Samsung HT-C6930 review

Switching on revealed a translucent cover to the optical drive that throbbed with an enticing blue glow. Illuminated touch-sensitive controls appeared as if by magic along the top of the player and touching the volume control made it ripple with excitement. It’s a shame that all this visual glamour is accompanied by an ugly remote and a cheesy jingle that burst from the speakers whenever we switched the unit on or off; thankfully this can be deactivated. The black gloss speakers look extremely smart but we fear for the safety of those exposed speaker cones. The delicate tweeter on the centre speaker is particularly vulnerable, as it’s likely to be within reach of small children.

Wireless speakers are a great idea for reducing cable clutter, but only two of the four surround speakers are wireless, and they still need to be plugged into a shared amplifier-receiver unit. The speaker setup routine suggested positioning the five of the satellites as normal, but then putting the additional two behind and to the sides of the TV. We didn’t hear much benefit from doing this, but then, we’re not sold on the idea of conventional 7.1 with side and rear surround speakers, either. For us, 5.1 surround is perfectly good enough.

Sound quality was far from poor, but differences between this and the cheaper C6500 set, which uses almost exactly the same speakers, were barely distinguishable. As such, the additional £120 expense only provides Blu-ray 3D support, WiFi and two extra wireless speakers. We’d stick the cheaper system, or better still, the cheaper [a href=”http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/home-entertainment/1280557/panasonic-sc-btt350″ target=”_blank”]Panasonic SC-BTT350.