Philips MX3800D Review

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Philips MX3800D
★★★★☆
4.1
From 6 reviews
83.0% of users recommend this
  • Image Quality

  • Sound Quality

  • Ease of Set Up

  • Ease of Use

  • Value For Money

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Alex.'s review of Philips MX3800D

“Not having owned a DVD player let alone a home cinema...”

★★★★★

written by Alex. on 14/01/2003

Good Points
Good quality build Easy to set up Solid performer

General Comments
Not having owned a DVD player let alone a home cinema system previously, I was torn between getting a more expensive DVD player and sacrificing the sound or going for the all-in-one home cinema option. After trialing a (different) Philips home cinema system, I decided that sound was equally, if not more important than vision only, and so I chose to go for a home cinema DVD system. If anybody is thinking that they can get away with just the sound output of their stereo TV, they are very, very wrong.
The Philips MX3800D is extremely easy to set up, it took me 20 minutes from opening the box to switching on.
Being a 5.1 all-in-one home cinema system, 5 speakers and a subwoofer are provided along with the cables, SCART lead and a phono lead for any auxiliary equipment you may want to hook into. A medium-wave aerial loop and FM aerial strand are also provided.
The subwoofer needs it's own power supply, so you will need to have two spare power sockets.
The cables for the speakers are colour coded with the speakers and the outputs from the player. Each speaker is clearly marked as to where it should go, and it's simply a case of matching the colours and you can't go wrong.
After fine-tuning the speakers versus viewing position using the excellent test tone function, it was time to do some serious viewing. I put in a copy of D-Tox, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 output sounded absolutely superb, and the picture quality was excellent.
The MX3800D also has a built-in dts decoder and the sound quality when listening to a dts soundtrack is also superb.
The home cinema system also more than adequately handles sound inputs from digital television receivers and VHS recorders, and some tired old VHS recordings were given (sound wise at least) a welcome boost through using the "Matrix" virtual surround sound setting. Tuner functions are adequate.
The player can also handle audio CDs, both standard and (so-called) enhanced, CD-R and CD-RW along with (not advertised on the box but mentioned in the manual) Video CD and Super VCD.
Did I make the right decision going for home cinema? Damned right.
VHS is dead. Stand-alone players are dying. Long live home cinema.

  • Value For Money

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77436_Some Guy.'s Response to 65271_Alex.'s Review

Written on: 05/03/2003

I noticed you didn't comment on the price.

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