Speaker cables

I got this system the other day and when I went to set up this afternoon I discovered there was no speaker wires. can anyone let me know if this should come with wires and if not any ideas where I can get them

thanks

J

Very Pleased

I've never bought any philips products before, i myself am a sony freak however, i saw this deal (£80) and couldnt believe my eyes. i was after a divx capable home theater system; and thats not all you get with this little beauty. the sound quality is fantastic and the picture is excellent too. i download alot of tv and films and i can now just chuck them on my 4gb usb stick and watch them straight through the usb. i then later found that so long as the disk you use is formatted in a fat32 file system the unit will pick it up. so i bought a 120gb 2.5 inch usb powered external hard drive and formatted it to fat32. I now have loads of films and tv series striaght to hand. Couldn't want any more from such a great spec machine. Oh and the fact it is multi region is just a bonus!!

Awesome full stop

I have been researching for a new cinema system for a while since my old one used to overheat and cut out frequently. All my stereos, TV's etc have always been Sony so had no doubt my new cinema system would be Sony too. Having grecently upgraded to an LCD TV, I realsied all of the current cinema systems follow the same style, so looks were not important as they all kind of look the same; it came down to connectability. There are Sony units out there with very few connection options, such as the DAV-DZ230. There is no option for optical or phono inputs, severly limiting what you can connect to the unit.
I have the TV connected via phono and a PS3 via Optical. Easily switchable and both sound great. The power and clarity from the speakers is evident even with it turned right up during explosions and gun shots on the PS3 (Call of duty 4 sounds amazing, this system has given the game a new lease of life!!!) and music channels on TV.
Looks very smart and easy to set up. The main time consuming bit is neatly routing wire under my carpet for the rear speakers.
All in all, its not the cheepest Sony system around but it looks smart, sounds better and is simple to operate. In my book it ticks every box!

NO DISC !!!!!!!!

Same as the other 1 star reviews, I bought this machine and was initially very impressed. Just under a year on and it's nothing more than an expensive set of speakers, when they work!! The NO DISC error when inserting a DVD has quickly worsted and now it will not play ANYTHING including the CD cleaner recommended by Philips!! NO NOT BUY!!

Bought with a Sony KDL32D3000U

Fantastic products and results. I have owned Sony TV's before they have always been at the cutting edge of technology. I have never owned a Home Theatre System before. I spent some weeks doing research before I bit the bullet and shopping around saved hundreds of pounds however Amazon was comparable to the cheapest prices available.
The first film watched was a remastered Lawrence of Arabia, because I knew both sound and vision would be used to the maximum, I was not disappointed.
My advice, if you are waiting for a clue to buy a decent package then look no further than these, you will not be disappointed

Great buy

I just bought this item and cannot fault it at all. Superb sound quality, looks great amazing value for money.Excellent

Nice peace of kit

Had this system about a week now,fits in perfectly with my Samsung TV and DVD recorder all black & silver and you can use the same remote to work them all.The 5.1 600w sound is impressive with DVD & CD and connected with a HDMI cable the DVD upscaling is very good.The speakers are of a good quality and you get a decent amount of cable.The rear speakers are wireless enabled but you have to buy another new shinny black box the Samsung SWA-3000 Wireless Amplifier delivery system. This"wireless system" will set you back £90 DON'T bother if you have a normal sized room, you still have to wire the rear speakers to it and plug it in. All in all a top product.

Connectivity

The DAV230 sounds great with action movies and I think is very good value for money. The manual is not the easiest to follow however. I have seen a number of comments re connectivity with this model, particularly lack of audio in. I sorted this by using the HDMI cable as the video source (between the DAV and TV) and then getting a switchable Pure scart to audio converter for £12 - plugged the scart end into the DAV and then right and left audi channel cables from the scart (DAV) end to the TV where I plugged the audio cables into audio out on the TV (Sony 3020). It now works a treat. I have been able to keep the two scarts I have on the TV for sky and my DVD recorder and use the HDMI/audio/Scart cable for the connectivity between the TV and DAV (If you only use the HDMI cable you will only get sound through the DAV when watching DVD's and not the TV). This allows me to play everything including the TV through the DAV and also pressing the Theatre button on the TV remote control switches the DAV on automatically!

Great Value

Well I bought the Sony 26S3000 LCD and put it through my 14 year old stereo. Bit of a waste really so went out looking for a reasonable budget surround sound system and decided on this.

I am a total biff when it comes to electronics but wired this up in 5 minutes (even when doing the 'man thing' and not opening the instructions). The connectivity is good and suffices for me - I play my TV, computer and an MP3 player through it with ease.

The sound is really good and I have not even played around with it at all yet.

I am really impressed with the value for money, the ease of actually getting it to work and the sound. Definitely recommended if you are after a good budget system.

first impressions

I just received this today, courtesy of amazon.

It was very easy to setup with my philips flat screen tv, just a couple of cables, and up you go.

I lived in many countries, and therefore have an extensive collection of DVD from many regions. Thanks to the web, I was able to find very rapidly the code to key in on the remote control to have this unit enable for region 0, and all my DVD works fine...

I can see the difference with the upscaling factor, in terms of image quality... The sound quality 'sounds' great. I have tried multiple movies, like lord of the ring, and star wars, and the 'experience' is definitely better, visually and in terms of sound, than when using my old DVD player and my TC speakers..

A few comments:

* There is no HDMI cable in the box, but there is a SCART cable, and a couple of others, for example to connect the TV audio out to the device.
* The connection for external audios are conveniently located on the subwoofer, reducing the number of cables to connect to the main unit.
* The support for the main unit is too high to fit in my tv cabinet. It is easy to remove it, but there is no simple/lower replacement for it. The unit can just be put down like it is, at a small angle, but I would prefer to have a more stable support.
* Not sure yet about the fact that this system is supposed to 'mimic' a 5.1 system by projecting sounds to the wall behind the user, but it sounds good.
* The remote control power button is in fact only an 'off' button. Once the unit is in 'standby', it can only be 'waken up' by using the play button of the remote control. Strange but it works.

Don't Bother!!

This equipment looks fantastic on photo's but beware!!
Firstly check the dimensions, the system is much larger than the carefully taken photo would suggest. The AV subwoofer in particular is enormous.
Also don't be taken in by the wireless story, it's not. True the system rear speakers do not connect directly to the subwoofer but are connected by wires to an AV wireless receiver unit which sits at the back of the room.
This is where my problems started, I can't get the wireless speakers to work. The supplier was initially very good replacing both the wireless receiver and the main DVD unit which houses the transmitter. Since then i have tried unsuccesfully to get someone from their technical department to call me. And don't even think about Philips, what a waste of space. Their tecnical support people don't even know the product. They asked if I had swiched the wireless receiver unit on but it doesn't have an on/off switch, a blue led comes on when it is receiving the wireless signal. I don't even have any other wireless equipment to interfere with it.
This product is all about aesthetics but is poor quality in performance and support. I would strongly recommend not to purchase it as looking at the various AV forums, this isn't an isolated case.

Samsung 2.1 speakers

I bought this speaker system to sit alongside my new Samsung TV.
The system does look amazing and is finished in the same high black gloss finish as the TV set.
The sound it produces is exactly what i wanted, rich deep bass and a well defined clear & sharp treble. It comes with an HD cable so the picture quality/sound quality from the DVD player is superb. All the speaker cables are colour coded so you cant go wrong setting it up. Thankfully the blue LED's can be dimmed so as not to draw your eye away from what your watching-It does flash up new chapters everytime it passes over them.
However if you want to connect your TV to the unit you will have to buy your own leads, either optical or wired.
The coolong fan can be distracting when your in a quite moment of a film, its not loud but is audiable.
It did take me a while to get the unit programmed to my TV hand control, common functions are taken care of, but you will still need to use the units control to move from DVD>Aux to pick up the sound from your TV.
I cant find any sort of equilizer built in, so i have to settle for the sound options from the TV
Overall the sound quality is fantastic, but i'm not sure if its worth the money.
I'm stuck on the star rating:- sound quality would get 5* but the system is let down buy the cooling fan, the size of the DVD palyer, the cheap looking blue LED's and for this sort of money i would have expected and optical cable or at least the wired connections to play your TV throught the system.
My wife has just called me to say 'The TV is making a weired noise' 'Turn off the DVD player, its the cooling fan!'

Good value, all rounder with some very minor snags

The Pioneer RCS LX60D is a good choice if you want an all-rounder which doesn't necessarily excel in any particular area, but it won't break the bank either. There's loads of features which you can read on the pioneer website, but not many user reviews so I'm going to concentrate on stuff I'd like to have known when I bought it.

The system is basically three components - the Pioneer DVRLX60D (can be purchased separately) and a multi channel receiver/subwoofer (SX-LX60D) and speaker system (SSP LX60D) which can't be bought separately. Set up was a bit fiddly with the speaker system comprising 6 cube speakers (Front L, Front R, Centre x2, Rear L, Rear R) which can be positioned in traditional surround around the room or fastened together with the supplied brackets as front surround. Pioneer recommend the front surround, avoiding the need to hide wires and perch speakers around the living room, so that's what I went for. There's a few miles of speaker cabling to hide behind the unit, although you are provided a tiny little bit of spiral wrap to get you started on cable management...

The subwoofer doubles as the digital audio receiver/processor and there's a separate lcd display unit (it's the thing sitting on the HD/DVD in the picture) which is connected to the subwoofer by a 1.5 m cable. I put mine under my Panasonic 32LXD700 and it goes nicely. Once the speakers are set up you can set the EQ, channel balance and optimum surround setting with Pioneers MCACC, and the supplied mic. This works really well in my living room, which is a rectangular shape (TV in the corner) and has patio doors/fire surround/curtains either side - in other words plenty of accoustic variables. The front surround is accurate and sounds excellent at low volume as well as high, with the specific Quiet & Midnight settings on the receiver which alter the balance. You can adjust all the settings manually if you need to. There's a range of audio settings which you can try, but I have always come back to the auto feature which selects the best output depending on whether you are listening to music on the AM-FM radio, a cd or watching a film with DTS, Dolby digital/prologic ii.


Connected with HDMI, the upscaled 1080p picture quality on my TV was spectacular, as expected. Not much more to say - it's up there with the Sony RDRHXD970 and Panasonic DMR-EX87 both with 1080p up-conversion for standard DVDs, although the Panasonic might have been a better choice for the ease of use with Viera link, this system has a host of extras which I thought it worth spending another £300 on, including the surround system and connectability.

This system has 2 remotes - one for the receiver and another for the HDD/DVD (but both have a flip-down bit with some common controls for both). This was a bit annoying and another mark against the system. There's an analogue and freeview DVB tuner, and a CA slot for paychannels. A dual dvb tuner would have been nice, but I haven't seen any systems with this spec and 2 tuners. The Gem Guide EPG is good, easy to use, although it does not show the digital radio channels and takes a while to set up (downloading from the analogue tuner ITV channel). If you have a Sky box or external cable system, you can upload the channels to the EPG on the HDD/DVD recorder via a G-Link infra red link. You can then control the recording of your external devices connected to the DVD recorder. The on screen display is simple and easy to use, record programmes or edit from the menu.

The blurb says you can save your whole CD collection on the 250GB hard drive - but only if you have 999 tracks. This is a bit disappointing, as the sound quality of the surround system when playing back MP3s (or WMAs only without DRM!!) and CDs is very good. I would have liked to upload a few more tracks onto the HDD - although I can connect my MP3 player either via the optical or analogue audio or there's a USB link. You can also only see 999 tracks at a time from a PC or MP3 player (hard drive or flash).

You CAN get a pre-converted Multiregion version of this system - it's worth checking other websites .

Finally, if you can get this system for under £700, you are not going to be disappointed with the quality. This is easily the best sounding complete HD/DVD/Surround system I have tried and that more than makes up for the minor niggles mentioned above.

Virtually Smashing Samsung!!!

After having my BOSE Acoustimass speakers and dedicated Yamaha Home Cinema amp for a number of years I decided to sell-off most of my Home Cinema kit on Ebay along with my 500+ DVD collection and scale down my expensive habbit (Well we have a baby on the way in December and priorities change).

So I sold all my precious gear and decided my scale down would be extreme and I'd go from a full-on 5.1 system to a minimalistic 2.1 virtual surround HTIB (Home Theatre in a Box). So the search began to find a syetem that would easily intergrate with my Sky+ HD box and that had auido inputs for my computer.

In the end this litle Sammy won! Not only does this kit look the business it really does pack a punch with it's diminutive speakers and piano black bass. I'd recommend pumping up the volume at the start as most passive bass units need to be driven well for a while to get them running at full performance, my £800 Bose speakers were just the same!

The sound is very clear and I'd dissagre with some reviews that say it sounds too harsh. I'd say this is one of the most natural sounding systems I test drove. The sub adds a good level of bass to music and movies alike. Be careful with some external inputs though! My PC had extra bass setting switched on in iTunes and Windows Media Player which went way over what was required and made the bass sound disconnected from the main left and right channels.

So it sounds great but what about the picture. Well with this little beauty you've got HDMi output with upscaling to 720p and 1080i and Farroujia (probably spelt wrong)DCDi deinterlacing which can offer a better and sharper picture on LCD and Plasma TVs. You've got component output too, but no upscaling through this mode, which is a shame. There are some remote control hacks for other Samsung upscaling DVDs that turn this option back on but I've found nothing for this model yet! The picture looked great on my Evesham 37" LCD TV but the upscaling will never give you true Hi-Def from standard DVD sources but 720p does give a slight picture improvement over the PAL 576p standard on my TV.

There's enough inputs for a standard install. As mentioned above I have my Sky+ HD box linked to the Digital Optical audio input for sound. There is no HDMi pass through on this unit though, you just get a HDMi output for whatever the DVD is playing! I've got my computer connected to the RCA left and right AUX 2 inputs and a Creative Zen Vision plugged into the side AUX 1 with an audio jack. The unit also has a USB port which will accept some, but not many, pen drives and MP3 players. My Zen would not work through this connection!

My only gripe would be the lack of control over the trebble and bass, There's none! This is very odd for any system and can be limiting if you get a DVD or CD with overtly strong bass. The 2.1 Virtual Surround can be pretty good at times with the right material but can just sound echoey on standard stereo feeds. To be honest this will never be as good as a proper 5.1 and my old system was better, but I knew it would be. Don't expect miracles and you'll be pleasantly surprised with this super HTIB set-up.

Oly Scott

Great Piece of Hardware

I bought this to upgrade my 6 year old Sony HT-BE1 system, and was not disapointed. The first thing that came to mind was how could speakers so small (literally the size of golf balls) give enough sound, but it does! i have a fairly spacious room and it more than suffices, what i reallly like about this system is the big bastard bass box that comes with it, room literally shakes at some points (would recommend watching beowulf)

If like me you are a bit confused as to what ports and connections it has, well here it is, the little black reciver (the smallest of the boxes) has a Co-axial port,HDMI port (as it is also a dvd player) analogue audio ports (the red and white ones) and a DM Port that i dont use but u can stream music via bluetooth etc.

It has built in radio for AM/FM frequencies, TV (if u wanted to hook up your tv to the surround sound) basically any sort of input device it will play it. Now in saying that it is a dvd player also which apparently upscales your dvd's to 1080i, i DONT use this dvd player i have a blu ray player connected to it so i cant comment on that.

Overall im delighted with the purchase, the reason i give it 4 stars as opposed to 5 is that i like to listen to my music at time extremely loud and loud as it may be it just is not as LOUD as i would like.

Quality Surround

I bought this very recently and am very pleased with the purchase. Dvds have excellent surround on them. One reviewer earlier said it didn't sound like 1000 watts. I am unsure if he had a faulty system on not. Mine was extremely powerful and I recently watched Transformers on them with the volume at 30. My clock fell and the ground literally shook with the sub woofer. Great sound but not so good if you have neighbours.

The quality of the digital upscaling picture is good too. It does look like near HD quality. Good value for money.

region codes

i recently bought a panasonic sc-pt350 home cinema system,i was wondering if anyone knows how to unlock the system so that you can play any region dvds,look forward to a reply.