LG BH6230S 5.1

CLAWS

CLAWS

CLAWS

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Joined
13 Jun 2005
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West Midlands
Hi Guys,

I've been umming and arring over this for a month and a bit now. In that time the price of the aforementioned setup has gone down to £189. I have scoured for a cheaper price and everywhere else it appears to be around the £249.99 mark.

It seems fantastic for the price but I am unable to find any reviews for it anywhere. Is this too good to be true? I might get them to demo it in store to check for any hissing or cracking whilst idle at high volume.

Anyone have any advice or does anyone have said piece of kit that can provide a brief review? I have a £50 off voucher that I can also use on it so I would only be paying £139 for it if I go for it :)
 
£139 is probably a fair price, wouldn't pay anything more for it considering how basic it is. No HDMI inputs is simply unforgivable on any modern home theatre system, even a lower-end one.

Considering a proper Pioneer AV receiver with speakers is £200 (see HERE), it's quite poor value really. Obviously the Pioneer (or any other system with a proper receiver) won't have Blu-ray but it depends what you want really. If sound quality and features are a priority then the LG simply doesn't compete.
 
Some good systems there guys.

The reason I gave this one so much thought is the features it has along with the 3D blu ray player. We're moving house soon so can't really splash out too much and probably won't be looking to upgrade for a good few years, baby due in January so this is my last spend on electronics/toys :).

We'll be watching a lot of home movies on it and I wont be connecting much else to it so the absence of HDMI-IN is forgivable in this instance.

With regards to sound quality, if I watched something like Pacific Rim or Independence day on this with cranked up volume what would be the noticeable difference when compared to a setup of separates?

Sorry for the layman questions but I know very little about this stuff.
 
I have a similar LG 5.1 that came with my TV. For me the sound quality is good BUTTTTT the actual player is so basic, no HDMI input as mentioned above makes it impossible to connect other devices such as my PS3 and 360. In addition, it doesn't support Audio Return Channel so you won't get 5.1 from your devices either, unless you use optical in, but there is only one of those usually.

I'm getting:
http://www.richersounds.com/product/home-cinema-systems/yamaha/yht-199/yama-yht199

Having said that if you need a blu ray player, you gonna need to buy it separate but nowadays i don't think they cost that much.
 
CLAWS said:
With regards to sound quality, if I watched something like Pacific Rim or Independence day on this with cranked up volume what would be the noticeable difference when compared to a setup of separates?

Sorry for the layman questions but I know very little about this stuff.
Click to expand...
The things I notice most often with all-in-ones versus separates bundles is a hardness and vagueness to the sound. It's no unlistenable, but neither is it pleasant or realistic. It's kind of like having a conversation with someone a bit shouty. You stand there wincing occasionally and just feel like you want to turn the volume down. The sound gets a bit thin and brittle, if that makes sense. The best way to think about it is it sounds like everything was recorded in an empty unfurnished room with a tiled floor. There's that jangly incoherence you get when the sound echos off the walls, floor and ceiling.

Then there's the various surround modes. The front sound stage doesn't develop properly. There's not much sense of space and positioning. The rear surrounds either distract too much (they're too obvious) or seem to do nothing at all. The idea is that they should create ambient effect that adds to the atmosphere.

Finally, the bass. All-in-ones produce great dollops of a single note bass that thumps along seemingly oblivious to the concepts of pitch or subtlety. If I'm watching Saving Private Ryan I know that a Thompson machine gun sounds different from a German MG42 they used to rake the beaches. Or that a Sherman tank sounds different from a German Tiger. The subwoofer helps make those differences apparent because each needs a range of different bass notes. Now, before we get too carried away let me just say that a decent-ish sub that can do justice to the sound track isn't going to come as part of at £200 or even £300 home cinema kit. But the sub in a separates bundle will do a better job than the one in an LG/Samsung/Sony/Panasonic all-in-one.
 
There's a world of difference between an all-in-one kit and a system with an actual receiver, even a low-end receiver. I went from a Samsung all-in-one thing (which went completely faulty within its warranty, fortunately) to my current Onkyo system and it was a huge improvement in every single area. More connectivity, better speakers, better sound quality, better control over how that sound is delivered, what format, how to handle different sources etc.

Anything will be an improvement over TV speakers of course, so in isolation you're not going to be disappointed with the results the LG gives you in comparison, but there's a world of difference between a DVD/Blu-ray player with some speaker connections stuck on the back, and a dedicated AV receiver whose sole job is to process audio. You'll have to decide if that's worth paying the extra for though.
 
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