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It's not the most powerful system out there but for the price you can't go wrong. You can experience the movies without ever leaving the comfort of your home. I purchased this system to experience home theater sound with my new Samsung TV. It is loud enough to sound like your at the movies. The receiver is a little big, but if you have room it will work nice. The sound is amazing right out of the box. It took about an hour to hook up but it was easy.
Advanced features of the TV still require using the remote for the TV. The sound is great; it fills my large living room with sound. The Anynet feature works fine. Contrary to other reviews I had no problem hooking it up according to the manual.
I had some reservations about purchasing this product after reading other reviews. Amazon price and delivery were excellent as usual. After allowing Anynet to find my other components I am able to perform everyday viewing tasks with one remote. Ultimately I decided to get it, figuring I could return it if there were problems.
I did use (3) HDMI 1.3 compliant cables for all connections; as well as (1) optical cable as directed for sound. So far, I am completely satisfied with this purchase. I'm pleased to say that the product has performed flawlessly. I have it installed with a Samsung plasma display & Samsung BD 1500 Blue Ray player.
I read what people wrote about this ht, but honestly I am impressed with this item, the only problem is that the one for all home theater remote doesn't seem to work good with my samsung blue ray player
Unlike USB on a PC where you can plug any device into any socket and "it just works", HDMI missed on the concept of plug and play. I remember in 1995 Sony showed off a "concept system" that simply had 1394 plugs and speaker cables. I find there is plenty of power, but someone with a large viewing room or heavy carpeting may want more. The idea was that DVD, camcorder, and TV would work together by daisy chaining digital devices.
It is running with a Samsung HDTV LN52A650 TV, Samsung Blu-Ray player BD-P2500 and a Scientific Atlanta cable box. Samsung promotes a system called AnyNet. I don't know if all HDMI sucks, but this implementation leaves a lot to be desired. If I had a laser disk player this would be a must have feature. In order to get this to work, you need a third optical cable running from the TV into the amplifier. Running through the amplifier, the sound is great but out of synch.
The "universal remote" that comes with this box isn't powerful enough to control all devices, but it is so complicated that casual users can and do get lost. With the addition of two more speakers, this system would support a 7.1 sound system. Even at its best HDMI doesn't come close to that dream. Connecting the cable does not mean Anynet will work, but it is a start. That is one less remote control and one less HDMI cable. This amplifier gets mixed reviews from me.
A side effect of all this is that lip synch is lost. This is annoying. The amplifier also supports analog connections. This isn't obvious but it is mentioned somewhere in fine print on page thirty something of the manual. This system is still too complicated for most people to setup or run. All are connected through HDMI cables.Good News:The sound quality is fine and the speakers are a nice black finish that goes well with the TV. This could support a better control architecture so that devices could discover each other and hopefully play well together. Suggestions:My Blu-ray player and TV both have Ethernet.
Basically all this equipment was built assuming the customer is a criminal out to steal Snow White from dear old Uncle Walt Disney somewhere in his cryo vat. If you go through an elaborate ritual that you must learn by trial and error, you can get all the devices to talk to one another, but you will still need four remote controls to get TV, Blu-ray, amplifier, and set top box all to work together.HDMI is full of content protection. Future versions of Samsung devices promise to support DLNA which is a system for connecting home media devices over Ethernet. If I had it to do over again, I'd buy a system with Blu-ray and amplifier built into one box. Even so one wrong button push and it is down the rabbit hole. Audio gets taken off the HDMI cable and video is passed on to the TV set. I have had to print up instructions on how to turn on the TV. My "media room" is small enough that 7.1 speakers would be overkill.
As a consequence every time you change channel on the STB or attempt to discover the Blu-ray player it takes longer with the audio amplifier sitting between the TV and these sources. If I plug the STB or Blu-Ray directly into the TV audio is synched correctly but plays through cheesy speakers on the TV. I'm putting this in the "good news" section even though I can't exploit it, and the box is much bigger than it need be in order to support these analog connections.Bad News:HDMI sucks. You must plug all the HDMI cables into the appropriate slot as there is no plug and play that identifies devices.The Blu-Ray or set top box HDMI cables go into the amplifier and a third cable goes to the TV set.
Instalation was not difficult. It has meet our expectations of great "movie like" experience. I highly reccomend this pruduct.
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