Checkout: What you're buying may not be a home theatre

NEW DELHI: At the AV Expo here last week, the stall of an Indian consumer electronics company had a home theatre system on display. It was a “combo� offer going at Rs 41,000. It included a 29� TV, a DVD and a few small speakers. Amplifiers? Sorry Ma’am, no amplifiers.
Elsewhere at the Expo, Chinese firm Dapic was offering a home theatre at Rs 4,090.The combo here: a 1,500 wt VCD/CD/MP3 player with amplifiers and a sub-woofer.
With home theatres becoming a rage in recent months on the one hand and the customer understanding of the product being abysmal, the market is flooded with offers that are misleading the consumer.
Of those walking into shops to buy home theatre systems, most walk out with a large-screen TV. Cheap speakers are thrown in for effect.
Actually, the term refers only to the audio equipment (speakers, sub-woofer and the amplifiers) and the platform it plays on (DVD/VCD). And, when true blue home theatre system companies like Bose, Onkyo or JBL talk about the concept, which incidentally don’t start at anything below Rs 40,000, a TV screen is nowhere in the picture.
The home theatre companies are obviously upset at the pitch being queered for them even before they have really begun tapping the market. Says MA Dhandapani, MD, Onkyo India, subsidiary of the $2 billion Japanese firm: “Our biggest problem is that the customer and even the trade is quite clueless about what a home theatre system is.� TV makers and dealers, keen to sell their large-screen TVs, are happy to let that situation be.
So, even those looking for a fine audio experience and willing to pay for it are given short shrift. The package they walk out with is nowhere close to a home theatre system that decodes every sound on the film spool and channelises it towards one or more of the attached speakers as desired by a film
editor.
Ritesh Pande, GM, Bose Corporation says: “Some companies do not even sell the front speakers. The logic is that the TV anyway has them.� Bose, which otherwise had home theatres starting at Rs 99,000, launched a home cinema range starting at about Rs 70,000 only last week.
Home theatres are obviously aimed at those looking for fine audio. So, the difference between a JBL or a Bose and the others would primarily be the sound quality. Not many may be willing to spend the price on quote for a real home theatre system. But the catch is: Even those who have the big bucks, are being lured to buy what they did not
ask for.