Customer Reviews

Samsung HT-TQ85 XM-Ready Five-Disc DVD Changer Home Theater System (5.1 Channel)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I shopped extensively for inexpensive home theater audio trying to delay my purchase until equipment using HDMI 1.3 comes out to use in conjunction with the new Blue ray or High Def DVD players. Currently if you want home theater done right you have to spend about $4k or more. If you spend that now you'll get equipment that can only play back the current compressed soundtrack formats for the current crop of DVD movies. Evidently Blue ray and HD DVD is supposed to be putting out movies in the new lossless format which means no compression of the signal so we will finally get great sound to satisfy an audiophile taste if you have the right home theater equipment to play it. So the trick is now to get home theater audio for your current tv or HD tv setup. This samsung system has a couple of unique things going for it. Namely HDMI input and output. Only a handful of HTIB (Home theater in a box) setups have a HDMI plug at all for the new HDTV sets and almost none of them have an HDMI input for any other HDMI friendly devices such as a DVR (digital Video recorder). Only the Onkyo does and not all of the onkyos only a couple of their systems do but to get the onkyo you have to spend 700.00 plus stands for the speakers so you are going to be out at least 850-900.00. I found this samsung with the unique HDMI in and HDMI out so I bought it from Brandsmart for 428.00 and after finally connecting it was amazed at the excitement it brought to my viewing experience on my 60 inch Sony SXRD rear projection 1080i HDTV. Bear in mind this HTIB system on FM radio or music cds sounds atrocious (horrible). It comes with FM radio tuner, plays all kinds of music formats such as DIVX, MP3, etc but again it sounds AWFUL. But for movies on DVD it sounds balanced, proper, clean, exciting and very satisfying. I dont know how it can sound so amazing for such crappy electronics and such a low price but it does. The dynamic range is there, the power is there, it conveys a lot of emotion and makes any movie more engaging. I am using this setup in a room that is approximately 14 by 20 feet. The remote has the basic keys that glow in the dark and one lighted key up top when you push the button. Assembly was easy, electronics inside are suprisingly advanced. Unit is well lit, plenty of speaker cable included but no component or HDMI cables. Dont get suckered into spending big dollars on an HDMI cable. Avoid the Sony's HTIB systems as they sound surprisingly distorted. Look at the onkyos with the HDMI inputs as they are good units. Also pay attention to having a digital optical input too as this unit has one. Also be careful with wireless rear speakers as they add to the cost and may be hissy or fussy to keep working. I highly recommend this Samsung system.

I admittedly had no idea what this system would sound like when I purchased it from Costco. I had just bought the new Tivo Series 3 DVR and was looking for a home theater system that would have HDMI In and Out as well as digital optical In. That was my criteria (along with a decent price). I was surprised to learn that very few home theater systems have all three of these features--they might just have one HDMI Out or digital analog sound, but virtually none in this pricerange had all three that I needed. Believe me, I went turning around all of the display models to see--you do the same and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I'm extremely pleased with this system. The surround sound is awesome and there are myriad ways to set it up the sound profiles to your individual preferences. 1000 watts of power makes the movies sound just like the theater. The FM radio sounds great too. I don't have XM radio service, nor did I get the optional antenna you need for that service, so I can't speak to the quality of that.

I love the USB port on the front. I plug in a USB memory stick and it'll play MP3's, JPEG picture slideshows, and (my favorite) .avi files that I download off the Internet. So, that's TV episodes and ripped movies that I don't have to first burn to DVD.

The 5 disk changer is a tad slow to open and close. It sits there for a couple of seconds and thinks about it I guess, but heck, I can wait. The quality of the DVD image is great. It'll upconvert the image to HD and it looks awesome.

All in all, for the features and the price, this system is great. I highly recommend it.

I did my research and came across this HTIB (Home Theatre in a Box)months ago as well as another comparable system JVC THC6, which you could probably still find at J&R Music & Computer world for the same price $379. After waiting for the price to come down and searching for similiar products and comparing it against the JVC THC, it came down to color preference, lol. The system sounds great, plenty of options to tweak the sound just right, which many can find either annoying or aucustically pleasing. I drop one star because it did not support my ipod with its USB device. Nothing a stereo link from Nyko cant fix, also I hear it gets rave reviews on Amazon and you can buy it at compusa from $14.99. You really cant go wrong with this system if you want it all in one box without the hassle of surfing online for seperate components to build your own custom system: receiver, speakers etc. Time saver and money saver.

I had purchased the Samsung HP-S4253 Plasma TV and eventually chose this theater system for it. I was replacing my 2-channel Paradigm speaker system and didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was always leary of HTiB systems, but after the good reviews I tried this Samsung. I set up the system as the instructions said except that I used 14 guage speaker wire instead of the very thin wire included in the box. The included wire is so thin I just couldn't imagine not getting power or signal loss. Before reviewing the theater system I would like to say the two Samsung products compliment each other perfectly. Each use the same blue color lights on their front panels. Each remote control looks very similar and the theater remote controls the TV without further programming. I don't know if it's a quality of the HDMI signal, but when I just turn off the TV the sound is cut as well. The theater system is still on, but it somehow knows to cut the sound. I have an HD DVR from the cable company. I have an HDMI cable going from the cable box to the theater and then from the theater to the TV. That's it, two cables do it all.

Right out of the box the sound was not dissappointing. First you have to set up the speaker options. Since the audio and video are digitally processed there is sometimes a delay where the video is lagging behind the audio. By default it was set at 50 ms and I found good sync at that setting.

Now ideally the front, center and rear speakers should be the same distance from the listener. My room doesn't allow this so further setup is required. The instructions have you measure the distance from the your listening position to the front sides, to the center and to the rears. You then set delays so the sound reaches you at the same time. I had to delay my center speaker by 1 ms and the rears by 6 ms.

You have the option to increase or decrease the sound volume in each speaker. I found the default settings good except the sub. I personally felt there was too much bass for my normal viewing so I turned it down a couple of notches. I read some people having to turn of the rear speakers all the way. You have to realize that you will not always hear sound from them. The source has to be encoded to take advantage of them and some programming doesn't. Even when watching 5.1 movies or shows the sound from the rears will not always be that noticeable. Most of the dialog comes from the center. You hear more subtle sound from the rears and I don't believe they should be too loud. I have to wonder if people who have to turn up the rears have that problem because of the very thin wire included with the system.

You can also adjust the Dynamic Range Compression. It balances the range between the loudest and quietist sounds. Normally you may have to turn up the volume to hear all the quiet nuances in the sound, but you can make it so all is at the same level so you can hear more at lower volumes, like when people are trying to sleep. This may be another reason people turn up their rears--they aren't listening to the movie loud enough.

There are lots of settings and profiles to adjust the Dolby Pro Logic, but I can't adjust them when listening to DVDs or HDMI input. The adjustments are only for sources that use 2 channel sound, like the radio. The Dolby Pro Logic allows you to use all speakers when listening to a source recorded in only 2 channels.

The system comes with an FM antenna. I read some people complaining about the radio. In my experience the radio that is included in receivers is usually not that good. I have to say that when compared to my other systems this radio sounded pretty good. There are lots of options to change the Dolby modes and effects.

The audio and video both are supplied via the HDMI cable. This unit automatically removes the audio from the signal sent to your TV. There is a button on the remote to re-route the audio from the Samsung speakers to the TV. I don't believe you can have sound coming out both at the same time while using HDMI. Then again, I don't believe you should. I actually like this feature because if it didn't remove the audio I would have to manually turn down the TV sound all the way every time I wanted to use the theater speakers. I could mute, but it says "mute" on screen. The Samsung TV I have actually has an option to turn off the audio as well. When it comes down to it, the theater speakers sound way better than the TV speakers in every situation I've tried so far so, for me, this feature is a plus.

I've only had one problem. Sometimes when going from one source (DVD or radio, etc.) to HDMI in (cable box) the audio does not come through. Only a fast clicking staticky sound, like what it sounds like to scan through radio channels quickly. I can see the cable box image fine, but there is some hiccup when it tries to process the audio. The only fix is to change channels on the cable box. I then hear a couple of seconds of audio from the previous channel and then it switches and works correctly. I can then go back to the first channel. I called Samsung's 800 number to see what they said. If you need to call them choose the "TV" option to get to the theater support. Within 10 minutes I was talking to tier 2 technical support. Using my serial number he said the unit was manufactured in Jan 07 and had the most updated revisions. My cable box is brand new as well. Unfortunately he could not give me a solution to the problem besides sending it back for a replacement. The thing is I don't know if it's the cable box or the theater system. I have experienced another quirk. I've seen it not immediately sence the HDMI signal when first switching to that mode. I personally feel that HDMI is a pretty new technology and every componant may not cooperate with each other perfectly. I've experienced other short-term quirks with individual cable channels involving the audio encoding. Yesterday I found one HD channel that sounded like an echo. Only one channel. Then I heard a loud tone and it was fixed. My impression is that my theater is functioning to the best of it's designed ability. There seems to be some variation in the digital audio that my cable box supplies it. I will not be sending this unit back. These problems and the thin speaker wire is why I had to knock off a star. Even if I have to put up with the channel-changing fix, it is not enough or frequent enough of a problem for me to send anything back.

Some have complained about the mp3 player being slow to change tracks, etc. Personally, every mp3 player that accesses the songs off an optical disc seems slow to me. I think it's an inherent flaw, not necessarily a flaw unique to this system. I was glad to see it displaying track titles on the screen. My other DVD player simples plays the audio without showing the name of what is playing.

As far as the DVD player functionality, I've had no problems. I've noticed no static or visual problems with the image it sends to the TV. The DVD tray is quiet and operates smoothly. It has all the features you would expect from a modern DVD player like various speeds for fast forward and rewind and even different speeds for slow-motion going forward and reverse. It has a step feature for frame-by-frame viewing. After a moment of having a movie paused it goes to a screen saver. In stop mode the unit turns itself off after about 20 minutes to save power.

Other impressions:

I like the look of the speakers and player. The center channel fits perfectly on the front part of the base of my Samsung TV without blocking the IR port or power button. The tall-boy speakers are convertible. You can remove the bottom half to have a "short-boy" speaker or only use the top part and mount it to the wall. The player does seem a little big, maybe 3-5 inches deeper than one might expect. You have to remember that has to hold a 5-disc tray inside. This size was not an inconvience for me. I was a little worried about the passive subwoofer (not internally powered), but what do you want for $400! That said the bass does sound good. It won't break the windows, but more than enough for me. I was worred that I would hear the bass distort at louder volumes (due to being underpowered with an inferior amplifier), but this didn't happen. Don't be surprised if you turn up the sub level in settings and have it distort at high volumes though. The system is able to get pretty loud. I was impressed that I didn't detect much sound quality loss when really cranking it. Although you can't turn it up to ear-bleeding levels, I personally could only handle full volume for a couple of minutes. I believe it is loud enough for 99% of people. It can go to a level of 50 and I am commonly listening at levels around 15-25. I like the quick-play buttons on the front of the unit. There is a USB port and headphone jack right on the front as well. There are bright blue LEDs in the unit's power button and volume dial. They can be turned off and the display dimmed with a single button push on the remote. The only other minor annoyance was that you have to go to the DVD player's stop mode to access the settings menu. Once you have things set to what you want, you probably won't be going there much anyway. The front of the player has a little display of the 6 speakers. It knows the encoding of the audio source and displays the speakers being utilized at the time. For example, when listening to the radio on stereo mode it displays the front, center and sub. Switch from stereo mode to 5.1 matrix and it shows all 6 speakers. Next to that picutre is a little image of the DVD tray. Each DVD tray position has a number and the number being played flashes.

There are many more options and features. I only talked about the features and options I've personally used. Overall I'm really happy about this purchase. Very good value at $400. I have friends who have purchased good-sounding budget surround-sound systems for the same price, but they didn't have a DVD player, let alone a 5-disc player that works well. One more thing. If you are like me, you no longer use the VCR. All I have for componants is this unit (DVD player and receiver commbined) and my cable box. This makes my wife happy (I said she can pick the TV stand/media center) because having only two theater componants opens up more design possibilites. I have to belive that unless you are going to spend thousands on an expert system, this system will be more than adequate and at a very good price.

I must say this product is very powerful and rich in sound,damn just watch a dvd of king kong on it and you will see what am talking about,the sound and power makes you jump at times and it is so detailed that it feels as if things are creeping up on you from the back. It really is a well put together system and a beauty in the front room,the set up is easy and the controls are smooth,it isnt as fast on loading as the panasonic system i had before but trust me this system can hold its own,i only had it turned up half way and thats all you need,it would blow you away,have and go get one of these bad boys.

I bought this Samsung HTIB after reading the strong reviews in Amazon. Overall, the deciding factor in buying this system is the price/performance ratio. I am very happy with the system, i am giving it 5-star rating.

Pros:
- Excellent value. You get 5 disc DVD changer, 4 tall boy speakers, 1000W, for USD400, with no shipping and no tax (i live in california). In this 400-500 price range, I compared this side by side with Sony, JVC, and Panasonic. Samsung has more features and has the lowest price of them all.
- Good performance.
- HDMI Input and Output. Only Onkyo has this feature, but its a lot more expensive, not to mention Onkyo is a HUGE system. My sound system cabinet is not enough to put the Onkyo in.
- 4 tall boy speakers. I hate mounting speakers on wall. A good, matching color speakers stand is expensive to buy separately. The 4 tall boy speakers fit my needs perfectly.
- Easy to assemble. I got the system up and running in 20 minutes.

Cons:
- Speaker wires I think is 22 or 24 gauge, very thin. I end up replacing them with 14 gauge speaker wire which costs another 30 bucks from Circuit City. The system sounds better after the wire upgrade.
- No auto calibration. No big deal though. I had to calibrate the sytem myself. The out-of-the-box setup is horrible.
- USB Host feature is hard to navigate. I hooked up my USB drive. My USB drive has a lot of content (pics/movies). You cannot navigate from a folder to another folder. This USB Host is fine though, if you just want to browse all the pics.

Researched like everyone else, much thought into the buying process. Since I chose the Samsung HL5687 1080p, I figured also the
two systems would work well together. They are a match made in technology heaven. The tv awesome, the system is incredible for the space I have it in. It rocks the room as well as picks up all the dialogue in movies. My media room is enclosed 12x14. Some one wrote the system was average on music, I can crank it up, and hear it all over the house, especially since I have cable tv, and the satellite music stations are of great quality. The system matches the television perfectly and the combo with the stand makes my dream media room a reality, which I enjoy tremendously. I like the profile height of the speakers, and the option to remove them from the bases and mount them on the wall-maybe later, but now I am totally enjoying the audio sound system. The dvd quality is great and I love the hdmi inputs, sweet. I have my cable box going to it with optical audio, sounds great. Amazon pricing made it a delicious purchase. Arrived on time, easy set up and now it just Rocks!

I recieved this home theater system today. It was purchased to replace a dead bose system (circa 1998). The sound quality is excellent, especially for the price. Setup is not very difficult, but it does require some time. The one problem I have with it is the HDMI passthrough does not work with Comcast Cable Boxes, or most cable boxes in general. This is an issue with the cable boxes however, due to their anal DRM restrictions. So I will not knock the product for that. The DVD quality through component cables is awesome, the upconverting is very good. Due to the passthrough not working correctly, there is only one digital input. An A/V switch with digital audio would fix this problem however.

All in all, this is an excellent system, especially for the price, It sound and looks great, but could use more digital inputs.

This is one bang-up little receiver. Like the other reviewers mentioned - the sound that this thing puts out is pretty impressive. There were two big draws for me - HDMI IN/OUT and the DIVX aware USB in.

I really like the simple setup that this thing allows me - no using the tv remote to pick video 1, etc - key to the whole thing was that my wife needed to be able to control the setup.

One (non-provided $100 Monster HDMI cable) connection from box to my new Samsung LN-S4695D 46" 1080p (great TV). This is the only wire going to the TV.

I plugged in my Tivo series 3 via HDMI into the Samsung. Sometimes some of my Tivo noises arent there - no biggie - actually a plus. I get most of my HD via the Tivo OTA tuner. Looks/sounds great. One big hold up was that I couldnt program my Tivo remote to control the receiver - just learned that the remote is a learning remote - one button on the Tivo remove turns off receiver and tv - so nice.

USB - I thought for sure this would be a total bust - but so far it has been mad money. I downloaded some DIVX encoded video - slapped USB token in the receiver - selected USB - boom! Watching the video. There is a decent GUI on the TV to pick/browse content. This makes the lack of Tivo home networking OK. Looks like mp3, pngs, etc, etc is supported. This is one of the nicer features of this box.

DVD - the thought of having 5 DVDs in this thing seemed ludicrous to me - and still does. Even more appalling was the idea that this thing could upscale video. I did a test of my old DVD (w/ SVideo) compared to this with HDMI - and this was dramatically better. Not fooling myself into thinking I am getting 1080i ... but beat the heck out of my old DVD player.

I played FM/AM radio for about 19 seconds - sounded a-okay.

The speaker setup is a fine - no issues there. Took me few minutes to figure out how to get into the setup menu - but once there it was a breeze.

This product is top notch!! The 5 disc dvd player is clear and crisp along with the sound. It plays music from my IPOD Nano and the XM radio and other radio stations come in very clear. I am extremely satisfied with this product. I highly recommend.