LG HB954TB Blu-ray Home Theater Set

A full-fledged HT system is never a bad idea to connect to your swanky new HDTV, what with Blu-ray inching in popularity slowly and steadily (My DVD rent guy has a full wall now of Blu-ray releases, from just a few in his drawer last year). Our beloved neighborhood entertainment giant LG has sent us a chic Blu-Ray Home theater set: speakers, player and all. The set is called HB954TB. It’s time for some High def fun.

Design and Technology
The Player is a regularly sized 1 RU (almost) device. With straight edges everywhere for the black chassis. The fascia is a little interesting, with a sloping contour, made of hard plastic, with glossy black finish. The bottom strip has a slight bluish reflective tinge to it, typical of Blu-ray players. The volume knob is quite pendulous and hard to miss, due to its blue LED rim. Next to it is a row of white touch sensitive buttons.

This player comes bundled with good features, including an iPod dock. One that is concealed in a tray on the front panel. It ejects out just like the DVD tray positioned right next to it. The connectivity is complete with 2 HDMI ins, 1 HDMI out, direct iPod dock in front, a USB 2.0 slot, 2 Digital audio ins (1 coaxial/1 optical) analog audio line in, 1 component out, and last and probably the least, 1 composite out. Besides all this, we have an Ethernet port, as this Player supports BD live, or BD profile 2.0. It's not over yet, this player can access YouTube too via the Ethernet. It decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD master.

The speakers are another subject of appeal: slim, elegantly styled and lightweight. They are shaped like a champagne glass; these too have a slight bluish tinge on the front view, below the drivers. Overall it’s a black gloss finish throughout. Speaking of drivers, we have a 2 way design for each channel with dome tweeter positioned centrally in between two 2.5-inch drivers. The drivers have no fixed pole piece or dust dome, just a bare radiating concave surface. The speaker terminals are at the bottom of the base.  Overall speaker output is 155 watts RMS each and the subwoofer is 225 watts RMS. The speakers are 4 ohms impedance.