A familiar story in consumer electronics: Start with a luxurious, expensive and exclusive product category, and within a few years, you see the sea of imitators delivering the same basic item with more features, less money, and – ideally – better performance. Take one-speaker audio.Once the exclusive preserve of Yamaha Digital Sound Projectors, the category of an explosion, with boutique brands (ZVOX, Soundmatters), home-audio fellows (Polk Audio, definitive technology), as well as leading manufacturers (Samsung, Sony) all throwing their hat in the ring.But even in this hotly contested category, Sony HT-CT100 Home Theater System outstanding design. Of the two parts (speaker plus subwoofer) 3.1-channel system is one of the smallest SoundBar speaker we’ve tested to date, and he is proud of more than the average respect stressed the three entrances HDMI. Best of all, it costs only $ 300, and – given that the modest price tag – it sounds great. And because HT-CT100 handles power and surround processing, you should not buy the receiver – just plug the components and enjoy some of powerful sound with more than a hint of Faux surround sound.

To reiterate, the Sony HT-CT100 consists of two parts of the system: small SoundBar, designed to sit under the TV, and the modest size of the subwoofer, which also contains all the electronics and communications. Lean Dynamics mere 2.75 inches and 2.6 depth. Its 31.5-inch width is also smaller than in most soundbars and make a good match with a television with 32-inch screens and more. The speaker sports a satin finish black plastic housing and perforated (nonremovable) metal grille, this no-nonsense, pretending not to win a beauty contest, but it is quite modest. SoundBar has three oval 1.6-to 2.8-inch drivers (left / center / right). You can wall mount speaker with 4.4 pounds of keyhole slots, as long as you explain, permanently attached 10-foot umbilical cable that connects it with a subwoofer. Cable ends 9-pin serial port, which connects to the subwoofer – if you need to run it longer distance, check out our related tip.

Buy Sony HTCT100 Sound Bar with Subwoofer and Save $160.10

To the south of medium density fiberboard feels more substantial than the speaker and its black matte vinyl finish looks a little more upscale. It is 19,75 inches high and 14.25 deep, and weighs 22 pounds. A black cloth (nonremovable) grille includes a 6.5-inch woofer mounted on the right side of the submarine. The front edge of the top panel has power, input and volume controls on the front panel display provides information on the volume, source selection, and surround processing. There’s a bass port smack dab in the middle of the 6.4-inch wide front baffle. built-in subwoofer power amplifiers deliver 50 watts to each of the three speaker drivers and 100 watts for the subwoofer subs.

All communication systems are on the back of the subwoofer. There you’ll find three HDMI inputs, four digital audio inputs (three optical, one coaxial), one analog stereo input (red / white connectors RCA) and one Digital Media Port connector. Nevertheless, not counting the DM Port (it’s own connector, which works only with a quartet of proprietary accessories Sony), these costs are really limited to four AV sources – three audio or HDMI, and one audio only. In other words, you want to use the optical audio inputs (for example) instead of, rather than in addition to the HDMI inputs. Obviously, the HDMI connection is preferable because it allows you to switch audio and video by pressing buttons on the remote HT-CT100 to. (And, with the addition of a sub-$ 50 HDMI switch, you can more than double the HDMI output device.) For non-HDMI sources (either from the Nintendo Wii to a VCR to a cable box without HD), you will use television to video switching and HT-CT100 for audio.

HT-CT100 can toggle among three AV sources (with video, if they are HDMI-enabled), as well as any Sony Digital Media Port product, which you choose to connect.
The unit includes standard Dolby and DTS Surround processing modes. For Blu-Ray, it can take an uncompressed PCM soundtracks, but it will not decode Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, or DTS HD flavors. (Best Blu-Ray players, such as your own PS3 Sony, decode those soundtracks internally and output PCM anyway, so it will not be a big deal for most people.

Buy Sony HTCT100 Sound Bar with Subwoofer and Save $160.10

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