Too quiet for the average living room, this home theater system great for a small bedroom.
The RCA RTD207 Home Theater System fits an interesting niche, though most likely unintentionally. Being one of the most inexpensive home theater in a box setups to ever darken my doorstep I did not have high hopes for the RTD207. I was expecting tinny sound and wholly underpowered speakers and needless to say an uninspired design.
Personally, I am not a fan of the RTD207’s looks. The receiver/CD changer is boxy and the whole set is housed in a generic and unappealing grey plastic. That said, at this price you can’t really expect brushed stainless steel, but I’m sure they could have come up with something better than this.
Audio performance was actually better than I expected though still very underpowered. The sound was otherwise decent, all ranges were rendered in a clear and responsive manner. The only real down side was that the sound lacked the volume you would find in a more expensive speaker set.
This leads us to this product's perfect niche: the bedroom home theater in a box. I definitely would not use this product in a full sized living room, but in a bedroom or a small apartment the RTD207 would be a perfect addition. The five disk changer, and compact size make this system convenient and inconspicuous, everything you could want in a bedroom home theater kit.
In the end, I am a little confused about what to rate this system. Should I take a lot of points off because of the underpowered speakers, or should I add a few because the underpowered speakers are really a feature in disguise? The RTD207 is not marketed as a small room home theater kit, so there may be some mad consumers out there who were expecting louder output. However, if they did their homework they would know better.
