inexpensive, but cheap

I bought this system because it was less than $200 and I really wanted a surround-sound system for movies and video games.

It was easy to set up and the product manual is quite thorough in explaining all of the features and programming options.

The "auto-calibrate" feature is handy, especially if it's your first home theater system. All you do is plug in a small "microphone" and place it in the middle of the seating area and after a few minutes of test tones the system has calibrated all of the speakers.

Unfortunately, I found that I still had to tinker with the individual speaker volumes to satisfy myself. It seems as though the center channel, which handles almost all of the dialog, was always too quiet. I couldn't hear what people were saying unless I cranked up the volume on the center speaker, which also resulted in some noticeable distortion (buzzing sound comes from speaker during quiet moments).

It seems as though this receiver doesn't have a "small speaker" setting. This is an option usually included in systems with small, cheap speakers such as this. Essentially it softens loud noises (effects) and increases softer noises (dialog). This system does have the option to "minimize the surround effect," but this doesn't seem to make a huge difference. The surround speakers are softened, but the dialog is still too quiet. I tried numerous dvds and even different dvd players (I usually just use my xbox 360) but more often then not I still had issues with the center channel volume. I even upgraded to digital audio cables but noticed very little improvement.

Eventually I upgraded the center channel speaker and noticed an immediate difference. I still had to increase the center channel volume a bit, but not as much, and the buzzing distortion is hardly noticeable. Unfortunately the center channel speaker, a Boston Acoustics CRC, (http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Boston-Acoustics-CRC)
costs about $100 in most stores.

One thing I should mention is that I've only had problems with the center channel when watching movies. I've had no problems with my xbox 360. Even games with a lot of dialog seem to come through with the proper volume balance.

Aside from this, the only other gripe I have is the fact that the speaker wires are permanently attached to the back of the speakers, so hopefully you don't want the rear speakers to be very far from the receiver. I believe the wires to the rear surround speakers are about 20 feet long.

In summary I would probably not recommend this set. It works well for video games, but if that's all I wanted I could've just bought some 5.1 logitech speakers with no receiver. If you want to use the system to watch movies then I would suggest spending a little more for a better system. (I don't have any specific suggestions)