Having been forced to move again (against my will I must add) I felt I deserved some new toys, I was on the verge of buying a 40 odd inch plasma when out of the blue I won one, and had also purchased a Xbox 360 Elite these new toys adorn my office, but I felt something was missing, that something was a nice cinema sound set up. Being as my house was slowly become a Samsung house I felt that they had to be the brand to supply me with my new equipment.
The new move wore me out and I spent a week trying to plug up the courage to install my new system, if you have ever installed one of these or even a stereo with separate speakers its not necessarily a difficult job, but its incredibly fiddly and time consuming. My last Cinema sound system which I bought about 6 years ago was a right pain in the backside, it was fiddly unreliable and more annoying a pain if you ever wanted to move your room around.
Having plucked up the courage to open the box the contents left me feeling I had been a contestant in the crystal maze. Each surround speaker comes in three pieces, on top of that I later discovered you needed to thread the speaker wire in before connecting them together (why I never read instructions I'm not sure). Having put together the four surround speakers the job of positioning was far simpler easily labelled Front Left, Front Right, Rear Left, and Rear Right you would need to be an idiot to get this wrong.... WHOOPS!!! The surround speakers sit about 4 foot high with the sound coming from the top part of the unit, this is really good because what your getting is the sound hitting you at the correct level, older units and even some more recent products give you little speakers that generally end up sitting directly on the floor so you never get the correct sound you should really get. The final three items ion the box consist of the sleek and shiny DVD player with build in Cinema sound gubbins, a small front centre speaker which is designed to carry voice transmissions, and finally the beast of a sub woofer, designed to give that POW!!! Of sound that movies need. You can make the next part as easy or as complex as you need, I simply chose to plug in and go, but you can much around with all the different settings if you so wish.
Using the unit could not be more straightforward, simply pick the DVD of your choice put it in the tray and play. Other similar systems mean that you have to optimise the sound levels to get that best cinema experience, this system reads and understands your DVD and picks the best sound quality for it. Unless this is a DVD you made yourself, you can't alter this sound, all you can do is turn the volume up and down. This might sound an issue, but its not this really takes all the fuss out of what can be a annoying process, I mean how often do you want to mess around at the start of the movie to get the best optimal sound? As I said however if you made the disc yourself there is always a possibility the sound quality might not be there that a shop purchased DVD will have. As a result you can trust the judgement of your system, or you can try Cinema, Disco, Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Pro Logic 2, Radio, Theatre, or just plain Stereo sound.
The sound quality is just amazing, I'd go as far as to say of all the cinema sound units, or Dolby Pro Logic TV's I have had over the years this is the best sound quality. Whether you're watching a music DVD, or a movie the sound is great, it's a really rich sound that sounds much more expensive than the £250 price tag this set up costs. I watched the first episode of Lost and at the beginning when you experience the action on the ground for the first time you really feel like your part of the action. Likewise Darth Vader and Luke Skywalkers Light Sabre battle in Return Of The Jedi seems to be going on right there with you, the haunting orchestral track in the background now clearer than I have ever heard it before. And as for Doctor Who, his encounter for the first time with The Master as he turns from helpless old fool to evil vicious villain in Utopia sounds so amazing it could be a big budget movie rather than a TV show.
It's not just movies that benefit, you can also use the system as a CD player and add some hidden depth to your favourite CD's and of course audio DVD's. I'm listening to one on it now, so the added benefit is that you don't need a separate stereo system. More of a radio listener? Then you can tune in to your favourite radio stations too, the system scans and stores all available stations and with its built in RDS allows you to select the radio station of your choice from a list. But what if the radio stations you listen to are digital only ones? You can do too things, one you can simply connect your digital TV box (whether it be Sky, Freeview, or Cable) and listen through the system. And as if to cover all the bases the system has wireless connectivity allowing you to stream music, and video from your PC to your Cinema Sound system, if your not yet taken by the idea of wireless technology then just attach the provided cable to the back of your PC (if it has an output option) and send the signal through wires. The system will also play MP3 tracks recorded on CD or DVD, and for added diversity video files in MP4, Mpeg, AVI and DIVX format too. And if your really tightfisted and don't want to burn discs, then don't if you have a USB style memory card, mobile phone, or a USB connected external hard drive just plug this into the USB socket at the front and use the onscreen menu's to select your form of video or audio entertainment.
You can of course also attach up to three other products to the system so perhaps a multi-region DVD player, Games Console, or your Digi-Box might be a good place to start. Each item you plug in can benefit from that warm rich sound this system offers.
Picture Quality is good, but it it's only as good as the TV your connecting it too. In fairness this product is more about the sound than the vision, but consider the best possible picture you can get from a DVD player and this system offers it.
But this is not the end, a choice of HDMI socket, or Scart connection can allow multiple screen connection (if your so taken) It's rude sometimes not to be greedy. The system also benefits from HD Upscaling. Don't get excited you cant play HD quality discs, however it does allow the best quality picture quality to be transmitted to your TV, and this set up is pretty much stating that you have an LCD or Plasma screen, and as I have discovered picture quality is very important.
In respect of sound levels, this set up will go louder than you'll ever need it with a maximum output of just under 300W, would you really need it any louder?
In respect of the product, I cannot recommend this enough its multi-function product. It's by far my best Samsung purchase to date (or win come to that) and proves that these Cinema Sound systems have come on leaps and bounds since their first appearance in homes in 1994. If you consider yourself a film enthusiast then there can be no other set up for you. And for the record the new version of Blade Runner sounds absolutely amazing, and goes down in my books as being the best sounding movie I have yet to encounter.
More details
Ease of Installation
Simple
Remote Control
Excellent Quality
Instructions
Very Helpful / Very Easy to Understand
Durability
Excellent
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different formats. Providing an overall power of 800 W RMS that?s divided up between its 5 speakers and its subwoofer, the HT-TX35 plays DVDs and CDs, not to mentio...
