Electronics Samsung HT-Z310T 5.1-Channel Home Theater Surround Sound System (Set of Seven, Black)
Books and Publications Average Rating:

Rating: - So far, so good
I've only had this system for about a week, but for the price it's really great. It has a nice, crisp and clear sound. I purchased this to accompany my new Samsung LCD television and it "communicates" with the system. It actually got kind of annoying having it turn my TV on automatically and if I turned my TV off it would turn the system off (I don't want to have a static image on my screen when using the ipod feature). I turned the anynet+ feature off because of that annoyance. It's easy enough to control anyways. For the price, this is a system that I would recommend without question.

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Rating: - Great Buy!
I brought these speakers 1st for myself. They had superior sound quality on my computer system. My sister saw & wanted one for hers, so I ordered it. They didn't work on her desktop but worked just fine on her laptop & even her TV. My advise to anyone buying, make sure that your system is compatible with the speakers

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Rating: - Ok for a starter system or on a budget
I bought this to replace a 8 year old Magnavox entry level system. I read the reviews here and thought I knew about all the limitations (mostly the lack of inputs and the speaker cable connectors. I bought this elsewhere today on Black Friday. I got it home and took everything out. I quickly noticed the speakers don't have industry standard mounting holes. Hmm. I wired my living room a few months ago and bought basic angled wall mounts. I took a speaker down and found a way to "rig" the mount...and was simply okay with it. I then test fit the system. My Samsung 750 LCD TV found the receiver and configured it right away. I put a DVD in and the input switched and began to play. I then tried going back to cable TV (I have AT&T Uverse). No sound. After a few minutes I realized I needed to use the optical cable from the TV to the receiver. Hmm. I was using the optical cable from my XBox 360 to my old receiver. Once I did this I turned up the TV....the sound wasn't as deep and crisp as my existing setup. Disappointed I put it all back in the box. I am going to return it and seek out another option. I am going to look at the more expensive Samsung models to see if they have standard cables and speaker mounting holes.

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Rating: - Great Value, Has Drawbacks...
Overall, it's a nice product. I use it with a Samsung LNT-4065F. It's the first surround sound system that I have purchased, and I think that in the future I will probably build a professional system. This unit doesn't have enough inputs. The single optical input kind of sucks. Most televisions do have optical out, which I read in the prior reviews. However, what those reviews don't tell you is that nearly every TV on the market doesn't provide Dolby 5.1 through the optical output. It downsamples to PCM/Stereo sound. Therefore, if you hook up your PS3, DVD, XBox 360, AppleTV, etc. to your TV with HDMI, and an optical cable from the TV to this receiver, you have to depend on the receiver to upsample the 2 channels that the TV is sending it. The best solution is to run an HDMI cable from the device to your TV, and an optical cable from your device to the receiver. However, there's only one optical port on the receiver. Barring expensive switching devices you're screwed. Either upsampled 2 channel audio, or hook just one device to the receiver.

Had I known better, I probably would have built my own system. I didn't know enough about it at the time.

The sound quality is pretty decent if the inputs fit your needs. Sometimes the sound I get sounds a little muffled. The upsample of 2 channel audio isn't really *that* bad.

I don't use the upconverting DVD functionality. I use a PS3 to play DVDs, so I can't speak on that feature.