A good friend of mine bought a Sony HTIB for $800 about a year and a half ago. He also thought it couldn't be any different than other units out there and was pretty impressed by its 'surround' capability. In never hearing a surround system other than at the movie theatres, sure, it is impressive.
However, after hearing my Onkyo/Axiom setup, he decided that he was looking for more oomph in his own home HT experience. We started by getting him a newer, used Denon 3802 and powered the remaining parts of his Sony HTIB with that until he could afford to continue adding newer speakers and other parts. The very day he hooked up the Sony satellites to the Denon receiver in place of the Sony HTIB receiver his jaw did drop. I've heard the expression used many times but usually it is thought of as being an exaggerated idea of surprise. This time it really did happen. His mouth fell open.
I remember b/c it was so funny. He had a beer pouring into his mouth at the time that i started laughing as the liquid dribbled off his chin onto his shirt and new Denon remote.
He could actually turn up the volume now and get volume from his satellite speakers. Turning up the volume on the Sony receiver did basically nothing.
My experience so far with those HTIB sets is that they are horribly underpowered. The satellites are really limited in their sound reproduction capability (some sound downright tinny) and are often hooked up with 18ga cable or smaller for quite lengthy runs (to the surrounds anyway). The subwoofer, often a smallish and not so sturdy unit, is setup to play the full 20Hz to 200Hz range of bass (or maybe even beyond).
There is a point at which the low cost HTIB setup is so low cost that it affects sound quality.
I should note that i have not heard a Panasonic HTIB setup so i cannot comment on your unit and how well it performs. My 10 year old Technics bookshelf system that cost me $1500 in 1992 was replaced with an Axiom and Onkyo system though and i am still stunned to hear the difference in sound quality compared to the Technics. If only i had known about Axiom way back in the early university days.
