Denon DHT-FS3 Home Theater in a Box by Denon
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Digital camera reviews of Denon DHT-FS3 Home Theater in a Box
Digital camera Review: A great sound bar, but has one major flaw!
Summary: 3 Stars
I just received the FS3 today, & it is gorgeous! Our wonderful Pioneer 5.1 HTIB died recently after 10 years. Looked at a sound bar as a solution to not having wires running around the living room. We rent, so are limited as to what we can do with walls(or ceiling). It is truly a beautiful product. Would I pay $1200 for it compared with true surround systems? No. But under $400, it's a steal. Awesome sound out of it. A prior reviewer said the sound was terrible? They can't have adjusted the preset levels! Out of the box, they are all set to 0db. The menus are pretty easy to navigate. Took all of 10 minutes to set bass, treble, distance to listener, offset etc & to learn the codes of my Samsung T.V & Panasonic DVD player.
I tested it out with "Matrix" & "Top Gun". The sound is awesome. So crisp. The dialogue is easier to pick up than on my older Pioneer. The sub woofer is more than adequate for our living room (12 x 16). Very good center & side sound. Are you going to hear anything coming behind you? No, of course not. You can't change the laws of physics. You might get better results in an enclosed room where the sound can bounce around a little more. Our living room is fully open to the dining area.
One concern I had when looking at the FS3 online, was the positioning of the soundbar's inlets & outlets for cables. They are positioned under a rear shelf, facing downwards, not backwards/outwards. The unit comes with integrated feet(maybe 1/8'' tall). I was concerned that the optical cable especially, would be severely bent & possibly damaged over time in that position. All the cables are very bent once installed. The unit does come with 2 varying height sets of screw-in feet for raising the bar higher. I have a DLP T.V so have the bar sitting on top, due to cabinet constraints. Putting the feet on made it look ungainly(in a top mounted application). Called Denon support, & they assured me that it WAS designed to use just the integrated feet if that was what I wanted, & not to worry about the optical being bent at 90 degrees. Fingers crossed!' The omission of HDMI in this day & age is a little suprising, & I was almost put off by that, but the optical works great & we have no compatibility issues with our set-up so it's all good.
I would absolutely recommend this sound bar. Especially at the current sale price. It is so much better than $500 5.1 all in ones from L.G, Samsung etc. Their only advantage is rear facing sound. But the QUALITY of their sound is terrible. Light weight gutless speakers surrounding you is not necessarily a better thing!
UPDATE: 1/10/10 Have noticed that the system has some trouble with heavy horn(brass) & violin orchestral movie scores. Watched the original Star Trek movie & was getting a lot of distortion from the FS3. No amount of fine tuning with the settings would eradicate it completely. I had to change back the offset to center/neutral & change the room setting regarding the wall surface. This did make a difference but still had noticeable distortion. Bummer! I haven't had the system excessively loud either. Topped out at 25. The system can go to 33. I haven't experienced this issue with any of the later releases(movies) that I have watched. Also, the Pioneer had no issues with Star Trek's music score. Just a heads up for those of us that have older movie titles :) Also, what's up with the recent price increase! It's definitely not worth full retail. We bought ours from Amazon for $345 a couple of weeks ago!
2nd update: 7/13/10 The distortion is showing up on new movies as well now, damn it! This only happens with the music soundtrack. I called Denon support(again), & they suggested that I check the DVD settings, in case the sound output was preset to HDMI(it was). That helped some, but the distortion is still popping up depending on the pitch/tonality. They also said to replace the optical cable in case it was slightly defective. I'll try that next. The annoying thing is that I'll watch numerous movies with no problem, & then distortion/screeching! Again, this issue only arises with the music score. Dialogue, explosions, general sounds are not a problem at all...
3rd update: 9/29/10 After buying a new optical cable, the sound distortions dissipated. For a while. Scenes in "Avatar" where the system screeched at me, stopped. Great. Watched a movie from Netflix(a drama) & the Denon screeched at me again due to the music score #@%&! This is so frustrating! The Denon does everything else brilliantly but is so unreliable with the music scores of movies. In stereo mode, music is not an issue. It's only in movie mode, that it can't handle certain pitches/tones.
Digital camera Review: Absolutely amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
Surround system is awesome. I get a real good effect all over plus I got it on an amazing deal on amazon a while ago....$499.Digital camera Review: Denon Home Theater
Summary: 3 Stars
The subwoofer has very little bass capability. The main speaker sound is good. I would not have brought this at the original price because it's not worth it.Digital camera Review: Excellent Solution for Home Theater Sound Bar
Summary: 4 Stars
The DHT-FS3 is a great product for "5.1 home theater sound" in those applications where traditional components may not be practical or suitable (or you just don't want to mess around with a lot of components and wiring).
I needed my LCD TV, BD/DVD player, sound bar and subwoofer to fit into a single cabinet and could not install speakers or run wiring outside the cabinet. (See my shared customer image.) The cost is equivalent to a discrete component solution consisting of an AV receiver, passive sound bar (like the Polk SurroundBar), and an active sub; however, it has significantly less wiring and greater ease of setup/use. It arrived in 3 days using free Amazon Prime shipping. The Denon packaging is very high quality as is the product fit/finish. Both the main and sub units have a high-gloss piano black finish and matched the gloss-black finish of my Samsung LCD TV. I personally don't fancy gloss black finishes; but, I didn't have a choice and it seems gloss-black is current market trend.
The sound is very good - though you won't get the full surround sound effects of a typical discrete component system with speakers in front and behind you. However for a single sound bar it has extremely good surround and low frequency effects when used with Dolby Digital/DTS sources (like DVD and BD discs). The volume can be turned up very loud. You can adjust a number of parameters to customize the surround sound to the size of the room and distance from the sound bar; however, I just ended up using one of the three pre-defined quick setup surround options.
The biggest drawback is that it lacks video (HDMI) switching. (This has been noted by other reviewers...Google CNET DHT-FS3.) You need to directly connect your source devices (like a DVD/BD player, set-top box) to the FS3 using S/P DIF (digital) audio cables, and the same source devices to your TV using HDMI (or component video). This is a little bit of a nuisance because you have to go to the TV to select the source (for video) and then to the FS3 to select the source (for audio). Of course you can simplify using the system with a programmable remote like the Logitech Harmony One (which I plan to do).
Denon needs to upgrade the FS3 to have HDMI. I would have given it 5 stars if it had HDMI input/switching.
Digital camera Review: Excellent for what I paid, but not for the list price.
Summary: 4 Stars
Last month I purchased a Panasonic TH-P54V10 to replace my aging Sony 36" WEGA CRT (which still looks great after nearly 11 years). While the picture on the 54V10 is fantastic, the sound coming from the speakers was woefully inadequate, actually worse than the Sony it replaced. I blame the desire to make thinner and thinner TV's not leaving any room for sizeable speakers and enough space to move air. (skip the next 4 paragraphs if you just want to cut to the chase)
So I started looking for an affordable way to improve the sound. I had several constraints and requirements. First, I was on a severe budget, since I had just blown my available funds on the new TV and wall unit. $400 was all I could spend. Second, my wife refused to look at speakers, even bookshelf speakers on either side of the TV. I also wanted something that could offer not just better sound, but a wider soundstage and a more immersive experience. Soundbars seems like the only real option. After doing research around the interwebs, I realized that the desire for actual surround sound might be asking for too much.
So after doing some research, I had settled on a choice between the Polk Soundbar 360 and the Denon DHT-FS3. Both brands are known for quality products and have garnered positive professional reviews. Both of these products had original list prices of $1200, are now discontinued and could be purchased for $400 and $350, respectively, from Amazon. In my mind, it made more sense spending my money on discontinued products that were designed to originally sell for 3X as much as their current prices versus spending that money on current products designed to sell at that same lower price point. Flawed reasoning?
I had originally wanted to purchase both units, try them out and keep the one that sounded better. Unfortunately, Amazon's restocking fees of 20-50% made that idea unaffordable. I ultimately chose the Denon over the Polk since it was 1) less expensive, 2) had a sub, 3) didn't have a DVD player I didn't need, 4) was more space efficient (especially without a separate component), 5) it has Dolby Headphone decoding and 6) my previous experience with Denon products.
Before I get into the performance of the DHT-FS3, I want to present my point of reference when it comes to sound and performance. I have not actually had any audio system hooked up to my main TV for over seven years. I tend to watch most of my series TV and rented movies on another TV, when I exercise at home (it is a great motivator). I listen through Sure SE530 headphones hooked up to a Denon ADV-M71 receiver and its dedicated headphone amp and Dolby Headphone surround processing. My last actual home theater system was a Sony 5.1 Dolby Digital receiver (can't remember the model) hooked up to an Energy Take5 + Energy Sub combo. I don't consider myself a purist audiophile, but I can recognize, and do appreciate, quality sound.
So, onto the DHT-FS3's performance. After removing the soundbar and sub from the excellent packaging, I set the main unit up in front of the TV, screwed in the feet (which come in two different heights), hooked up the optical connection to the back of my TV, ran the connection to the sub and plugged it all in. I hit the power button and listened to the first sounds emanate from the speakers. I was let down. It actually sounded worse than the TV's speakers. The sound was tinny and shallow.
Then I remembered a review that indicated adjusting the audio parameters would do wonders. So I played around with the treble and bass, adjusted the room size and a few other tweaks. The result was night and day. The sound was full and satisfying. Going from the Stereo setting to the Wide setting created a much larger soundstage. Most importantly, for everyday general TV viewing, the Denon offered up much clearer sounding dialogue.
Of course the promise of these soundbars is to offer a surround experience that can compete with actual 5.1 systems. Does the Denon deliver? Not surprisingly, no, at least in my initial observations. Two of my favorite demonstrations of both sound and surround sound are the THX intros on movie discs, both the original "symphony" and the "farm animal/Disney" sequences. Both strive to highlight the surround effect and a journey through frequency response, from bright highs to rumbling lows. While the Denon reproduced this range most satisfactorily, and there was a very noticeable shift from left-center-right, there was no actual surround effect. Meaning, there was no evidence of sound coming from behind. However, the soundstage was quite wide, seeming to fill up my living room from side to side. Center channel performance is notably clear. Dialogue won't be overcome by the action.
One negative, and one that likely plagues most soundbars, is the fact that it blocks the IR sensor of the TV. I thought I might have to get an IR repeater in order to overcome this issue. However, I found I was able to bounce the IR signal off my ceiling and have the TV pick it up.
As far as connectivity, my TV has four HDMI inputs and an optical output, so the lack of HDMI inputs on the Denon is not really an issue. It does have two optical and one coax digital input, along with RCA analog inputs. There is no on-screen display, rather settings are adjusted via a digital display on the front of the unit and adjusted via the remote. This suits my needs just fine. I just wish I could use my Dish remote to control the system volume, but it doesn't seem to recognize any of the Denon remote codes available.
Edit: I have since found out that my TV will not pass multi-channel sound through the digital out, so hooking source material (DVD, Games, etc) directly to the Denon's inputs should result in better sound quality.
For $350, I am quite satisfied with my purchase. I got the sound improvement I was looking for, along with a more than satisfactory audio companion for my TV's exceptional picture. For the original asking price of $1200, I am not sure I would have chosen to go the soundbar route, but if I was looking to spend that much on a soundbar, I would have also had to consider the top level ZVOX and Yamaha products. Curiously, three days after I placed my order from Amazon, their price went from $350 to $1199! I called to find out why the price changed so drastically (on a discontinued item) but they couldn't give me a convincing reason, other than "market fluctuations." Obviously I am glad I purchased mine when I did.
(I have also uploaded a few pictures)