May 122013
Panasonic SC-BTT195 Energy Star 5.1-Channel 1000-Watt Full HD 3D Blu-Ray Home Theater System with Tall Boy Speakers
- Front L/R Tallboy Speakers
- Viera Connect Web Entertainment
Panasonic Blu-ray Disc home theaters have been developed under the concept of reproducing an ideal theater-like surround sound environment. The SC-BTT195 employs advanced technologies to reproduce clearer, enhanced theater-like surround sound to skillfully match high-quality 3D imagery. The integration of smart networking functions including Smartphone remote control, DLNA, Wireless LAN, digital music connection for iPod/iPhone and VIERA Connect complements tradition
List Price: $ 399.99
Price: $ 289.99
Video Review of the Panasonic SC-BTT 195 Home Theatre System,
Customer Video Review Length:: 8:15 Mins
I will admit that I had to change my review of this home theatre system. At first, I struggled mightily to connect the audio from Tivo Premier to flow through the Panasonic BTT195. Finally, I realized that I could use the Smart-Select feature on LG TV to auto-select the audio. Sounds easy enough, but it caused me a few hours of frustration.
Now on to the review-
Blu-Ray Player – I have been impressed with the functionality of the Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray player. This is the second one that I have owned, and I have found the functionality and capability to be excellent. The load times are not exceptional, but all of the features of the Blu Ray are very solid.
Home Theatre Capability – The sound of the system is acceptable, as long as you are not expecting to blow down any doors. The main unit is only about 1 1/2 thick, so it does not offer an assortment of large capacitors that can store energy for massive bass. The speakers have integrated and color coordinated plugs, so set-up can be accomplished by anyone (although getting correctly synced with a DVR is a bit of a different story). The power ratings on the unit look impressive, but keep in mind that it rating everything at 3Ohms.
Speakers – In truth, the speakers are not very impressive. All of the speakers combined weigh less than a decent subwoofer. I will say that they do match well together, and as a set they sound much better than they do individually.
Other things
- The speaker wires have integrated plugs – which means using other speakers can be a pain. This is especially true of the subwoofer since the speaker wire goes directly into the speaker box and does not connect through a terminal (My solution, when I used my own Velodyne subwoofer I simply cut the speaker wire about 3″ before it entered into the Panasonic amp).
- Does offer iPod inputs and has the ability to read SD memory cards
- Comes with a plethora of well designed apps (it is amazing how many companies create a poor YouTube app!). Included are Amazon, Hulu Plus, MLB.TV, and Netflix
Final Verdict – The Panasonic BTT195 is a nice Blu Ray player that offers a decent home theatre system. While it may not offer the boom of more expensive systems, it is also a fraction of the cost. My opinion, if you are looking for earth shattering audio….keep on looking, but if you are looking a easy to use home theatre system at a reasonable cost this is certainly worthy of you consideration.
4 Stars
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Sounds Great Once You Get It Set Up Right,
I have been an audio phi for quite some time and I wanted to spend some time with this system before I wrote a review on it. I’m glad I did because now it is my pet system; I get a special joy out of using it. Let me explain. When I first took it out of the box and saw these gleaming piano black finish towers for a smaller reasonably priced all in one system it was noteworthy. Then I hooked it up. Looking back it is an easy setup; everything is color coded so you just plug the proper wire with the color coded end into the correct speaker. I was disappointed in that the front two towers had speaker wire that was only at best 8 to 10 feet each which gave you very little allowance for hiding the wires. That is not a serious problem at all since the wire ends are just bare wire and can be added onto very easily. I just thought with the cost of this thin wire they would have supplied a longer length than that. The other wires were plenty long.
At first I was going to hook it up to a large high def LCD monitor and couldn’t get it to work. So I took it into the room with the 46″ high def TV and it worked instantly. When I first turned it on to play it the sound was very nice. It was room filling but uneventful. So then I started tweaking and it made all the difference in the world. First you need to go into “Sound” on the convenient “Home” menu on your TV screen projected by the BTT195 and change it from the factory default of “Flat” to “Heavy”. Flat is flat and that is what I was experiencing. However it is only fair to say that most people prefer flat. I want to get more excited than that. So once you set it to “Heavy” you see the typical inverted bell shaped curve with maxing the boost at both ends, the treble and bass, with a gradual slope down toward the center from both ends to flat in the middle. (Boosted mid’s typically provide a boxy type of sound so it is best to leave them flat) This is all automatically set that way just by choosing “Heavy” in the sound menu onscreen.
Ok now we have boomy bass, and crispy highs although without a tweeter in any of the front towers instead they give you a full range speaker the highs are not as crispy as a more expensive system with dedicated tweeter speakers. However the highs are fine, and sound great depending on the quality of the original sound source. If it was mixed with crispy highs that is what you get, if it was an orchestra recording with distant microphone picking up the sound the highs are of course a bit more muted. Tweeters/combo speakers are in the center channel according to the literature but center channels are mixed mostly all for voice.
Since I like the maximum amount of boom in my bass I took the sub-woofer cabinet and played with positioning. It is amazing the difference positioning makes to a sub. You have to try it in the room you are going to use it in because there are many factors affecting positioning, but generally speaking if possible place the sub about a foot or two away from a corner, and swivel this side projecting sub speaker until you feel/hear the maximum bass. The towers should be aiming right at you since treble travels in straight lines. This system has adjustments for each of the speakers so you can balance the room. I took the sub and maxed out the gain for that as well, and that is probably why when I leave the room and have some music on I can hear it rocking the entire house. The bass is louder in the next room even more so than it is in the room the speakers are in. This thing rocks.
Installation tips: When assembling the base to the first section of speaker tower, loosen the 4 screws in the metal plate which makes aligning the 2 screws that hold the tower on a lot easier. If you don’t do it that way you risk forcing the screw and stripping the thread. (This is a universal mechanical principle: Loosen, or start all screws first before tightening any one of them so alignment of each additional screw doesn’t become an issue. After you get them all started then go back and tighten them all up) the job goes faster that way too.
My first impression was that this thing looks like a receiver but it is not. Then as I got my mind out of conventional old world receieverdom, I began to realize that yes it is. However it does only give you one HDMI out as well as some types of inputs such as Optical Digital Audio Input which I hooked up right out the TV so the audio was in synch on playback, a single pair of RCA aux input jacks, as well as some strictly more modern features. For example you can access your network DLNA to connect to your Windows Media Player library. So if you have a zillion songs on a hard drive on a computer in your network you can access them and play them through the BTT195. In addition if you want to plug in a USB device (I tried the iPod shuffle and it worked great) as well as a USB external hard drive you can access your audio and video media directly…
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Great System,
Sound is very good, but the features are what really sell it. Although the interface can be a little clunky, the ability to watch amazon video and use pandora without plugging in a computer is great. Also first thing you should do after buying this system is get the App. Not only does the app give you quick access to volume and arrow keys, it also gives you a full duplicate of the actual remote AND quick control over the audio settings like base level and equalizer. This was very impressive and works great.
Something else that I never saw mentioned anywhere is once the system is hooked up to your network it is recognized as a “Renderer.” This means that if you have a Windows PC (Windows 7 for me, not sure about Macs) you can right click on a music file or video file and click play to > SC-BTT195 then it will play through your surround system… Very cool. This also works with mobile devices, but you will have to download an app to do so.
Overall, we use it like crazy and we love it. Great buy.
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