I am thinking of buying the above kit. Has anyone had any experience of it. It doesnt seem to be featured in any of the home cinema magazines.

[mk]

I purchased the SONY HDK-215 system from Currys @ £ 349 before christmas - as far as i can tell the system provides Dolby Digital sound perfectly ok. The sat speakers are a little small so therefore the sound they produce is limited to treble. The documentation is very good and you can adjust everything via the remote.

Thanks for the feedback. I now have to convince the wife that we need 5 more speakers in the room!! Cheers

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but ...

If you mean the Sony HTK-215 I bought mine for £250 from hotkit.

Regards

Kevin

Thanks for the web lead Kevin. Would you recommend the system..and shortcomings etc. Cheers

I am thinking of buying this system to compliment my Sony DVP-F11 "compact" DVD player. A couple of questions: 1.Do you know if the compact AV Amp is about the same size?
2. My DVP-F11 has a built in DTS decoder wheras I do not believe the AV amp in the HTK-215 kit has this function - does this mean that I cannot output DTS only Dolby Digital or can the amp handle the decoded DTS signal?

Lawrence
Dimensions are as follows: 21.5cm wide, 6cm high and 22.8cm deep. Same width and height as the DVP-F11. Cannot comment on point 2.

The HTk-215 handles both DD and DTS via the optical input (sorry no coax!) so no seperate decoded needed.

DTS is not mentioned on Sony's website or Hotkit's but I can confirm it does work. The unit itself has DTS stickers all over the box and on top of the amp.

As for a quick review of what it sounds like ....

Good for a small room (mine is 12ft X 11ft) as the Amp isn't that powerful. Without being all techie about sound levels or amp power, the volume goes to 30 and I usually have it set at about 16-18 (told you I wouldn't be techie !)

Some clipping noticed on the centre speaker when pushed (especially on Fifth element and Aliens).
Subwoofer handles bass OK (enough to shake the pictures on the wall !) but lacks distinction. Very noticable on American Physco's nightclub scenes where the bass is nothing more than 'rumble'.

Pro logic (for Sky digital mainly) is not that good. Not very important for me but it may be for some people.

General sound reproduction and ease of setup good.

Overall a good choice for an 'Out of the box' system, my wife would only accept very small unobtrusive speakers so thats what she got !

Kevin.

[nickwall]

Any updates on this? Are you guys still happy with the system?

I've got a basic digitheatre, and want to upgrade to dts and a bit more power. My mate is willing to buy my digitheatre for virtually full price, so it's between a HTK-215, the HTK-315, a Digitheatre DTS or a Yamaha VS-10. Any comments?

After hearing the sony 215 and the Vs-10, I decided to go for the Yamaha. Bass was a bit richer, the sony sounded weak by comparison.( I wish the home cinema mags would test these products...none of them are mentioned in any of the reviews!) Vs-10 was easy to set up although speakers not just as compact as the Sony. I bought from John Lewis for £399, but got a £100 refund when I saw the kit at www.unbeatable.co.uk for about £290. JL will match price if you print out web page on day of transaction, and phone unbeatable to ensure they have it in stock.

[nickwall]

Originally posted by fcca:
After hearing the sony 215 and the Vs-10, I decided to go for the Yamaha. Bass was a bit richer, the sony sounded weak by comparison.( I wish the home cinema mags would test these products...none of them are mentioned in any of the reviews!) Vs-10 was easy to set up although speakers not just as compact as the Sony. I bought from John Lewis for £399, but got a £100 refund when I saw the kit at www.unbeatable.co.uk for about £290. JL will match price if you print out web page on day of transaction, and phone unbeatable to ensure they have it in stock.

Cheers for the info fcca. You just made my mind up for me I think, the Yamaha it is. One more question - do the speakers all connect via the main amp/decoder unit, or do they wire via the subwoofer like a digitheatre? I'm hoping the subwoofer just connects to the amp with a standard phono cable, and the 5 speakers hang off the amp.

A very valid point..I should have mentioned the connector!! The centre speaker and two surrounds connect via the subwoofer.
There is an unusual connector between the subwoofer and amp - an eight pin din. The connector is 3 metres long, so as long as the subwoofer position can be aranged within this distance there will be no problem. If you want to hide the subwoofer away at a distance, don't go for the Yamaha!!. I tried to source a din connector from a number of sources, and was being quoted about £100 to make one up!! Yamaha don't offer an extended version. I ended up reorganising our room to suit the subwoofer!!
The amp has a standard subwoofer jack point if you want to add another subwoofer, but the amp does not have separate connectors for the centre & surround speakers. Good luck