Samsung HW-C560S Home Theater System
Review by Jane Morris Coons "Cap'n Jane" : my review

The manual leaves a lot to be desired. I had to call Samsung but the woman I got was more clueless than the manual. By trial and error and putting our heads together got it all set up. Great sound - I am happy with this purchase.

Samsung HW-C560S Home Theater System
Review by Manuel R.odriguez : Home theater system

Not quite what I expected. You'd think a system with all it's features it would also provide preset radio station changing capabilities on the remote. Overall, product is great.

Samsung HW-C560S Home Theater System
Review by SmiBurHo : My first home theater system...and it's a pretty good one

My wife and I just moved into our first house and after years of living in a cramped apartment, I was finally able to splurge on entertainment products for our living room. While I've done a ton of research for nearly everything else in my set-up, I took a chance on this system and am reasonably happy so far.

For whatever reason, I've bought nothing but Samsung products for our living room. 52" LCD TV and Blu-Ray player. I figured I'd stick to the same name brand for the HTIB system.

On the plus side, the sound quality is pretty solid, especially during sporting events. It's really, really nice. Music sounds fine on it, too. The set-up was fairly painless, as long as you follow the instructions closely. I love that it has 4 HDMI inputs, which is great since I have a cable box, Xbox 360 and Blu-Ray player. It makes it far easier to change inputs, compared to having to navigate HDMI inputs with the television's own controller. I was absolutely blown away by the sound of the system when playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Fantastic stuff.

My living room is a very odd shape and design, and for that reason I'm glad this system has the ASC device to balance the sound. Picture if you will a rectangle on its side. My TV is in the upper right corner. A bay window takes up nearly the entire right wall. The top/north wall has a fireplace that juts out. The bottom/south wall is where one couch is, but the staircase to go up stairs is behind it, so there's actually only 1/2 a wall there. The left/west wall has a love seat, and the south-left corner leads directly into the kitchen area. That made it incredibly difficult to figure out where exactly to place the speakers. The ASC mic did a pretty good job getting the volume levels from each speaker balanced. I just wish there were a way to figure out the best speaker positioning without spending money to have some Geek Squad guy come out to the house.

On the downside, the rear speakers aren't wireless, although the cable is certainly long enough. When hung on the wall, the speakers also don't have an indentation to run the wire through, so the speakers hang on the wall weirdly. The system can't expand to 7.1 channels, but I knew that when I purchased it. The system is fairly new, so my Harmony One remote had to be manually programmed. This has lead to a few occasions where the AVR doesn't change inputs, despite repeatedly hitting buttons on the remote. Occasionally during commercials on TV, the sound will momentarily drop out for a second or so. I can't explain that one. I'm also amazed by the amount of dust the speakers and AVR attract. My wife and I keep our house spotless, but dust still finds its way to the system and it's hard not to notice it on the shiny surfaces. Despite my best efforts, it seems like everything is covered in dust by the end of the day.

I also have a Nintendo Wii, which has a composite output, and I still can't figure out how to connect it to the AVR. The video inputs are there for a composite connection, but I'm unclear where the audio gets plugged in. I'm not a fan of the iPod connection, either. Once you connect an iPod or iPhone, there's no way to select a song or playlist or anything....the device just plays. I had to set the AVR to "Video iPod" in order to navigate the iPod and play the music/playlist I wanted to. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

As this is my first HTIB, I really enjoy the HW-C560S and I hope to get quite a few good years out of it. That said, my next home theater purchase will be a larger, better set-up that works better with the living room.