I bought the Philips HTS3265 from Croma on 29th Aug for Rs. 11990/- but did not take delivery as I was renovating my house. I just took the cables to conceal the wiring. I finally took delivery more than a month later but was not able to listen to my favourite tracks because they were all stored away and work was still on.
I was very apprehensive to begin with as my priority was music rather than movies. I had to settle for a compact HT like this for many non-tech reasons. Croma is not the best place to audition as there is too much ambient disturbance but I listened to every one of the HTiBs in the sub 20K category and found this model satisfied my requirement at the lowest price. I even listened to the Onkyo 3100 too but it was distorting badly. I don't think it was the problem of the system but then the guy over there was not able to fix the problem. I am certain it was the source or interconnect from the CD player to the Onkyo.
This weekend I was able to listen to the best of my collection. I must say that I am happy that the system sounds much better than I expected. Listening to UB40, Ali Campbell's vocals are alive and the bass (something I am always partial to) thumps nicely out of the sub in the corner. There is still a little tweaking to do with the mounting of the front sats but this is not bad as it is.
For all those looking for a budget all-in-one type audio video solution, don't consider Sony, Samsung or LG. Go only for Philips. If you like bass don't settle for anything lower than the 3265. The 3011 has a pathetic sub which sounds crappy and a similar sub is there on the cheaper systems.
The bare minimum is this HTS3265. Great VFM. The only thing that I believe I will miss is that it does not have a HDMI out. I will be using component out. But then again, movies are not a priority for me.
One problem I faced was that it wouldn't detect my Corsair 8GB Flash Voyager. I tried my 512 MB Transcend ad it worked fine and so did a 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager I borrowed from a friend. I conclude that the issue is in my flash drive as it doesn't work with the Kodak photo frame or with my Samsung LCD TV either.
I am in correspondence with Corsair now to resolve this issue.
I was very apprehensive to begin with as my priority was music rather than movies. I had to settle for a compact HT like this for many non-tech reasons. Croma is not the best place to audition as there is too much ambient disturbance but I listened to every one of the HTiBs in the sub 20K category and found this model satisfied my requirement at the lowest price. I even listened to the Onkyo 3100 too but it was distorting badly. I don't think it was the problem of the system but then the guy over there was not able to fix the problem. I am certain it was the source or interconnect from the CD player to the Onkyo.
This weekend I was able to listen to the best of my collection. I must say that I am happy that the system sounds much better than I expected. Listening to UB40, Ali Campbell's vocals are alive and the bass (something I am always partial to) thumps nicely out of the sub in the corner. There is still a little tweaking to do with the mounting of the front sats but this is not bad as it is.
For all those looking for a budget all-in-one type audio video solution, don't consider Sony, Samsung or LG. Go only for Philips. If you like bass don't settle for anything lower than the 3265. The 3011 has a pathetic sub which sounds crappy and a similar sub is there on the cheaper systems.
The bare minimum is this HTS3265. Great VFM. The only thing that I believe I will miss is that it does not have a HDMI out. I will be using component out. But then again, movies are not a priority for me.
One problem I faced was that it wouldn't detect my Corsair 8GB Flash Voyager. I tried my 512 MB Transcend ad it worked fine and so did a 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager I borrowed from a friend. I conclude that the issue is in my flash drive as it doesn't work with the Kodak photo frame or with my Samsung LCD TV either.
I am in correspondence with Corsair now to resolve this issue.
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