Niro 1.1 Pro Home Theater System Review

The User Reviews

Average User Rating: 8.0

1. great buy

   

   By: Mark E
   September 9, 2004 @ 8:42 AM

   I bought for my father who was having a hard time hearing his TV in small room (20 x 14 ft). Set-up quickly and easily, the sound was great and now my dad can hear the TV, radio, CD’s and DVD’s with ease. The sound was very deep and spatial in this size room. Not having to run wires is a great advantage. and main speaker sit right on top of TV. I don’t think I would recommend this for large room however but I don’t think you could get much crisper sound in small room, even with more expensive units.

   Rating: 9 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No

2. Good but not great...

   

   By: Mark Korff
   August 25, 2004 @ 8:15 AM

   First of all let me say that for a surround sound “emulator,” this system DOES do a pretty good job. The sound quality of the Niro 1.1 pro is probably the most impressive thing about this unit. The first thing I tested the Niro with was the opening battle scene in Gladiator. My GOD was that impressive the first time! The separation of the front left and right channels was VERY good. When the catapults and arrows were fired, you could hear them screaming from one side of the sound field to the other in a very convincing manner. I couldn’t really hear anything from the simulated rear channels, though with a smaller, more enclosed room (i.e. no open doors) you might be able to get more of a rear-channel effect, but I wouldn’t count on it.

   The other thing that really impressed me was the bass supplied by the Niro subwoofer. The sub itself may not look that intimidating, but it is one of the highest quality subwoofers I’ve ever personally heard or felt. I have had some Klipsch subwoofers that kicked pretty good, but the Niro sub is just as good if not better. Its not a “rattler,” but instead provides a very “tight” bass that you can really feel.

   For the size of this system, it can really put out an alarmingly large amount of sound. I cranked up the volume a bit for the Gladiator test and once the battle picked up, I was hitting the “-” button a few times to save my eardrums. Suffice it to say that for the size of room this system is intended for, it’ll have absolutely no problem creating more than enough sound to fill it.

   Well, now we get to the things that bring my rating of this system down to a “7.” I honeslty didn’t notice the Design Technica numerical score until after I had already selected my own rating, but you’ll see why I think this is a fair score shortly…

   My first gripe with the system is something that I haven’t really seen mentioned in other reviews, but was rather disturbing to me personally. When I first started playing the Gladiator DVD I noticed some odd visual artifacts in darker portions of the screen. Dark colors seemed to consist of thin red lines that were easily noticeable and rather distracting to myself and my roommates who were also watching. My display setup consisted of a Samsung 32″ HD CRT, connected to the Niro DVD player with component monster cabling, and was set to “progressive” mode under the Niro DVD options. I checked connections, settings, different DVDs you name it, but I still couldn’t figure out where these red lines were coming from. My final conclusion was that the artifacts were simply the cause of the Niro unit itself and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. Using the same monster cables I have used another Samsung DVD player with MUCH better results and I have never seen the “thin red line” artifacts show up on my HD TV through any other video source. Its unfortunate because the audio quality is generally very high for this system, but the visual “quality” is the exact opposite.

   My next criticism follows from the first. If the Niro 1.1 Pro doesn’t have good visual quality, wouldn’t it be nice to at least have the option of using another DVD player to supply the visuals, and then send the audio signal through the Niro for sound output? Well, I realize that this is probably technically impossible for a number of reasons, but it doesn’t help the fact that there really isn’t ANY good way of connecting the Niro to anything else other than your TV. There are literally NO digital connections of any kind on the Niro, not for video OR audio. What this means is that if you want the best that the Niro has to offer, you MUST insert some sort of disk into the DVD tray, there aren’t any other options. If you have Digital Cable or Satellite with 5.1 capabilities through an optical connection, forget it, the Niro only has the old two channel analog RCA connectors for input. Do you have a new HDTV with a DVI connector? Forget about it! The Niro’s best video connection option is component video.

   My final criticism, like my second, is a result of the first two. After two relatively major setbacks, the Niro’s appeal started to fade for me after I realized the price, $800. What you really get for $800 is an “all-in-one” 5.1 home theater in a box emulator with very few connection possibilities, none of which are digital by the way, and sub-par visual quality from the best video output the system supports. I’ll still say that this is easily the best surround sound emulator, and also possibly the easiest and simplest home theater solution around, but there ARE drawbacks that need to be considered.

   For me $800 was too much for a system with the limitations I’ve already mentioned. I sent the system back after my 30 day trial period with very little hastle in getting my money back which was a welcome relief. This system just wasn’t for me since I have many audio/video sources that I want to get high quality multi-channel audio AND video from, such as: HD cable, DVD, home theater PC, and various gaming consoles.

   The fact of the matter is that you can get better surround sound, better video, and more connection possibilities for quite a bit less than the Niro 1.1 Pro. The things you WILL be contending with however include: speaker placement, wire routing, and possible configuration issues. I think for MOST people, these inconveniences are minimal when compared to how much better the end result can be and how much money you can save compared to a Niro 1.1 Pro solution.

   So you may ask, who should buy the Niro 1.1 Pro then? Well, I think the benefits of the Niro probably seem wonderful to a relatively well-off father who is setting up an entertainment center for a daughter in her new college dorm room. Just plunk down a “mere” $800 for little Suzy’s new Niro 1.1 Pro and instead of spending half of your Saturday helping the little brat move in and setting up some discreet 5.1 system in her room, you can possibly even get away with having her setup the Niro *gasp* by herself! Nah, he’ll still have to do it himself, but it’ll only take 10 minutes TOPS, and when he’s done, little Suzy can listen to music, watch TV, play her Gamecube, and view DVDs, all with pretty good sound. Yeah, she won’t have the greatest video quality, and she’ll only be getting RCA connections from her cable box and Gamecube, but do you think Suzy will care or even be able to notice? Probably not, she’ll be too busy making out with her drunk fratboy boyfriend while the red lines are showing up in all the dark scenes of Gigli, or MTV’s Real World is only coming in with 2 channel audio through the RCA connections. OH NOOOO what a shame! Well, the volume can be turned up loud enough to mask whatever noises she and fratboy are making and that’s all that REALLY matters anyway right? So who cares! ;)

   Rating: 7 :: 0 out of 0 people found this user review helpful. Was this user review helpful? Yes | No