A fantastic system - if only they still made it! (Samsung HT Q20)

Member Name: Jondot

Product:	Samsung HT Q20
Date:	15/06/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent sound quality, great for music, attractive design, flawless reliability

Disadvantages: USB port needs a little more work, not as many inputs as I'd like, no HD upscaling

I've had the HT Q20 as the main speaker system in my bedroom for a couple of years now (I have a large bedroom ;)), and it's been absolutely sublime for what I paid for it (£179 I think).

I've been very impressed with the audio quality its self - I mean I'm no audiophile, but I know what sounds reasonable. It does a good job of sort of 'surrounding' me with music, which in my opinion a surround sound system SHOULD do. We have a newer Panasonic system in our living room that's atrocious for music - not much better than the TV its self.

It's attached to either my TV or my laptop/iPod, depending on what I'm doing. Annoyingly there's only one audio input, so I end up having to reach around the back and swap phono cables every now and again. But frankly it's worth it for the price.

There is a USB port in the front which, contrary to what some reviews on the 'net say, doesn't actually support your iPod. Well you can plug it in and it'll charge, but don't expect to play any music from it. I have used it on occasion to play music from a flash drive (that's the other thing - it only recognises devices formatted in FAT32), but generally I don't bother because most of my music is bought off iTunes and so is in the wrong format. I did try to get it to play some video files I'd stuck on there the other day, but it just sat there 'searching' for it for 15 minutes. So I gave up. My advice: best ignore the thing.

The remote is very good. It's quite large, but then there are a lot of buttons on it. The volume and tuning keys glow in the dark, which is quite helpful when you want to listen to music with the lights off. As is the 'dimmer' button, which dims the lights and screen on the front of the unit to an acceptable level.

What else is there... Oh, setting up was easy. The speaker cables themselves go into plastic colour coded things that slot into the back of the DVD player, so there's no panicking about getting left and right or front and back mixed up. It is essentially normal speaker cable, though, which clips into the back of the speakers themselves like they might in a normal hifi system. So if you do want to extend the range of the speaker cables (as I did), you can. Generally they're long enough, it's just that I needed my subwoofer in a bizzare location.

When you first turn it on, the unit can be a bit noisy. I'm not sure whether it's the fan in the back or the disk drive starting to spin, but something sounds a bit like a ww2 bomber for about a minute or so. But then it could just be the fact that I've owned it for 2 years and have had it in use pretty much every day.

The DVD player bit is great too. I've used it fairly frequently and I've never had a problem. It is, however, a scart connection to your TV, so it doesn't upscale to HD. It has a component output but I've never used it, and I suspect it's not much better. So don't expect upscaled pictures, basically, but it's still pretty good.

Really a fantastic system. If I wanted another one, I'd without a doubt get another Samsung. I don't know how I'll cope at Uni next year without it - don't think it'll fit in my room somehow!

Summary: A great system, but now a little behind the times. I'd still have one again though :)

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