Philips HTS 9140

It's been known that Philips has been sliding down the doldrums in terms of their video and audio products. The HTS9140 is the most recent proof of inferior product quality pegged at sky-high prices. I had the misfortune of purchasing this Soundbar based on reviews here on Cnet Asia and Cnet Central. While the reviews seemed decent, reality could not be a further cry away. Firstly, the Sound quality is inferior and the audio modulations are ridiculous. The lows and the mids are excessively loud and it drowns out the highs. I've had to set the Bass and Mids to the extreme lowest but even then they still muff out the highs. That means that conversations and dialogues are often 'covered' up by the bass and mids which remain muffled. Next, the system has an odd habit of tuning up the volume when it comes to inorganic sounds such as explosions and crashes, and silences the dialogues and conversations. That means in any action sequence you don't get to hear what the characters are saying. And do keep your remote always on hand because you never know when the Soundbar decides to tune up the volume or tune it down (such as in conversations). I consistently have to play with the volume controls just so I can hear the dialogue but not disturb my neighbours when things go loud on their own. Also, the DLNA function is not only inferior but it does not work. And accompanying that is the inferior customer service that Philips Singapore provides. The Soundbar fails to detect my network even though it is connected via a LAN cable. While it receives NetTv fine, it cannot detect my personalised network (when my LG TV has no problems whatsover). Representatives came down to my place but still could not resolve the problem. They took back the set and said that it is fine then claims it is my Network Provider (Singtel) that is the source of the problem, i.e. it is my Router. I use OpenNet and apparently, Philips Singapore has not encountered many customers who use this configuration. They believe it to be the router but their technicians are incompetent and do not know how to solve the issue. So, all they claim is that it is not their responsibility and that I should speak to Singtel. Next, we have the issue of Multi-region DVD play. This idiot of a system cannot play Region 1 discs. Which DVD player today is silly enough to be encoded region specific. To develop such an advanced system and yet be regressive about Region coding seems little more than an unintelligent contradiction! When contacted, engineers at Philips Singapore claim that there are specific coding sequences that the player cannot decode and that I would be 'lucky' if it could play Region 1. Ludicrous explanation. This system is also somewhat retarded in its processing. It takes almost 1.5 minutes for the system to start up. So while my TV is playing images since it turns on instantly, the soundbar takes eons to start up. This retarded processing is also seen in how it 'freezes' up when playing formats such as WMA or MKV. While the image and audio still run, often, the controls would freeze. You would not be able to pause, forward, rewind, search or even stop the movie. To stop, you have to turn off the entire system. I'm not sure how such a highly appraised product can fail on such accounts. After launching several complaints to Philips Singapore and haggling with the engineers, they have offered to provide me a full refund. But my wall brackets have been mounted and cablings set out. So I have decided to retain this ridiculous inferior invention. Even then, they did not offer to compensate me in any other way for all the inconvenience caused. Also, for this price, one would expect the basic decency of providing the iPod dock, as do LG and Samsung players. But of course, they don't and they expect you to buy it. All in all, this is the biggest error of purchase I have made when it comes to technical equipment and home audio/video machines. Get some other brand for any audio product - avoid Philips.

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