Customer Reviews

Philips HSB3280/F7 Micro Hi-Fi Soundbar System

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This Philips soundbar is a little gem. Small enough to set up easily, a wireless subwoofer that actually works and can be heard, without the silly DVD player to break that everyone already has, great loud gaming sound -- we use it with our Xbox for more realistic gaming sounds. We purchased it for our living room and with our old TV and old satellite box, we were very very pleased. We upgraded and realized there were no HMDI connections and we were out of luck. Our new Samsung TV did not recognize this unit in it's Anynet+ system. Couldn't make it work properly with the system that we acquired, and so it went with the old TV and became the gaming soundbar. We are using it, we do like it, we do recommend it. We just recommend checking the connections you need before you buy.

We think Philips makes a great product. We like the sound. It was a good price. It even comes with the wall mounting bracket in the box. Everything you could want. Our problem is that we didn't check to get the right connectivity for our system.

The sound on my Sony TV was not up to par so I decided to buy a Sound Bar. The salesperson at Best Buy gave me the hard sell on this particular unit because one of his fellow employees had returned it deciding he wanted a "better unit". That should have been my first clue but the price was right (at $259....it was still more than what I could have purchased it for on amazon.com)and I bought it. Hooking it up was easy and I thought I was off to a good start. THEN, in clicking on the two side speakers, I immediately noticed that they didn't fit tightly and "sagged" to the side a bit. I thought..."Oh well, I saved some money by buying an open box item. Then, while playing with the remote, I realized there were absoulutely no controls on it to lessen the bass beyond their preset which was annoying muffled sounding and much too present. The bass is unnecessarily booming and can be extremely annoying. While viewing our Sony TV, I hear clicks and pops coming from the sub bass quite often and each time you change from HD to "regular" tv, you have to keep adjusting the sync via the remote or people's words and their mouth movements fall badly out of sync. After about 8 months, the wireless sub-bass started making awful noises as if something was living inside it. Banging it with a newspaper or my fist will stop the noise temporarily, but something is "whirring" or rubbing inside that unit which I don't dare take apart. This is something out of a bad b-movie from the 1950's when tv was still fairly new and we put up with these things. In 2010, and the day of technology, this should not be happening. I attempted to take it back to the store where I purchased it but was told that I should either send it back to the manufacturer, pay the store where it was purchased to "fix it, or "junk it" because it was sold as an "open box" item. Yea....an open box item now seems to be more than what other stores were selling it for. THAT, I didn't find out until after the fact. So, I now have a Philips Sound Bar & sub-bass that clicks, pops, goes out of sync, whirrs, growls and is generally a piece of junk. No one at Philips would help me when I called, and no one at Best Buy would help (without charging me for it). I don't want to spend the money on a new sound bar, so we now avoid using our Sony TV because of it. I will never buy a Philip's product again, partially because they wouldn't stand behind it, and partially because it's just not well made or well thought out. Was this planned obsolescence so one would have to replace it, or just a crummy product to begin with? This was a waste of money and a waste of time.
A DEFINITE: DO NOT BUY!

I have had this soundbar for about 5 months now and I'm quite happy with it.
I plugged this into a surge protector separate from the surge protector of the TV.
So I don't have it on standby mode all the time.
I connected a Sony Blu ray player with it through a digital coaxial cable.
There are no HDMI inputs with this soundbar which is okay. The digital coaxial sounds
very good as well.

Since there are no HDMI inputs I connected the RCA cables between the soundbar and
that of the RCA audio output from the cable box. It sounded quite good; however, since
my TV is a Panasonic Vera with Netflix, when I switch to the Netflix app of the TV
I don't get the audio through the soundbar. So eventually I ordered a Digital
Optical to analog converter from Gefen. Its also sold here in Amazon.
Make sure you get the one that decodes digital broadcast soundtrack. Connected the
Optical digital cable to the converter and RCA cables to the soundbar. So now I'm able to
hear the Netflix audio through the soundbar.

The sound from the Philips soundbar is quite good. For the movie preset soundtracks,
they have drama,action, sci-fi,standard, music. For movie viewing, I choose to use
sci-fi. It seems to produce all the subtle sounds, and dialogue, and good bass from most movies.
The problem with this unit though is that you have to pair the main soundbar unit to
the sub woofer because the sub woofer is wireless.
During movie viewing, once they are paired, I never have a problem. But once the unit is turned off
completely, you may have to pair the the units again when you turn it on, which is not that difficult to do though.
The light indicator on the sub woofer has to be deep dark blue which means the bass signal is being
received. I'm not sure what would cause the pairing to drop, but electrical interference or
other wireless devices ( cell phones, regular digital house phones, etc) can interfere
with the wireless signal. I usually turn off the entire unit, and the optical to digital
converter from the separate surge protector when I'm not viewing movies.
Its just good for the unit, and the environment.

Once it works, the sound is quite loud and really good.
An FM antenna is included. Also, to keep the soundbar speakers from sagging to the side, Philips included
two small metal bars which are meant to be inserted in the holes underneath the speakers of the main soundbar unit.
After discovering this, it improved the appearance of the soundbar. It looks quite good with its European style to it!
Philips is after all a Dutch company! I enjoy this product and most products of Philips and will
probably upgrade to Philips better soundbars!

I bought this to improve the surround sound on my new 3D plasma TV and it works very well when you have the right cable to hook it up. The sound was great unlike what other people say who probably has a defective product from the store. I like the USB feature and the FM radio. However there is no digital optical in line which will make this the perfect soundbar. There is a digital coaxial input which my new TV does not support. If you have a older TV or sony TV it will probably support it. I will still recommend it!

This thing was junk. Very poor sound quality. I thought this would work great on my Philips TV. The people at Factory Depot where this unit came from are very very slow in helping me to return this item. It took 4 e-mails just to get them to give me a return authorization number. They make you wait up to 14 days before they will refund or replace after they receive it back and a 10% restocking fee. Don't buy. Buyer beware.

I was very impressed with the quick, simple assembly and the way the wireless subwoofer pairs instantly. The rich tones and deep bass this unit generates is perfect for a small room. I am using this unit in my bedroom so the relatively small overall size (31.5"), the inclusion of a clock and radio, and the availability of up to 3 input sources met my needs perfectly. The addition of 3 different movie and 4 different music sound fields was unexpected and in my opinion greatly adds to the value of the unit. The biggest surprise was the remote. The remote control provided is a learning remote that allows you to easily program it to control other components from the one unit.
If you are looking for a small, atractive unit for your office or bedroom that, is easy to assemble and connect, is simple to operate, provides the features of a bigger more expensive unit, and provides great sound, this is an excellent choice.

First i would like to say why im giving it 4out5 stars its because when i hook up my ipod it wont read it but maybe its something im missing but this is the best sound bar for the price hands down i paid 124.00 at costco but anyways i have friends that have sound bars that they paid 300.00 to 400.00 for and sound like crap and for the lack or hdmi and optical ports ..look you can find analog to digital converter or analog to hdmi converter here on amazon and pay alot less then just going to a store to just a sound bar with hdmi and optical ports and have the sound be so-so the sound quality with this sound bar is great the sub has nice deep (clean)bass after tossing in cars,book of eli and the matrix you can really hear the movie i also have it hooked to my ps3 games like rock band need for speed and gt5 all sound really you can hear everything when i picked up this sound bar it was an add to my new plasma because most hdtv speakers suck i really feel i got lucky with this one i would tell anyone looking into getting a sound bar to give this one a try i love it and my kids love it