Samsung HT-J5500W 5.1 Channel 1000-Watt 3D Blu-Ray Home Theater System (2015 Model)

For the money, this is an excellent system. I give it 5 stars for doing a very good job at what it was designed for. My TV is not ARC (audio return channel) compliant so I could not play sound from the TV on this system with only the HDMI cable. It needs an optical audio cable to play things like Netflix via the TV (instead of via unit). However, my TV is new enough that the sound it does play via the optical cable is 5.1, not 2.0 like some older TVs. So in the end I got what I wanted. Pros: ~Good sound ~Easy to set up. Color coded wires makes it simple. ~Nice design. Cons: ~Lack of inputs and outputs. This system is really limited to a set top box and TV. If that's all you need, great. But if you want to add a gaming system or anything else, you are limited to a RCA connection. If your TV is ARC compliant, you do get the optical audio port for other components. ~Rear speakers are not very loud. I went into the setting and turned them to +6db (the max), so that helped. ~Rear speakers are not truly wireless. There are cables that run from the rear hub (which is wireless from the base) to the rear speakers. I don't mind this at all, but don't be mislead by the 'wireless' claim. ~You can't plug your set top box (Uverse, DirecTv, etc...) directly into this unit. The video must go to the TV and then from there to this product. No video pass-through, which in my opinion is a much easier and more flexible. So for the limited needs it fills, it does an excellent job. If you need more inputs or outputs, look further.

I have always been a firm believe that if you want great home theater then you need to have an A\V receiver. This system however has proven me wrong. I bought this system primarily because you could have semi-wireless re-speakers. The speakers receive power from the additional box in the picture. The box itself is wireless but it is a receiver that transmits the audio signal and power to the rear speakers. The receiver works up to 15 feet away with clear line of sight and the unit sounds superb, even at half power it is more than loud enough to fill a large room with surreal sound quality. I would recommend this product for anyone looking to avoid running speaker wire for rear speakers. Update to my review after about 10 months the unit randomly turns off no rim or reason. not sure why as its not being taxed in any way, just cuts out. the other issue we have had is if you hook up the fiber optic input the audio cuts out but the unit remains on again no rim or reason. its unfortunate that there isn't another manufacture out there fore this technology as Samsung has had problems with quality control.

I bought this to replace my old Samsung system that I bought in 2012. I first hooked it up to my Samsung TV I was disappointed - at first. The old system synced very well to my Samsung TV. I didn't have the optical cable when I put the new system together and at this point I also had more HDMI ports before. Once I had the optical cable the units synced right up. I also realized I didn't need as many ports since Netflix, etc. now come directly to the unit. There was one other glitch with getting the wireless speakers working, called customer service and they quickly talked me through it. After all that I have to say I am very happy with the purchase. Sound is good. System works great. Good price for a good system.

I have not even owned this one year yet and it's almost useless. About 3 months after buying it the speakers started to make a crackling noise that would just come out of nowhere which turned into loud static noise. I would be watching tv or listening to music and BAM very loud static blaring over the speakers and no matter what I did it wouldn't stop so I would turn it off and it might be 10 minutes or 2 days but eventually I would turn it on to check it and it would be back to normal. This went on for months until recently now the speakers just stop putting any sound out at all, it may be 2 min after turning it on or 4 hours after and the only way to get the sound back is to physically unplug the power from the back of the unit and wait a bit then plug it back in. In addition to that the remote and buttons on the unit become unresponsive all except the power and volume and unplugging the unit fixes this but for only a very short time and then it becomes unresponsive again. Lastly the bluetooth will not connect or even show up on my device until I unplug the unit. The sound was pretty good when it worked just wished it would have lasted longer that 3 months before issues started and 10 months before it was just a pile of junk. Samsung is not what it used to be I would not recommend this system.

I had very high hopes for this surround-sound DVR system ...I am happy with some things, but highly disappointed with many aspects. Pros: The surround sound quality is very good watching netflix or a DVD; no complaints with the sound. If has a very nifty feature that lets you record from FM radio. Great when there's a music special on. Menu system is easy to navigate; setup was simple. Cons: I have a Samsung smart phone that supports screen mirroring; this unit says it supports screen mirroring. The 2 Samsung devices will NOT connect for screen sharing. Only via bluetooth can I connect for audio only. They clearly did not test with their own devices; very poor. They claim "two wireless rear speakers". This is only partially true and only of "partial" value. The rear speaks are WIRED to a wireless receiver box, that requires a wall outlet for power. The speaker wire connectors to the box are proprietary -they are NOT standard slip-in bare wire connectors. So- you can't extend the distance between speakers and you must start from a place you can plug into the wall (where it is always powered on). I have no way to wall mount the speakers where a previous system's speakers were mounted; instead they are on the floor a few feet apart. They claim "access to your favorite websites, games, apps, and media." They claim "Opera TV store lets you choose from hundreds of apps". I do not find any of this to be true in the least. There is NO real web browser. You may only browse from the 150(?) apps within the OperaTV venue. Other than 3 or 4 common apps (Netflix, Hulu,...) the rest of the "apps" are absolutely worthless. Most are "websites" that look like home garage made movies -nothing you've ever heard of. And a calculator app? ...it's not really the place I'd go to for adding up numbers. The "app store" is just plain embarrassing. When I turn the TV on, it auto-starts the Samsung box (connected via HDMI) -which would be great if it fully worked. Rather, I loose sound all together, unless I crank the Samsung way the heck up. If I'm connected to my "over air" antenna, it chops up the picture and then drops the signal moments later. So have to have the Samsung remote in-hand, so I can shut it off to watch regular TV. It does have an FM tuner that does work good; you can, from the unit front panel, change stations, but you have to find the remote to change volume -slightly annoying. I gave it the "benifit" of 3 stars because if you stick to just the DVD and Netflix, as I think most people do, you'll likely be happy with it. But if you are looking at this, as I was, because it has a full, robust list of features that make your eyes go wide open, well, it's just not there in this unit. It needs a serious update to the operating system -so I hold out hope.

Works great with my new Samsung 70" Smart Tv!! Install only took about 30 minutes. Sound setup took a little bit longer but that is only because I am very picky about my sound. I played with the equalizer and rear speakers for a good 30 minutes before getting the sound just right. Works great with my Bluetooth Devices. Understand that the rear speakers do not work when using Bluetooth Devices, they are not designed to but this does not affect the sound quality. Watching football with surround sound is awesome!

I bought this for the 3d and speakers. The product is awesome while watching 3d movies. Couple things to know. To get all the speakers to work on direct tv press the dsp/eq button on the bottom to cinema. All speakers play when watching direct tv. Of course I had to program the remote from the Sony entertainment system we had to Samsung. On my Sony Bravia tv they no longer provide access to youtube and now I have it back with this system. I purchased the Jurrasic World 3d movie. I am using a Sony TV with Sony 3d glasses with this samsung entertainment center. I must say we are very happy with the 3d movies. Good product for our needs. Update: Six months into use of this product two of the speakers, the sub woofer and the center speaker would not work on dvd's. Which means when we played a dvd we could hear the music and sound effects but no speech. We called Samsung and they told us to update the software which we could not do as the wifi also went out. They had us to reset the wifi with a paper clip in a little hole on the back of it and had us to reset the system. Then we were able to update the software after the firmware started working. Samsung was most helpful with a follow up call to make sure it is working. And it is.

I should have paid more attention to the ratings! If only 65% can give it 4 or 5 stars, something is wrong. I wanted to test the subwoofer first, but you must hook it all up first. That meant unwrapping all the components, and undoing a bunch of strings of wires. Wires color coded, so easy to attach. But when I turned it on, nothing came out. I had to call Samsung and suffer through some very bad English in order to get it working. Once working, I could barely hear the bass, and asked where is the subwoofer sound? Answer- you can't hear it unless watching something with lots of explosions. Wrong answer! Bottom line, consider alternatives. I also hadn't considered the wires. Where the heck am I going to hide all these wires? Rear speakers say wireless, but not really. There's a unit for the rear that still must connect to rear speakers with - yep - more wires. I tried a number of movies etc. The sub was ok, that's all. I never could hear the rear speakers unless I put my ear next to one. The foreign support guy tried to explain how to change sound to Cinema, etc. but I could never understand him. Finally gave up, returning it. I ordered a Bose soundbar and subwoofer. No surround per se, but I know it'll do super for my needs.