Customer Reviews

Koss KS3101 Progressive Scan DVD Home Theater System

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Got the Canadian version KS3102-2 from a membership warehouse store and it was highly recommended by the staffs there even over some Japanese systems. The biggest surprise was the wonderful sound, which at 300w is more than enough for a home setup, as I found now. The system makes movie watching very enjoyable and if I close my eyes, it feels just like I am at the theater. In my option, the price is worth the sound system alone (very powerful amp, great sub and speakers for the size) and the progressive scan DVD player is just a Huge plus. The dvd playing is smooth even for dvds/vcds that I had problems with my new-ish Panasonic. Simply, a very amazing and user-friendly system that I hope people weren't discouraged by the Koss label.

I just got this system and the sound quality really is great, especially for the price. Its one of the few systems in this price range to have digital optical input, which is necessary if you're connecting certain components for dolby digital suround like an x-box. Although there is a setting called "Prologic", I'm not sure that it actually has a prologic decoder since the manual only says that it gives out prologic sound if hooked up to a prologic receiver. I'm only giving it four rather than five stars because I've noticed that sometimes it will read no disc when there is a disc there so it has to be ejected and restarted. Otherwise, its really a nice system.

Update- 11/29/04- My system died like many other reviewers. Can't recommend for that reason.

the reviewer below sounds quite negative. the emphasize that Koss Tech support was in India. Newsflash: tech support for almost all the major consumer electronics firms is now in India. Is that good, I don't think so, but to go ioff on Koss over that is naive.

Koss is in fact considered to be a very good producer of consumer electronics and certainly no worst than other brands. This unit itself has very high consumer reviews on videohelp dot com which is considered THE authority.

I have owned about every maor brand and actually had the worst support and return problems with Sony. Here is the thing. Keep your original box with any consumer electronics for at least two weeks. use the product. if it fails in the first year, 99% of the time that failure will occur in the first few days. this is the case with the most expensive and the cheapest electronics. if you do have a failure simply return the product uin its original box for a new exchange or a refund, not a repair.

Beyond a year or two most consumer electronics that fails will have a mechanical component fail. that is why you have to be nuts to get a combo vcr/tv for example. vcr's fail all the time. In this unit the week link is the dvd player, which could last two years or could last more than five. BUT look up reveiws on Panasonic, Sony or even top brands dvd players. they fail all the time at two years also, and you are always out of warranty and repair is almost alwyas more than replacement.

So the caveat is if you get combo equiopment...like this home theater WITH dvd player, it may pay to go less expensive. And this is certainly the case with this price, which is outstanding. For the average person who hasn't had home theater and doesnt need to blast a college frat house you are going to enjoy dvd movie sound in a new way. And the stereo from the cd play and the tuner is much better than the average $150 stereo mini systems of a few years ago.

You get progressive scan, component, s video and composite video out, as well as both coxial and optical digital audio in. The speakers are well matched to the power rating and quite good.

All in all a good deal, and an exceptionally great deal at below 200 bucks.

For the price this system is definately worth it. It was very easy to setup and once the Tone is adjusted to EX BASS and the volume turned up a bit the sound is better than I had expected. I bought this for the DVD/Tuner combo as a secondary system. Don't expect it to even touch high end systems, but as a secondary it's great. I would have given 5 stars, but I found the wires too short and I can't stand it when they apply stickers to the hardware that is hard to get off.

The price is definitely right, looks nice, sounds great. Unless you're setting it up in a closet you'll need much more speaker wire though. One big problem with mine, however - while playing DVDs the audio will mute at random times during playback, usually 3 or 4 times. Simply hitting the volume button on the remote brings it back, but it's quite annoying. Perhaps it's overheating (I have it set up in an entertainment center, not a lot of airflow) so it could be that the problem is on my end. If that's the case I would give it 5 stars for value for the money.

The reason I wanted a home theater was the built in radio tuner. Since, I wanted to buy a dvd player anyway, I thought why not have the whole package eliminating the need for a hifi system.
So, bottom line is that I love this thing. Probably my ears are not the most sensitive ones but I find the sounde perfectly clear.
It was very easy to set up.
You can even make it region code free if you search the net a bit.

Enjoy

My first review, and it's because I dislike this product so much I have to break the silence. I got the KS3102 nine months ago. Good speakers, lots of options, I thought it was a great deal. After 60 days, the sound went out completely. Tech support had me unplug the unit and wait. The sound came back but it never was the same again: DVD subtitles would be enabled sometimes when I powered it up to watch a movie, or the speaker levels would reset, or sometimes the Digital sound wouldn't properly use all speakers if I had been playing Playstation II in Stereo.

Now it's been 9 months. and it's completely broken and out of warranty. No sound comes out even with resets. The Front-Left channel started buzzing, then the center channel too, and now nothing works.

This unit is a piece of junk. I'm going for a Sony receiver now; I should have just paid a little more and done that the first time. I'll use the speakers from this Koss system and that's about all it's good for now.

Easy to set up, sounds awesome for an average apartment, sub-woofer a bit low, but OK for the price. But audio is probably the only great feature of this system.

I have tried the system for a few days now. Would have liked it if the picture quality was better. Adds a green tinge to the movie signal from DVD, so you don't get the true colors. All yellows seem a little greenish and all reds seem pale. Moreover, sometimes there are diagonal lines running over the screen .. they are a little hard to detect, but if you look closely you can see them. Moreover, mine does not play any discs other than DVDs. I have tried standard 128+ bit MP3 discs, audio CDs etc.. but each song/entry plays for a few seconds before stopping. Also, the remote does not have a great interface for browsing through the MP3 listings. I will probably return this thing to Amazon in a few days, unless I receive some suggestions as to how to improve things, particularly the video quality. These problems may not be generic and I would suggest you buy it, being a little bit cagey about it.

I received the unit this past Friday and hooked it up in 15 minutes. System sounds great. Haven't had the problems some of the other reviewers experienced, but sometimes the system will take an usually long time loading a DVD. Progressive scan is awesome and now I got the sound quality to go with it. Very satisfied. Now let's just hope it last longer than a month....

UPDATE: I'm starting to experience the problems like the other reviewers. System reseting itself, no sound , DVD jumping back to main menu in the middle of movie!!!!!!!!, stero-only sound when the display shows "prologic", etc....

UPDATE (1/9/05): System is DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!

I am so very happy with my choice. This theater system sounds and looks great. It has so much intesity and indepth sound. I would tell anyone who is in the market, to purchase this item.