Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

THE SPEAKERS: This system sounds good and it has 5 speakers and 1 sub woofer. Hence 5.1 home theater system. The 5 stands for the amount of speakers and the .1 stands for the sub woofer. The front, surround and center speaker are about 6-7" big and the sub woofer is a big box looking thing about 1 1/2ft. on all sides. This system comes with its own speaker wire too but it's very thin. I suggest picking up 16 gauge speaker wire for it. The smaller the gauge the wire is the thicker it is. Do not buy higher than 14 gauge wire because if you do it will not fit into the clips properly. Also 16 gauge is more than enough for most situations unless you have a ginormous room and I'm talking gymnasium big. If you have a small room around 15-20ft. by 15-20ft. A 100ft. spool of wire should suffice. Make sure to measure the amount of wire you need 1st though before you buy it if that's possible. The speaker wire that comes with it is color coded so it is extremely easy to hook the speakers up to the right clips. If you order your own wire it will be a bit more confusing to hook up because the wire will be a different color. The length of the wire that comes with is as follows: 10ft. front speaker wire for ea. speaker, 10ft center speaker wire, 26ft. surround speaker wire and 10ft. wire for sub woofer. It has 2 extra speaker hook ups for another room. These are for the channel B speakers that do not come with the system. Channel A is the 5.1 channel speakers. Meaning if you have 2 extra speakers and you hook them up to the front B clips on the back you can listen to this system in a different room using channel B. Keep this system on channel A if you do not have these extra speakers as it will degrade your sound quality if you don't. THE CONNECTIONS: It has 4 HDMI inputs and 1 HDMI output, 2 component video in, 1 Component video out, 4 AV in, 1 AV out, 1 AV audio from TV in, a monitor out coaxial whatever that is..., a R1 remote control hook up again unknown to me..., A.M. and F.M. radio antenna hook ups with the antenna wires, 2 digital audio optic in, 1 digital audio coaxial in, a USB port, and the speaker clips for channel A speakers (12 clips) and front channel B speakers (4 clips). The component connections on this device are video only. If your hooking a component device/ system into your TV you can still listen to its audio on this home theater system if you have a digital audio coaxial or digital audio optic cable that can hook up to both your TV and this system. I love this system for the amount of connections it has. You can also hook up a MP3 player I-phone or I-pod device that has music on it and listen to your music using a USB cable on this home theater system. You can also hook headphones up to it if you want to listen quietly but I have yet to discover what kind of head phones to use with it as the head phone jack is big. Bigger than a ear buds plug in. It will take some time getting used to all the settings and some research if your new to home theater systems but its so much better having the sound all around you than just in front. It's a great learning experience. This device is CEC or RIHD compatible if you know what that means. I prefer to keep these settings turned off though. It annoys me when I'm trying to listen to music from one device and I go to turn my TV off to listen to just the music using my home theater system and it turns my home theater system off with it... All in all this device is definintley worth the price and I suggest that if your new to home theater system this is a good place to start. The top does get a little hot when it's in use but the manual that comes with it states that this is natural. It also states to give the system at least 20mm of breathing room and keep it in an area with good ventilation. I assume this is to keep the system cool. I use this device with my PS1, PS2, and Xbox 360. It's supposed to be 3D compatable but I would't know I don't have a 3D TV so I could not put this to the test. It works with 720p and 1080p among other resolutions. It also has an on screen setup menu using the HDMI out. If you find this review helpful or not please vote. It took me alot of time to write this.