I feel that this particular home theater system is a definite pass unless you are desperate for wireless speakers.
The SC-HT940 Deluxe offers up a bit of a conundrum for me-- I
want to like it, and when it works it works great; however, there are just too
many serious shortcomings inherent to the system for me to be able to recommend
it to anyone.
The good news is that right out of the box the Panasonic
sounds great, it accurately reproduces sound with little distortion and great
clarity, and at 1200 total watts the system has plenty of power that will work
well in a mid sized living room.
The Panasonic is also feature rich, however each feature
seems to come with caveats that forces the user to make compromises. For
instance, the SC-HT940 Deluxe has the ability (with an optional accessory) to
use wireless signals to transfer sound to the rear speakers, effectively
removing the most annoying cords. At first blush this appears to be a great
feature, unfortunately the convenience comes at the cost of poor audio. Using
the wireless setting resulted in hollow and underpowered rear channel
performance. Wireless audio technology simply has not advanced enough to make
it usable in the mid priced home market successfully.
Another flaw is the supposed interoperability of the system
with other AV components. Panasonic claims that the SC-HT940 Deluxe can be
managed with the same remote you use with your other AV components, but what I
didn’t realize is that the proprietary HDAVI specification needed for this interoperability
can only be found in other Panasonic components.
There are other defects by design flaws that plague the
SC-HT940 Deluxe. Its lack of digital inputs means that you are unable to hook
up other AV components to the receiver, leaving people with large CD changers
out of luck. Another potential problem that I personally did not experience,
but is apparently relatively common, is the dreaded Panasonic f61 error.
Essentially, this error can pop up at any time, even months after purchase, and
renders your system unusable. If your system becomes plagued with this error
Panasonic will fix it, but that can often take weeks.
When the Panasonic SC-HT940 Deluxe works, it works well. There are just too many things going against this system for me to give
it a good rating. Perhaps if Panasonic offered this as an entry level system I
would have been more lenient, but I just expect more from a mid priced system.
