first a disclaimer , I be not a audiophile . however , I have be compare a number of home theater system for week before i buy this one . I narrow it down to two for the money i want to spend , and the other one be the Sony ht5100d , but I pick this one for a couple of reason . they both have 5 speaker and a `` sub `` woofer , DTS\/Dolby digital , 5 disc dvd changer etc , but the panasonic be cheaper , have a additional 50watt to the woofer , and play mp3 . I do not demand perfection from my audio equipment , but i can tell what stink . I be a college student , and i be mostly worried about this system be too weak to work as a stereo for a house party , but it be not . it will not blow anybody away , but it be certainly more than sufficient for the need of most normal people . -lrb- of course replace the left and right speaker with some relatively cheap bookshelf speaker do not hurt , and allow you to keep the two extra factory speaker in the closet in case another one get damage or something -rrb- . I be also excite to learn that it play CDR\/W and mp3 -lrb- on cd -rrb- . this mean that instead of make a few mix cd for a party , you can just put the mp3 straight onto a cd -lrb- which mean that you can store around 200 song on one cd -rrb- , this allow you to make one huge cd , and put it on random . if you be look at hometheater but be not worry about mp3 , i would atleast make sure the one you purchase play home-made disc -lrb- cd-r\/w 's -rrb- because somewhere along the line you or someone will want to play one and you 'll be out of luck . the improvement in quality of audio from vh to dvd be actually greater than the improvement in picture resolution , and this system take advantage of that . you be get a nice dvd player , stereo , and subwoofer , for a pretty good price .