Harman Kardon HS 300 DVD System please help
Hello i am looking for an all in one 5.1 system that is also great for playing music and for playing downloaded music from laptop.Budget is adout £700 and have been looking at the Harman Kardon HS 300 DVD System but i can not find any reviews on it.
Or what about the Sony BDP-S1E Blu-Ray DVD CD player.?
can an one help with this or tell me what is the best system around for this sort of money.?
I would also consider the seperate dvd player and receiver but the space i have on my unit is limited thats why going for all in one.
Many thanks for the advice i will check out your alternative i was allready looking at the denon 1930 for £200 and also found the 1940.Have you tested it yet and is it better than the 1930..?
Once again thanks for your help
Neal
I hate to say it, but the Philips HTS9800 Andy suggested is far from perfect. Yes, it does sound pretty good and has a lot of features. I will not go into design because that is entirely personal, however I do know that the Philips was (is) a pretty wonky device at best. It's main fault were the rear speakers, when switched on some units would produce a hard pop. The fan in the receiver is also known to make a humming noise.
I wouldn't suggest it as an alternative to the Harman HS300. Try to find a brick and mortar store that carries the device and demo it, that's all I can say. Reviews are nice, but checking it out in real life is always the best way to go in my humble opinion.
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Hi Neal
If you want an all-in-one system, the Philips HTS9800W at £650 was one of our 2006 Award winners, and comes with wireless rear speakers and multichannel SACD replay for music.
We've also got a test of all the latest one-box 5.1 systems in the next issue of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision, on sale August 23, so you might want to check that out.
If you buy the Sony Blu-ray player (also tested in the next issue), you'll need a separate AV receiver as you suggest, but then of course you'll have to spend more money. A suitable receiver to go with the Sony would be the Onkyo TX-SR875, but that'll cost you £1000.
Alternatively you could buy a good budget universal DVD player, such as the Denon DVD-1930 (£250, but about to be replaced by the DVD-1940), and a good budget AV receiver such as Denon's AVR-1507 (£250). Match these with KEF's £300 KHT1005 speakers and you'd have a great set-up for music and movies.
There's a whole new range of Denon's on the way, so there are good deals to be had on the outgoing models - search around, and you may find them for less than the prices I've quoted. Hope that helps.
Andy Clough is Brand Editor of What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision and whathifi.com