Sherwood VR-670 Hollywood at Home Virtual Theater System

• Plays CD, DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-R/RW, MP3, VCD, SVCD, JPEG, Kodak Picture CD
• Progressive Scan DVD reader
• 2-way magnetically shielded, wall mountable speakers (2.5 mid, 1 tweeter)
• Satellites 25 W x 2 @ 0.5% THD, 6 ohms
• 100W built-in subwoofer amp (10% THD, 4 ohms)

Amazon.com Review:
The operative words for the Sherwood Hollywood-at-Home Virtual Theater System are economy and simplicity. At a price much lower than what some comparably endowed systems are demanding, Hollywood-at-Home is as affordable as it gets. And with a design that will have you up and running in about ten minutes, it doesn't get much simpler than this. The Hollywood-at-Home is a sleek-looking, complete home-theater system that offers the full range of features that you'd expect, along with full-room sound, thanks to Dolby's Virtual Speaker technology. As long as you're not in the hunt for a system with wattage that will blow your windows out, then this home-theater set-up may be just what you're looking for. The Sherwood Hollywood-at-Home Virtual Theater System melds affordable sound with sleek style. Plays DVDs, CDs, and CD-MP3s. View larger. Simple inputs make for an easy set up. View larger. Simplity in Style and Delivery While full surround sound systems may offer the pinnacle of the home-theater experience, the costs in time, labor and frustration to set them up have sent many home-entertainment rookies packing. Running a gamut of speaker wires up and around the room to optimize a system's sound, in addition to playing the endless game of connect-the-countless-color-coded-wires, is not exactly an ideal way to spend a relaxing evening -- or two, or three -- at home. With this simple system, Sherwood is betting that there are enough of us who don't think tool belts are fine fashion accessories. With the Hollywood-at-Home system, all you need to do is connect a few bare-wire-terminated speaker wires, along with a few other clearly marked wires and indoor antennas to their respective inputs on the receiver, plug in a couple of AC power cords into a wall socket, and you're essentially done. If you're an audio-video savant, this will take you all of seven minutes; if you're a newbie, you might need twelve, maybe fifteen minutes, to do the job. Simplicity extends to the unit's design as well. The receiver is all of four inches high with a 17 x 11-inch (W x D) footprint and features a sleek, silver-plastic curved design that complements the two eight-inch tall silver satellite speakers. The largest component is the subwoofer at 8 x 12 x 12 inches (W x H x D). With a dark, wood-like grain exterior, it will barely be noticed when placed on the floor. When you power the system up, matching subtle accent lights beneath the receiver and on the front of the subwoofer come on. The fluorescent display on the receiver offers just enough light to get the job done in both full-light and darkened conditions. In short, there's nothing about the design that calls out for attention, which means you can focus on the "theater" component of the system, and not on the system's components. A Full, but Tempered Sound To cut to the chase, the technical details for the Hollywood-at-Home components are as follows: The 100-watt subwoofer offers phase control and a variable crossover from 50 to 150 hertz, while each of the speakers, featuring a three-inch woofer and one-inch soft dome tweeter, offers a frequency range of 140 hertz to 20 kilohertz and can handle up to 25 watts. The amplifier outputs all of 50 total watts of power over two channels. All told, the system has 150 total watts at its disposal. In head-to-head spec comparisons with its competition, Hollywood-at-Home clearly suffers in the power department. When we threw in a few of our favorite action DVDs and musicals that screamed at us for more volume, the system was disappointing. Ideally, this unit is designed best for an apartment-like set-up in which excessively high-volumes will land you in the landlord's dog house, or in a small-room situation, such as a bedroom. The bottom line is that if you want to host an unforgettable Super Bowl party, you'll want to look elsewhere for your home-theater needs. However, despite it's minor-league power output, the sound Hollywood-at-Home offers is surprisingly full, and its surround-sound-like audio gymnastics make it hard to believe that the system is relying on only two-channels. Within the Dolby Virtual Speaker options, the "wide" mode gave the illusion of sound coming at us from beyond the physical reach of the speakers. In fact, voices at times seemed to come from behind us. With the exception of the issue of overall power, we couldn't have been happier with the system's performance. As for the visuals, with a flick of the remote, Hollywood-at-Home offers progressive scan playback. When compared side-by-side with our more expensive, but non-progressive-scan, DVD player, the colors were crisper and the pictures sharper. We could also zoom in and even change the angle on scenes, two features that added another surprising dimension to our review. Our playback of CD, CD-MP3, and DVD files was flawless. For true video-philes, the system also supports PAL playback. As for the rest of the story, Hollywood-at-Home includes features we'd expect any home-theater system to have, such as AM/FM tuning (with 30 presets), repeat/random/programmed track playback, easy-to-set-up parental controls, and so on. Our only other complaint, a minor one, concerns the glow-in-the-dark controls on the otherwise excellent, universal, multi-brand remote control. In dark conditions, the touch pad is easy to read, but when a movie scene fills the otherwise dark room with bright light, the "glow" disappears and the controls become invisible. A back-lit touch pad would have been a nice addition. What's in the Box DVD receiver, two satellite speakers, active subwoofer, remote control, two AAA batteries, composite video wire, indoor antennas, and user's manual. Pros: Simple, 10-minute set-up Sleek, handsome, unobtrusive design System offers full-room virtual sound Cons: Only 150 watts of total power; cannot handle high volumes Remote control lacks back-lit touch pad

some problems:
I have had this unit for a couple of years now. The manual buttons other than the DVD load and unload, do not work. touching any button turns the unit off. I did not notice this until after I had it for a few weeks, because I always used the remote. So I guess it doesn't matter. I notice volume changes with 5.1 sound when I use the TV output into the AUX connector. I don't know if it is the TV or the Sherwood causing it. Next time I will buy a 5.1 or 7.1 system.

Junk:
Difficult to open DVd player, subwoofer useless. Save your money. You truly get what you pay for

Great sound and features where you need 2 speaker surround:
I have had this unit installed on a yacht for 3 years and it works great. Sound is excellent, the sub is small enough to stash away in a cabinet, the DVD has worked fine. The one glitch is that the treble control has a bug where you have to press the "select" button and "up" arrow on the treble to get a boosted treble to kick in. I tolk Sherwood about this, they may have fixed this in later units.

Good looks, decent sound, questionable reliability:
I've had this unit for about 2 years. After about 18 months it started having problems reading DVDs - even brand new, commercial ones. Would try to load for several seconds and give an error. After much back and forth with Sherwood they decided they would fix it if I sent it to them and paid shipping. I did so, and they fixed it for no charge. It's working much better now. The whole process took several weeks though which was a big pain. But it looks good, the sound is decent and it's nice not having to deal with wires.

Erratic DVD problems:
I also have had this VR670 18 months, and now we cant get more than about 45 mins into a dvd and it freezes up. Same issues others note in this forum. Closest repair facility is 45 miles away. Not good. Sound is great, but a home theater has to play dvds to make the theater happen. Otherwise, it is just an amp.