...then as others have stated..I started to have problems with the system reading CDs and DVDs. You could hear the system grinding trying to read the disc. Then the real problem started...my system will no longer play DVDs...but it will still read CDs.

I would recommend not purchasing this system based upon this problem also being reported by others. This is an honest review of my experience.

I bought this system 2 days ago and I was expecting a decent system as I'd made the purchase after studying the reviews; unfortunately I wasn't pleased.

First thing I noticed is that a AV patch cable wasn't included, Amazon says its included on Amazon.com, but Zenith's customer service clarified to me that its not one of the included accessories. So, its really not a one-box-has-all system as its made out to be on amazon.com.

Next, on playing the disks I'm getting a squealing sound and the sound is quite loud. Perhaps the moving parts are rubbing against themselves, perhaps they're rubbing against my disks - I'm just concerned I might be damaging my cd/dvd collection in this player. The picture and playback quality from the cds/mp3-cds and dvd is very good, there are no gripes about playback quality.

Finally, while using the unit as a reciever I noticed that the volume in the rear speakers is very low when compared against similar units. I was quite dissapointed with the surround effect I was enjoying.

Overall, all I can say is - You get what you pay for; for the price I paid I think its a decent system.

I was skeptical of this unit when I saw it's price, and thought "pfft! 30w per speaker, weak"

This unit is really powerful and amazing quality sound. In setup, you can even set up the individual output volume of all of the speakers (which the poster who commented about weak rear speakers probably didn't know).

I have not experienced any of the issues anyone else has, it is a great unit, I just wish it had an RCA out for the audio as well.

Call me old fashioned but I feel like an electronics product should work well until you drop it. This dvd-surround sound speakers worked great for awhile. One annoyance was that it wasn't compatible with our cable remote. Anyways, after about 9 months the thing stopped playing cds or dvds. No matter what you put in it says "No Disc". I had a "fix" where I'd take the top off and manually spin the cd when the tray was first closed to kickstart it into reading it. Less than a month after that this no longer worked. The year warranty only covered parts, not labor, but I lost the receipt so it's moot. Luckily I only paid $100, and I need a dvd-vcr combo anyways; since the speakers still work for tv I can probably patch them through this thing and still get some use out of it.

Got it at Circuit City for $120! Lots of bang for the buck. Plays almost all types of DVD and CD out there. So it's got only one audio input (and RCA at that), the 200w is more than enough for a medium size room.