Toshiba SD6109C DVD Player/50-Watt Receiver Combo
Great unit at a great price . . .
I'm the first to admit I'm not the most &quot;techno-savvy&quot; person in the world.  The thought of connecting a bunch of home-theater components gives me nightmares.  I do software, not hardware!  So it was with some trepidation that I ordered this unit.  I purposely bought the combination  DVD player/receiver so I'd have fewer components to worry about.<br />I  needn't have worried at all:  Toshiba has put together a fabulous package  -- operation is very straightforward; set-up is a breeze; and connecting it  to my &quot;new-ish&quot; stereo TV, satellite system, and  &quot;old-ish&quot; (but still wonderful) AR2ax speakers took less than 10  minutes.<br />I tested the system with my favorite &quot;crank up the  volume&quot; disks (the movie &quot;Twister&quot; and the Robert Shaw audio  recording of William Walton's &quot;Belshazzar's Feast&quot;).  In both  cases, the sound was brilliant, with more than enough power to rattle the  windows.  At the lowest volumes, the sound was still full and rich.  The  picture quality was excellent as well -- typical for DVD, to be sure.<br />While I don't have a surround-sound system (yet) for this unit, it does  a fine job of simulating surround sound with its &quot;Spatializer  3-D&quot; stereo technology.  I have it in a room about 18' by 20', with  the aforementioned AR2ax speakers, and it delivers amazing results.  The  system I have in my family room cost several times more than this unit,  includes a complete surround sound system, and to be perfectly honest, the  sound there isn't really that much better than my new Toshiba combo.<br />I've  found only a couple of &quot;negatives&quot; with the unit:  1)  you have  to first program the presets via the buttons on the front of the unit  before you can use the remote to tune the AM/FM.  I would have prefered the  ability to tune directly via the remote.  It's a small thing, one that I  can overlook in favor of the overall quality of the package.  2) as others  have mentioned, the remote can be a little confusing as the buttons are  small, most of them are the same size, and there's no backlighting.  However, once you get used to it, it's not difficult to use it without  looking.<br />All in all, I consider this an excellent investment.  I'm even  looking forward to connecting my turntable to it (it has additional audio  inputs for this), so I can hear once again some of my prized vinyl albums.tioned, the remote can be a little confusing as the buttons are  small, most of them are the same size, and there's no backlighting.  However, once you get used to it, it's not difficult to use it without  looking.<br />All in all, I consider this an excellent investment.  I'm even  looking forward to connecting my turntable to it (it has additional audio  inputs for this), so I can hear once again some of my prized vinyl albums.