Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung HT-DB600 5-Disc DVD Home Theater System

We bought our Samsung HT-DB600 Theatre System because it is a Samsung product. We own three Samsung DLP TVs and love them all - fantastic displays and no problems. We also liked the DB600 Theatre System's compact size, low profile and sleek appearance. We installed it in our bedroom and wall mounted the small speakers. It was functional for this purpose, relatively unobtrusive and had good surround sound...while it worked. BUT it has been used less than 30 hours and now powers off immediately and displays the dreaded "Protection" message. Samsung says it's overheating and it is out of warranty. How does a receiver/DVD player overheat while turned off? We had not used it in several days, then turned it on and it turned itself off for "Protection". Who wants to pay $150 + shipping for repairs to a faulty product to likely face the same problem again in the near future? If you are unfamiliar with the "Protection" message and its lack of a simple fix, just Google: Samsung HT-DB600 Protection. This is apparently a much too common problem.

Although we love our Samsung DLP TVs, we will not buy another Samsung receiver or theatre system until Samsung decides to fix this problem, stand behind their products and recall this faulty sound system .

Yes, first the weight... why does it feel like it has a lead chassis inside? Really surprised me that it would be so heavy. Disc tray is only plastic, so that couldn't be the reason, so that leaves the amplifier transformers I guess.
I agree with a previous reviewer about the strong enough subwoofer and seemingly weaker satellites. Volume must be half (min>25>max) to be good for my small livingroom. And I expected a "powered" subwoofer that carried its own power supply/amplifier onboard. Although this is only my second HT I know the other had a passive SW and connects just like the HT-DB600 does (speaker wire only).
Speaker settings menu doesn't hold settings each time I go into it to make changes, so unless I'm doing something wrong then setting balance (or volume) is pointless. Something else amiss in the speakers menu is no Center icon in the Delay part, only has LS and RS show there, so I can't get that closest speaker to me to sound farther away. Not sure if this is a firmware issue, model/manual descrepency, or defect. What might point to it being a defect, of sorts, is how the test tone menu plays through the left front speaker in place of the center, as if there might be some internal problem. However, no problem is noticed during regular play.
Yet another possible problem is with DRC (dynamic range compression, or keeping volumes moderated). It might be making sound go out-of-synch. I'll know more about it as time goes on, so maybe I'll update my review here if I learn more or anything happens to change my mind about the average rating I gave.
All in all, if this home theater doesn't wreck any of my DVD or CD discs it seems a good system at the price I paid, which was about $177 after shipping. Good for people on a budget, like me, I believe, because the sound quality actually is good even if the volume must be rather high on the scale.

I got this @ Best Buy when it first came out. I was looking @ a sony but they didn't have speaker wires with it(open box item) and I asked the guy @ Circuit City if he could call Sony and find out how I could get them and how much it would cost me. It was 55mins later and the guy was pissed. He waited that long to find out that Sony was going to charge me as much for the wires as he was charhing me for the system! (Sony had special speaker wires)
Anyway I booked it to Best Buy and there it was the HT-DB600. I was impressed with the design and it was easy to use @ the store. I looked @ the other systems but they all cost more. It had the same watts as the other ones too. I got it and was eager to hook it up.
I took it out of the box and looked @ the instructions and I was done putting it together in about one hr. Like I said I never hooked up something like this but it was real easy. I have an HD tv and Xbox with all the stuff to make it HD and a sony VCR and A HD samsung direct tv reciever. It was pretty easy to get all hooked up to the surround system and everything had sound.
I have not had any problems with it scratching up discs or dvds or taking to long to load.(a sony playstation 2 takes longer to load) I've had this for 2 years now.
I got used to the remote for it but it didn't work with my tv so i just got a universal remote.( make sure when you get a universal remote you put all options the old one had otherwise you'll be even more frusterated)
Overall this is a pretty cool system. I live in an apartment so I can't have too much power but I still piss off the neighbors. It looks cool on the outside and it's not too tall so it can fit inside your entertainment center if you have one.
You can also save pictures on it so when you are waiting for it to load, you have a picture you can look at. I thought that was pretty cool.
I would recomend this to all who first start out and want to pay less for something that they can use for a while and understand how everything works. I'll be going back to Samsung to get more products in the future.

My wife and I bought this wireless home theater system in August, 2004 for $500 through Amazon/JRMusic.com. Since the beginning, we have had problems with it.

To start with,the sound quality is not impressive and it seems pretty low power all around. Also, the wireless surround speakers ONLY work in surround-coded DVD movies, no matter what setting you use for regular tv broadcast.

The remote control for the unit only worked for about a month; Samsung sent me a new remote and that didn't work either. They determined it must have been a problem with the IR Receiver on the unit and I had to send the entire thing to be repaired. After nearly two months, they sent the unit back and the remote worked fine...but now the CD playing function wouldn't work.

Samsung was reluctant to pay shipping (they finally agreed) and I returned the whole unit yet again. After several weeks, they sent the unit back and everything worked fine for about two months when the remote/IR receiver failed again. At this point the remote control doesn't work at all and the entire unit, tinny speakers and all, is now sitting in my garage awaiting the day when I will have the nerve to throw it into the trash bin.

My advice - stay away from this line of products. If you have a problem with your unit, you will undoubtedly face the same time-consuming, expensive, and unhelpful repair process that I did.

It might work for your bedroom, but the system is not powerful enough for my small living room. The woofer is strong, but the rest of the speakers are very weak.
Add to that a confusing remote and long pauses at start-up, advancing tracks, and changing disks, and I would rather have gone with a small Sony, Panasonic, or Jensen.
On the positive side; it was inexpensive, plays lots of formats, it's very slim/stylish, it's easy to hook-up, perfect... if you're going to use it in your bedroom.