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

I am not a sound expert, actually pretty much a newbie to audio equipment. Which means I can't complain about the speaker wire being too thin or receiver missing certain functions that I don't understand and will probably never use. My opinion is based what small knowlege I have on audio/video equipment.

I liked...

+ Simple installation - I actually set this up in 1/2 hour, I had to cut the rear speake wire to use existing wire but that's about it. All the speaker wires were color coded and back of unit was clearly marked.

+ 5 Discs - I didn't realize how useful this was until I actually used it.

+ Heavy - the main unit was darn heavy and so were the speakers. I usually grade A/V equipment's quality by its weight. I know it sounds dumb but I just don't understand why some units are huge but empty inside.

+ Looks good - it's got a nice finish and doesn't look cheap. It doesn't look like $1,000 set but it sure looks worth more than $240

+ Sound - I had a yamaha receiver and set of speakers that were more than 10 years old and I didn't have a subwoofer. OK, you can just guess what happened next. Sound was crisp and clear.

I didn't like...

+ No Audio Out? What the... - I bougth a projection TV last year and I think it has good speakers in them. I looked and looked but could not find audio out. Just video out, what the.... wasted fine speaker on TV. Maybe I could buy a TV w/o a speaker at cheaper price next time.

+ Remote - it's functional and it packed everything that you need. It's really non-complex looking remote. However, some functions require you to joggle around such as audio and subtitle of dvd. I use this function alot and seperate button would been a plus.

+ Aux - this unit only offers 2 Aux in, and I tell you 2 is not enough these days. I have the Dish, VCR (for my kid's VHS tapes), PS 2, and Karaoke machine. I have a selector unit but I think A/V quality degrade when it passes through this thing.

If you're looking for beginner set of Home Theater in a Box and don't want to spend lots of $, this unit will be it.

I bought this system over 6months now. To date I am relatively pleased with it. Imust say that the sound is EXCELLENT for a pricerange like this one's. Once you use proper Svideo cables, anormal tv picture will be of high definition.
One problem I've had is that the lens is supersensitive. Any grime on the disc causes the picture to stick/skip. It hasn't been a great problem because I've found that cleaning the discs before, helps its performance.
I agree with other reviewers that the remote is crap but could be worse. At least it works although there is a slight delay in the transmission of the signal.
I haven't found the unit to be noisy and the blue neon light is adjustable.
Lets face it at this price the features available on this unit are top dog! I have mine in a basement room about 12x18ft and it performs like a boss! Also the speakers are rather decorative and easily wall mounted. Not forgetting its also a radio and 5 disc changer playing all formats of discs including mp3 I easily recommend it to anybody wanting adecent home theatre system. If you want to spend more there are better systems available but this is adefinite quality budget player.

I bought this Samsung based on the good reviews on this board, and because I have a Samsung TV. It was replacing my $99 AMW soundsystem. I was fairly happy with my AMW, but it broke after about 6 months. Obviously bad quality. I thought the Samsung would be tons better, considering it was three times the price! Not so. If the sound was better, I can't tell the difference. One thing was for sure, the DVD player was considerably WORSE - not only does it skip over most of my DVD-R's, but it's loud! Yes, the DVD reader is loud when playing - if you have the sound turned low, you can hear the laser seeking through the disk. Annoying as heck. Other items were found sub-par:

1) No disc memory - if you turn off the player, you start the DVD from the beginning.
2) The remote looks like it was designed in the 80's. No ergonomics, and certainly not easy to see/use. It couldn't even be programmed to control my SAMSUNG tv.
3) It is kind of annoying to have to run audio cables again, considering I already had some in place under my carpet. But samsung was nice enough to put cable attachments (that serve no purpose) on the ends so they are not interchangable. They are standard wires themselves, so can be reused with other systems if you cut off the connector, but you can't put regular cables on the unit.
4) The fan on the back isn't too loud, but I *can* hear it. I think it's just a little weird to have a fan at the back. Since it's not even inside the case, I imagine the skilled engineers at Samsung found that the test systems ran too hot, so attached this fan to solve the problem. Not a big deal, something to keep in mind.
5) There are not a lot of menu controls that can be adjusted for the sound or picture.
6) MP3 playback is severely limited and extremely slow. Sequential only, and to skip past tracks means waiting about 3 seconds per song.
7) Last but not least, there IS NO FAST FORWARD OR REWIND. Not all DVD movies have good chapter marks, some don't have any. Since the player has no memory, you'd have to play through the whole movie if you wanted to get to the part where you left off. Not worth the trouble.

This baby is going back!

I got it as a gift a few months ago and, at first, everything was fine. Then it started freezing on one DVD after another. It began with LoTR, then the Princess Bride, then occasionally on LoTR:TT and now on HBO's Band of Brothers. The DVDs play without a problem on other DVD players.

The system still has a few months of warranty left so I will try talking to Samsung. But given some of the online comments I've read, it appears to me they will want me to ship, at my expense, a 55lb DVD player.

Well.... I'm here to retract my 4-star rating for the Samsung DB600 Home Theatre System. I figured it was cheap enough to invest my money in and give it a shot... and well... I was wrong.

The digital optical-in DOES lag behind the video... most people probably don't know this because they just buy it for the internal DVD player. But it is true. And Samsung has horrible customer service for it. I called them like two days after I found out it happend and they told me they've been working on it just recently(read through some reviews below... it's been a problem since about Aug 2003)and one of the techs even had the nerve to tell me they'd never heard of it before. They then consulted the head tech and told me that it was a major problem with all the systems and that they were working to fix it immediatly.

They then called me back about a month later, put me on hold for ten minutes, and told me they hadn't figured out what the problem was yet (???). So... they called me and put me on hold to tell me that they hadn't made any progress. Thanks Samsung!

The DVD player is having problems playing my Family Guy DVDs with the "play all episodes" button. They freeze right before a new episode is about to load. I highly recommend NOT buying this system and to use another DVD player and buy the Sony HT-DDW750 Home Theater System. I have since become tired of dealing with Samsung and sold the junk on eBay. Maybe someone else with less expectations will find a better use for the system.

But seriously... releasing a product with Dolby optical-in that doesn't even work? What's the point of having surround sound if you can't get Dolby Digital?!