Samsung HT-TX715T Home Theater System

We plugged in a Philips MP3 Player and also used a couple of audio CDs initially. This was to check pure Audio output. The music ranged from classic movie soundtracks to modern electronica, and also an Indian Classical vocal CD by Kishori Amonkar. For video I used the I am Legend DVD and Iron Man DivX.

When listening to pure audio we were really taken aback by the lovely highs and high mid frequency response. This region of frequency response had pure clarity and was very much in control, though a little forward sounding. It was not in the least bit jarring, rather had a very open sound, typical to good tower speakers. Well recorded, uncompressed music obviously sounded much better on the speakers, though MP3s also sounded great.__STARTQUOTE__The actual looks of the system is totally different though, it’s very good. All the surfaces have the signature Touch of Colour red tinge that is proprietary Samsung, something I truly appreciate as a design aspect.__ENDQUOTE__It was not only the highs, even the low end was impressive. It wasn’t absolutely tight and accurate in timing, though very much present till about 40 Hz on testing. Technically speaking, we ran a 20Hz-20kHz Sine wave sweep through all the frequencies, and noted the response. The region around 4 kHz – 10 kHz was slightly higher in output, probably this is what gave the sense of clarity in the sound. The bass was hardly boomy and I like this a lot.

In the video domain the player proved to be like any other Samsung DVD player, with familiar menus. The operation of the Disc was quite prompt. It took less than 5 seconds from Disc Load to Play. We had connected via HDMI to our Pioneer HDTV. The upscaled video was sharp and made an honest attempt to eliminate artifacts in the minor detailed regions. The playback was smooth with no real glitches in linear playback. Speaking of Black to white levels Dynamic range, we had satisfactory dark levels, with separation upto the last few black bars. This was our 256 level grayscale test, in which the last few bars generally get smudged due to limited capabilities of players, but this one almost managed it to the blackest bars.

Conclusion
At Rs. 42000 MRP, this player stands as a good choice for Home Theater along with an HDTV purchase. The audio output was actually very good. It's not absolute audiophile content with spot on dynamics and nuances, but overall the sound staging etc. was really good. Video was also impressive, quite above average. It’s a good set, except for the flimsy build quality.