40-43 inch TV, soundbar, bluray package

[TallMark]

I'm building a new bedroom as part of an extension and want to kit it out with a TV / bluray / soundbar. It will be attached to an Amazon Fire TV box which I've already bought. Given I'm out the loop on AV and it seems to move so fast I'm turning to the knowledgeable folks here for help

TBH, the TV I've got downstairs in the lounge is sufficient, a 2-3 year old HD Samsung unit. So I will move that and the old bluray player upstairs and replace it with something better in the lounge.

For the soundbar in the bedroom I was thinking of this: http://www.richersounds.com/product/soundbars-soun...

I like the fact it has proper beam drivers to (hopefully) give more convincing surround sound, can link with Airplay and can be mounted on the wall under the TV to look neat. Anything else I should consider? This is certainly the top of my budget, it will be occasional use only hence I'm more interested in connectivity for music (DAB/FM even better) than the absolute best sound or deep base.


For the new TV/bluray in the lounge I'm a bit stuck. All I've learnt so far is that if I get one with 4K I should also make sure it supports HDR. I'm not interested at all in 3D or curved screens, and size wise 40-45 inches. Given I liked the last Samsung I started there and found the UE40KU6400, and a quick search on Richersounds threw up an LG 43UH661V.

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/samsu...

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/lg/43...

Any opinions on those?

I'm completely stuck on bluray players! There was a Sony model on sale on Amazon prime day yesterday, but it was locked to Region 2 DVDs and I own a large number of Region 1, so I hesitated and didn't buy it. So I guess my requirement here is for something easily hackable or region free! I don't imagine I'll be rushing out to buy any UHD content anytime soon, so a regular bluray is fine. Any benefit to keeping the player as the same brand as the TV?

A lot of questions I realise, but any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks!

[varsas]

I have some experience with the Samsung 6400 (albeit a 55 inch version). It looks pretty good, usual LCD issues (it has that usual slightly un-clear LCD 'look' you get with mid-range sets, like there's a feint mist in front of the screen) and at the very least the out-of-box presets for colours are just bizzare, everything looked luminous...T-shirts and grass looked radioative...so it needs toning down a lot, not unusual. I didn't get to play with it enough to know if that can be fixed, I expect it can. But a nice bright, detailed picture. For the price I was impressed.

Review here:

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ue40h6400-201405023...

Just a quick note, despite being 4k it's not really HDR as the colour gamut is relativly narrow. You really need Samsung's 'SUHD' range for the full HDR experience.

Samsung BluRay players are fine, with the added benefit of good smart features. In my experience they can be a bit noisy and recalcitrant (slow, basically) but I bought their UHD player so I guess I like them, connectivity is a bit basic, should be fine for your setup. The advantage of using same brand player/TV is that the nice HDMI CEC stuff (Samsung call this Anynet+) will definatly work and you can use the same remote for both.

You'll probably want to buy a pre-hacked player for multi-region DVD, Amazon sell them but they seem expensive to me. You could just rip the films and remove the region coding, that's what I did when I replaced my last player.

Edited by varsas on Wednesday 13th July 13:46

[TallMark]

Thanks varsas. That review was very technical and in depth.

Given the problem with regions, I wonder if its better to get a cheapo multiregion DVD player separately then... I'm sure ebay or AVForums would have something. Seems daft to have 2 boxes in the cupboard but if it works better then why not.

I've done more research on the sound bars and I'm back to square one. "Which" give a very bad review to that Yamaha model so I've discounted it now.

[varsas]

Two players may be the way to go then, a quick search on Amazon for 'region free bluray player' showed this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/CODEFREE-BD-J5100-MultiZo...

they do have slightly cheaper ones, there was a Sony for £100.

Can't help with Soundbars I'm afraid. I've heard a few, including a quite expensive JVC and a very expensive one (may have been B&W, someone like that) and they both sounded pretty poor to me, with that tinny yet boomy yet thin sound you also get from a lot of the 'all-in-one' systems. A decent pair of PC speakers would have sounded just as good.

[TallMark]

I hadn't realised they were so readily available. Based on the reviews (9/10 from AVforms, and Best Buy on Which), I'm liking this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-DMP-BDT460EB-3D...

Given its still a reasonable price it justifies sticking with a single box.


I'm in a right muddle with the soundbar still, but TV selection is between these 3:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/sony/...

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/lg/43...

http://www.richersounds.com/product/tv---all/samsu...


I'm leaning towards the LG given the extra size and my general preference of LG/Samsung as brands.

Anyone got any advice on those?