Sony HT-IS100 Bravia Home Theater System

[davidtran007]

Dell currently has this system for $300 with a coupon.

Any thoughts on using this as a PC / Home Theater setup? I was considering on getting this system because of the size factor. I am currently running Z5500's. All input is gladly appreciated. Thanks

 

[seemlessthunder]

On paper it actually doesn't look too bad. The receiver may or may not be crap though. If you can get it for $300 you aren't really going to beat that price for a full speaker setup, nor are you likely to find one with those dimensions that match up well for around that price. If they sell ok on the used market, you could pick it up then sell them if you aren't satisfied.

For reference, speakers are ~1.25" tweeter w/ 4.25" midwoofers. Sub is ~6.5" driver based on their wonderful measurement in mm's to make them sound better.

Tweeters actually are impressive, though they might overpower the midrange/bass. Hard to know for sure without hearing them in person.

 

[davidtran007]

Thanks... anyone else care to share their input?

 

[seemlessthunder]

Seriously, go ahead and give it a shot. It's a very reasonable price for what it is, even if it is HTIB. If you're in a fairly urban environment, you should be able to drop it on CL for a similar price you paid if you don't like them. At its retail price, there are much better options for the price, but at this price, you'd be hard pressed to find a better value. The receiver, even if it's total crap is probably worth $150-200 with auto-calibration. The cheapest subs you can get are $100 and a set of 5 speakers will easily run you at least $200. So you're talking a total of $450-500 minimum assuming these are halfways decent.

The speakers are honestly a bit interesting to me because of their larger tweeters. In general larger drivers make for a fuller, more natural sound without sounding harsh etc... so it sounds like these may have a more balanced sound since the treble is likely to be exclusively pushed up to the tweater, allowing the midwoofers to deal with the mids instead of doing double duty on the lower high frequencies. The sub on paper looks like nothing special, but some of these compact subs especially on the high end actually can be pretty good. It probably won't wake the neighbors, but I imagine it should provide a natural transition over to the bass which is inline with the fact that they've appeared to try and keep their drivers close in size to prevent any frequency range from being overpowering.

Overall, I think you'd be getting more than $300 worth of speakers that are already acoustically matched for each other. If you're set on surround sound, you aren't going to get anything better at this price. As a side note these are designed for their Bravia TV's, which used to be $1500-2000 a year ago. They're designed as a supplement to those TV's, so they should be pretty decent I would expect and possibly very nice. If you decide to get them, let us know your impressions.

 

[ave0000]

I played around with this system in BestBuy, they had it marked as $425

The look and feel of the system is great, the little baby satellites are incredibly tiny. The sub seems to be the right size. The speakers themselves just have little holes that the wires go into, but the other end of the wire is a proprietary plug. I was drawn to the size because I've been moving a lot in the last few years, but would still like good sound.

It's hard to judge sound in that store, as it's always incredibly loud. I play tested it with my ipod and I can tell you that it blows away my computer speakers at least.

The only issue that I've read about with this system is that the bass for the channels is cut out and mixed back into the sub at 700hz and below, which according to what I've read can make the bass seem "directional"

I'll agree with the other posters though, it seems alright, and that price makes it about the same as the z-5500 with a lot more features. Can anyone else offer a comparison of this to the Logitech package?