Cons:
Defective, Defective by Design, Poor quality, Zero-shameful support from Sony
The Bottom Line:
You'll want to stay as far away from this product as possible unless you happen to like major headaches.
Overall Rating:
Author's Review
I made the HUGE mistake of purchasing one of the units because I wanted a small, good looking home theater system for our bedroom. I can't say anything good about it, and the only neutral thing I can say about it is that it's design is "unconventional". Allow me to tell you why I am so utterly dissatisfied:
I received the unit with 2 major malfunctions that made it essentially unusable- the DVD player skipped continuously on even new CD's and scratched the surface of every DVD it played (!!!) and the video was severely distorted from the component outputs (the distortion looked like an MPEG conversion issue, but in any case it was unwatchable).
I contacted Sony about the issues, and they said that my only recourse was to send it to Texas (and pay for the shipping there and back!!!) or take it in to a local repair center. The closest local repair center is 15 miles away from my home. I reluctantly agreed to take it in to the repair center.
The local repair center kept it for 1.5 months, and I had to make many trips to bring them components. It was an enormous inconvenience for me.
When I picked up the unit, the DVD player issue seemed to be fixed but the video distortion was as bad as ever. The repair shop said they didn't even look at that issue, even though it was written down on their work order and I had clearly documented it with Sony.
I called Sony and politely suggested they give me a better option since I had been very patient with this $1300 headache so far. I received very rude and disrepectful treatment (the representative continually interrupted me even after I had asked him not to), and they eventually said at the top level of support that Sony's policy is to repair defective units, not replace them. They were not concerned that I had had a miserable experience up to this point, and they did not offer any new options beyond shipping it out for repair and taking it back to the same local shop.
So here I am- 2 months since paying $1300 to get a home theater system that I expected to have working out of the box- with a defective unit dreading bringing it back to the local repair shop. In my opinion, Sony doesn't seem to care about the quality of their own products or the experiences of their customers.
The product itself is VERY overpriced for its feature set. If you are expecting that this premium is going toward higher quality or a better customer experience, you will be disappointed. It is going to a little brushed metal (most of the unit is plastic and particle board, actually) and a brand name that is looking its reputation for quality by the second (I know many would say its long gone by now).
If you're still thinking about buying it, then a) you're crazy and b) you should definitely buy it from a local vendor, since the unit weighs about 100 pounds and shipping it back so they can give you a new one with the hassle of dealing with Sony will not be a good option.
BTW, the wireless speaker system is ridiculously fragile since it requires 3 small infrared transmitters/receivers to be set up. Our back speakers are never working because one of them is usually tipped over. Maybe wireless makes sense in some circumstances, but this implementation will leave you asking "What is the point again?"