Onkyo HT-S3200 Home Theater System

It's August, the precursor month to Indian festivities, the  time when all electronics manufacturers start sending out new ‘maal’, and stores start stocking up. That’s when we come in early itself, to review the promising looking stuff so you can buy the best this festive season. What we have today is a new Home Theater model by the highly reputed Audio video brand Onkyo. It’s called the HT-S3200.

Design and features
This 5.1 speaker model comes with an AV receiver which is called the HT-R370, and a set of subwoofer and satellite speaker package called the HTP-370. Since this is not the HTIB (home theater in a box) category, there is no disc player. We received a light metallic grey model, which is the color scheme throughout, from the façade of the receiver to the chassis of the sub. There is a black model available too. Covered by an irremovable silver cloth grille, the speakers have a futuristic look; along with the rectangular sub, which is quite surprisingly light in weight. The center and front 2 speakers are longer, while the surrounds are a bit shorter. The package comes with all the necessary wires, and a nice typical Onkyo looking remote, with 3 different colors for buttons.

Moving onto the receiver, the front has the large volume knob on the right of the front panel, with a black push button as the power on switch on the opposite end. In between these two we have numerous buttons, all arranged in 2 neat rows, one slim black array, and below that small round ones for input selection.

You can connect everything you have, from TV audio out, to PS3, DVD player etc., all simultaneously, as all the connections are available in plenty. There are 3 HDMI ins and one HDMI out (for passthrough), along with 2 optical audio ins and one Coaxial audio in. There is an RI port for external iPod dock, sold separately in this model.

Feature wise Onkyo has quite a few proprietary stuff going on, which is generally there in all their models, like CinemaFilter, that processes the tonal balance of movie soundtracks, and Audyssey’s full suite: Dynamic EQ and Dynamic Volume. Here there is no mic included for auto setup in the Audyssey, it’s just preset EQ and Volume Compression modes. Please see pic for complete list of specs like power rating etc.