 PLEASE read before buying! |
| Review Date: August 4, 2010 |
| Reviewer: A. Boomer, Pennsylvania, US |
I purchased this Samsung unit when it was a 'Today's Deal". I won't complain about hookup or other techie stuff; those are not Samsung's problems (imo). About one week after setting it up, it started behaving oddly: it would pause spontaneously, or start fast fowarding, etc. Checked the remote, restarted, reset, all the usual stuff, but the problem got worse, to the point that it would TURN ITSELF ON AND OFF throughout the day (and night, scaring the h*** out of me initially). I sent it back to Amazon for a replacement.
Second unit arrived, was set up. I enjoyed high-quality and flawless performance for about five months. No messages to upgrade, no errors or anything. Then the same problem started again... first, turning itself on and off for varying intervals, playing loudly in the middle of the night if I was careless enough to leave a disc in. It seemed to be fine when in actual use, so I dealt with the problem by cutting off the power source when not in use. However, the problem has gotten progressively worse to the point where watching anything using the unit is impossible now. It will pause, play, pause, fast forward, play, pause... over and over again. It is constantly spontaneously turning itself on and off if the power cord is plugged in.
Tech support is a joke. They had me reset the unit several times to no avail. They (level II) tried to blame my television, my internet provider, AND my HDMI cable. Um... I don't think so! The second unit with the exact same problem, which worked fine with all it's accessories until a few weeks ago? (I ought to point out that my nearest neighbors are at least a quarter of a mile away.) I pushed a supervisor (fourth level of support) for a replacement, but the only concession I got was that they would pay the cost of shipping the unit to be repaired.
I will send the unit in for repairs and keep my fingers crossed (apparently others are still waiting to get theirs back from repairs), but in my book, this unit plus it's support gets zero stars. |
Love the Samsung Link
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| Review Date: July 2, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Ferrell Ferguson, Houston, Texas United States |
| I paired this with Samsung PN58B560 58-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV after deciding that my family really needed the convenience of one less remote (see my review). I have been happy with how the Samsung products talk to each other.. it's not perfect but once you understand the system you really only need one remote. It's not fair for me to compare this to what I really wanted to get which was an Onokyo theater system which is about the same price and no Blu-ray. BUT.. the sound quality for this theater system is a bit lacking and really not comparable in any respects to Onkyo HT-S5300 7.1-Channel Home Theater Receiver/Speaker Package with Dock for iPhone/iPod ( Black). Having said that, it is a great all in one theater system and DVD player. Personally I have NEVER had a DVD player last me more than 2 years so I purchased the extended warranty on this. The blue-ray player is freaking awesome! I love the Netflix streaming and cannot recommend it enough! |
It sounds amazing
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| Review Date: June 30, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Dustin F, |
This system sounds amazing.
It sounds better than systems costing far more.
It's just beautiful. This is reflected in the professional reviews, but more importantly, it's reflected in reality. I've used many home theater systems, and this one sounds much better than any that are anywhere near its price range. The woofer is really good without any obnoxious overkill unless you go out of your way to make your wife mad (which I am happy to report is also possible!).
And that, of course, is the most important piece of information you could have about this unit.
It also loads blu-rays very quickly. Some blu-ray players take much longer to load movies. Everything was in Sync and I never wanted for any feature or functionality (though it's not 3D compatible... I didn't mind).
The setup was easy though it lacked a microphone for calibration of the output (it was very easy to set up, though I did lower the center channel quite a bit).
Anyconnect (Similar to Sony's bravia feature which enables one Samsung HDMI device to control other Samsung devices) works easily with Samsung TVs, and it is so easy to get TV audio through the surround system with either remote. I don't think this feature is super amazing, but it's convenient. I bought an all Samsung setup for this feature, and I suggest other buyers ignore it if they can save money doing so. It's nice, but it's not quite perfect enough and you still have to hit 2 or 3 buttons for most tasks.
There is the ability to plug a USB stick into the device and play AMVs, JPGs, MP3s. I used it a lot and it works fine, though with no frills. I think this is a great feature, but it's probably not cutting edge anymore.
Because of the firmware concerns from last year, I simply didn't connect this to the internet (it comes with an Ethernet jack in the back). I love Pandora and youtube and netflix, but I'll just pretend this doesn't support them.
Plenty of hookups. Of course, no HDMI input because that's the industry standard for some stupid reason. But twin toslinks is more than enough in my opinion. Decodes and works without any hassle.
Now, I had a HUGE PROBLEM with this system. It was enough to make me nearly swear off buying Samsung ever again. The box is emblazoned with a massive 'Wireless Rear Speaker Ready' badge. It is no more wireless ready than the cheapest surround system you can find if Samsung no longer makes the SWA-4000 Wireless rear adapters. These are now available, used, via ebay or amazon for more than the price of a non-proprietary rear wireless system.
I contacted Samsung and was told the SWA-5000 would work. And this seems reasonable, since the device is highly similar. The pins on the transmission card of the swa 5000 are identical in size and number to the pinout on this 1250 receiver, too, but the card's housing is much larger and can't fit (and the software probably doesn't support it, though I did not force the card in). This is probably forced obsolescence and my later investigation of Samsung's wireless rear systems leads me to believe they just keep doing this to force upgraders to buy a little more equipment. Worse, Samsung does a poor job advertising they no longer support wireless functionality in recent iterations of their systems and gave me incorrect info when I called them. Samsung knows they could use the same standard the way Sony's S-Air does. There is no technical reason to change the size of their TX card so frequently.
But Amazon saved Samsung, because they accepted my return with no hassle and I bought a 'universal' wireless rear that isn't seamless but works. I have returned things of this nature for reasons of this nature to brick and mortars to be charged a restocking fee. Amazon is better. Samsung also saved themselves because this system sounds so great that it's hard not to love it despite the huge disappointment of spending thousands on a setup that didn't work on day 1. Imagine someone so mad about a problem they want to rate a product 1 star, but after enjoying a few movies, are so happy with the audio quality they instead give 4 stars.
That's how good this dang thing sounds. Please ignore the 'wireless rear ready' claims, and you won't be burned. I think Amazon should remove that from the product description, too, since it's just not supported. Any wired system can be made wireless, though. Thank goodness. |
Equipment good; instructions bad
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| Review Date: June 25, 2010 |
| Reviewer: Spitoon, Charlotte |
| Very pleased with quality and appearance of this sound system. However, the instructions that accompany same are extremely hard to understand and lacking in a sensible approach regarding installation and operation of the system. |
don't pay anymore than $400 for this
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| Review Date: May 29, 2010 |
| Reviewer: PuPu, |
I got this product for free so it's not like I can complaint about how much it cost. I find the system look pretty nice, the amplifier is all glossy and everything eventhough the speakers look rather cheap but I actually like the way it looks. but the thing annoys me the most is its lack of features. For example, when you have disc in the player, you pretty much can not do any damn thing beside watching the movie on the disc until you take the disc out, seriously, do they expect to get up, get the disc out before I can switch to listening to music? The remote control is also not every responsive. I have to actually try to point to the player and press each button slowly (or maybe I'm just too used the ps3 control which has blue tooth technology, but I don't see myself having that much trouble with my tv remote control) . The Ipod feature is also a let down, while I'm glad that it has the ipod feature, I'm also annoyed by the fact that it doesn't have the shuffle option. What kind of sane person would forget such an obvious feature?
Despite some of the let downs, the system is good system for the money. It has fairly good sound quality, there's option for watching netflix, youtube and pandora. But beware that despite what they say about having built wireless, you have to buy a wireless adapter and it costs about 80 bucks, which is about 1/4 the cost of the whole system so i just use my ethernet cable and save myself $80 since I don't mind having wires lying around. Anyway, buy this system if you're looking for something basic, cheap, simple and easy to set up. However, if you're looking something with advanced feature and crystal clear sound and picture then it's not the system for you. |
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