Panasonic reveals multi-position home cinema systems

At its annual conference in Hamburg yesterday, Panasonic announced two new home cinema systems which have a novel take on combining a soundbar with free standing speakers.

Multi-positional speakers

The main focus of the new SC-HTB550 and the SC-HTB20 home cinema systems is the ability to move the speakers to best suit the TV set up. They can be used as standalone speakers, wall-mounted, or as a conventional soundbar. The images below show the speakers in their horizontal and vertical positions.

 

Other features

The SC-HTB550 is designed for TVs sized at 42-inch and above, and the SC-HTB20 will partner with  screens sizes of at least 32 inches.

The SC-HTB550 also features a wireless subwoofer and Bluetooth compatibility, allowing music to be streamed directly to the system from compatible mobile devices.

Designed for smaller systems, the SC-HTB20 isn’t quite as feature rich – it lacks Bluetooth technology and features a wired subwoofer.

Jack’s first  impressions

On the surface these new home cinema systems might seem impressively versatile, but it’s tricky to know who they are aimed at. Panasonic made a big deal about the fact they can be moved around, but most of us will probably keep our sound setup in one configuration for the duration, without the need to move the speakers around on a daily basis.

While these two models do offer an ‘out of the box’ solution for many users, I wonder whether it would be better to simply purchase either a dedicated soundbar or free- standing speakers?

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