thank's for the info Otto I have a sa-ht720 we lost the active sub woofer
and system cable so we are SOL after reading your review .havent been
able to get any info from panasonic, or any dealers that i can purchase
individually.

Sounded great for price

Terrible investment... only lasted for less than year and a half

I've been buying Panasonic products my entire life as I have always been more than satisfied with the quality of their merchandise and always looked for their brand name in purchasing consumer electronics, however all that has completely changed with just this one particular product.

I bought the Panasonic SA-HT930 (aka SC-HT930) at a local Best Buy store around December of 2006 as it seemed like a great deal for a home theater in a box complete with DVD player and an overall great sounding system (for a $500 retail). This thing worked great as I would use it for about 3-6 hours per week on average to watch TV, movies, and listen to music.

Last week, I went to turn on the auxilary to watch an NBA playoff game in surround sound and a message appeared on the display stating "INIT".... The receiver wouldn't respond or let me open the DVD player or anything; it was completely frozen. I called Panasonic's 800 number and spoke with 2 representatives (that lacked any knowledge and were extremely rude, dismissive, and half asleep) that tried to troubleshoot the issue and they stated i would have to send it in to the nearest repair center and pay for the freight.

After boxing up the unit and sending it to their suggested repair center in McAllen, TX, I get a phone call a week later from the warehouse manager stating that THEY DO NOT EVEN REPAIR THIS UNIT at their service center and that they would have to ship it to OHIO!... thanks guys!

Recently, I have discovered that the cost of repair for this defective piece of junk is more than half of what i paid for it... I also spoke with a representative from Panasonic's FANTASTIC customer service and they have advised me that a replacement DVD player and receiver with the same model number (yes that's right.. same dvd player/different box) WOULD NOT WORK with my existing speakers!!! She stated "using a replacement receiver will only work for a short while, however they GUARANTEE it will break again within a short matter of time." She says the only thing I can do is to buy a whole new system... HOORAY!

Now I'm really not the type of guy who likes to spend $500 on a product that lasts for less than 2 years and becomes completely useless... in fact i don't recall EVER spending that much on an electronics item that has been rendered 100% useless unless I re-invest another 50% of the cost back into the product.

I've also been doing my homework on this particular system on the internet and have found MANY disgruntled customers with the same problem with this unit going KAPUT after one year's use.... uh oh, should we get recall notices?!?

Anyways, Now I don't know what to do with my subwoofer or speakers because there's no way I'm spending $250 PLUS shipping to get my AMAZING dvd player back from Panasonic and obviously from what their reps are telling me, I can't use these speakers with another SA-HT930 receiver that I buy used from somebody else... Anyone wanna buy some Panasonic speakers?!?

CONCLUSION...

From this experience, i've realized that Panasonic is really going down the pooper in terms of quality and retaining customer loyalty. Since I now have 3rd degree burns from lack of professionalism by this nazi regime/lemon party, I'll make SURE TO NEVER AGAIN BUY ANYTHING from Panasonic and will continue to spread the news about how bad of an experience this was for me.

If you'd like to contact me about any further questions, I'd be happy to share more details about this situation.... My name is James Otto and I'm the Marketing and Sales Director of a company that actually takes care of their customers.

Customer Service

to be honest... they were the worst customer service reps i have ever dealt with

Similar Products Used:

Not a huge advocate of the "theater in a box"... especially now