Sharp HTSB300 2.1 Sound Bar Audio System with Digital Decoding Review

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(More customer reviews)Inexpensive soundbar best suited for a medium size Aquos LCD TV. Crisp high's and solid mid range characteristics, seamless operation with Aquos TV. Sound is improved tremendously with the addition of a small subwoofer such as a Polk Audio PSW111 or similar using the subwoofer output on the bar which can be controlled using the included remote. Dimensions are thin and long and well suited to 32, 37 and 40" TV's (the bar is 31.5 inches long). Well suited for smaller rooms or apartments, however surround sound effects are subtle. This unit will not fool you into believing sound is coming from behind you, however it does create an immersive sound field that fills the listening area and is a dramatic improvement over built in TV speakers. Great for someone who is avoiding complex audio systems and seeking a minimalist, but satisfying audio experience. If you have no intention of adding a subwoofer, get the less expensive HT-SB200, the difference between the digital and analog inputs is insignificant.

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Designed to simulate a surround sound effect without the bulk and added cost of a full home theater audio system, the Sharp HTSB300 Sound Bar provides a 2.1-channel surround sound environment. The compact Sound Bar encases left and right speakers, as well as a subwoofer, in one clean unit for 32 watts of total power output (5W x 2, plus 22W subwoofer). It can be placed on a TV stand (32-inch class LCD and up) with included mounting plates and adjustable feet to straddle the base of an LCD TV.
The Sharp Sound Bar simulates a surround sound effect without the bulk of adding a full speaker set.

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Sharp AQUOS BD-HP22U 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player Review

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(More customer reviews)Great picture, easy setup, but I agree with D. L..M about the AQUOS LINK. In fact, after reading that review I called Sharp to make sure my TV (1 month old) supports AQUOS LINK before ordering this player. They said it supported this feature so I ordered the player.
After getting the player, I couldn't get the AQUOS LINK function to work. I called back tech support, asked the same question - does this TV support AQUOS LINK? Yes they said. OK, tell me how to make it work. I'm put on hold, they come back after 10 minutes and tell me it is not supported.
So, heads up, these items might indicate your Sharp TV doesn't support AQUOS LINK: The remote doesn't have DVD function buttons, the little feature sticker on the side of your tv didn't say AQUOS LINK or your manual doesn't mention it. I guess that seems obvious, but since tech support said it would work, I just figured this was just a sharp feature that was inherent with the TV's and wasn't anything special.

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Now you can enjoy the best of 1080p video on your AQUOS LCD TV. Especially designed to work with AQUOS LCD TVs, the BD-HP22U AQUOS Blu-ray Disc Player provides seamless operability via the AQUOS LINK function through the HDMI connection. Performing as if it were all one system, the BD-HP22U's Quick Start feature lets you enjoy gorgeous Blu-ray Disc video with the touch of a button in as little as 10 seconds. With HDMI outputs and 1080p as well as DVD up-conversion, you'll enjoy full digital high-definition video and high-fidelity audio. JPEG Digital images can be viewed as a slide show from recorded CD-RW/R with digital images.

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Sharp Aquos BDHP20U 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player Review

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(More customer reviews)I recently reviewed my Sony BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player, which gave me an insurmountable amount of quirkiness. In that review I commented at length about firmware updates (and more updates and more updates) to which finally spelled doom for my player. I also commented on replacing my Sony S300 with my newly purchased Sharp Aquos BDHP20U 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player. At this point I must say that this Blu-Ray player is exceptional - Dolby True HD Sound, HDMI output to 1080p video, etc - all the extras without the cost (without a HDMI cord included of course, but most players come without it).
Out of the box, this needed no firmware updates to play even the newest movie I owned (i.e. Superbad [Blu-ray]- released the same week as this review) - which my Sony BDP-S300 tried to load for 15 minutes before locking up (and this was with firmware 2.6 installed already - firmware 3.30 was needed but it couldn't load due to a system error - now my old player sits in Pennsylvania at a Sony service center). The load time on the Sharp BDHP20U for SuperBad was about 1-2 minutes, not too bad as you might know some players take much longer. The boot up time from off to on was only about a minute also.
The entire system seemed quick, and not to mention quiet. From the beginning I was completely happy. The system startup was simple enough - I connected my HDMI and opened the setup menu to finalize my preferences. In less than 10 minutes of opening the box I was watching a movie that my previous Sony BDP-S300 died attempting to do.
For the money, this is a great player with fairly speedy load time. Compare that to the $440 I paid for the Sony BDP-S300 which I bought and now loathe.
12-29-07 update - Player finally needed an update to play The Simpsons Movie [Blu-ray] - not a problem though! Unlike the Sony S300 I mentioned before, the Sharp Aquos BDHP20U uses a USB port via any ordinary thumb/flash drive loaded to the back of the player to deliver the update files. No more senselessly throwing away DVD-R's and waiting 30+ minutes for updates, my Sharp Blu-Ray player updated in about 8 minutes. That little USB plug on the back and the 8 minutes are two good reasons I'm glad I purchased the Sharp Blu-Ray player. Honestly that's the real reason I like this player... it's design (inside and outside) is well thought out.
02-03-2008 update - Encountered my first glitch problem. While watching Damages: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] my player froze up. I stopped the disc and checked it for scratching or debris - nothing, looked great. So, I instead checked the Sharp website for a player update since this Blu-Ray disc set was so new. The website showed that I had the most recent update already. I then decided to restart the disc. The player froze up again at a different point on a different episode. This time I knew something was wrong. I attempted to eject the disc and the player would not respond, it just powered down. But, it had no response to re-power on or anything else for that matter - only thing that was happening was that the Standby light was flashing - no other lights or responses. I checked the SharpUSAdotcom website, but it had no real error response information. So I checked the handy dandy manual that my player came with. There was information on the very last page of the English section which described power / static electricity / lightning strikes / other interference scenarios. I followed the steps by holding the power button down until RESET appeared on the front LED section. It then re-powered on perfectly - another simple solution that was unavailable on my Sony S300 Blu-Ray player when it froze up.
Sure I might truly be comparing apples to oranges with this problem and my Sony problem, but when I originally asked the Sony customer service rep for help on my S300 - she replied with this for resetting my system. She told me to unplug the AC chord and wait 2 minutes. When that didn't work, she said we could try it a few more times or possibly leave it off for a longer amount of time. She also mentioned that this system reset could cause my latest firmware updates to reset also (as well as my player preferences). With my Sharp Blu-Ray player, the reset only rebooted the system (within 20-30 seconds) - all of my preferences and my latest firmware update were still intact. I must say this was much easier than I would ever guessed. Maybe Sharp needs a newer update for playing Damages: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] and it plans to release it soon, who knows? Well not me. But I DO know this, the reset feature on my Sharp Blu-Ray player was better than sending my Sony S300 to Pennsylvania for over a month.
For those of you who have asked and those of you who are wondering, yes I did finish the entire season of Damages: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] without any other problems. I am still not sure what caused the freeze up, but believe me - I tolerated much worse from my Sony S300. I use this player usually three to five times a week and this has been my first "hiccup" since buying it. So all and all, I am still very pleased with my Sharp player and consider it among my smartest purchases of 2007.
04-14-2008 - New problem that as of now is unfixable. When playing 30 Days Of Night [Blu-ray] there is no dialog in either English or Spanish, all of the background sound works and the other languages work as well. Apparently this model has had some trouble with the True HD sound on some of the newer discs - and the only language tracks on this particular movie in True HD were English and Spanish, so in other words - turning to any other non-True HD audio language fixed the problem... if you listened in Korean or French or whatever then you would have no problems. I went to the website to get any updates, which the latest firmware update claimed to address True HD problems (so Sharp is aware that something is wrong). But, the newest update still didn't fix the problem. I tried the disc on my Sony BDP-S500 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player and on my Playstation 3 40GB - both of which played the audio perfectly. After contacting the Sharp customer service via email they emailed me 3 days later with no answers. So, maybe there is a new fix coming and maybe not, either way this makes the Sharp BDHP20U closer to a 3 1/2 star or 4 star until new firmware fixing the True HD audio problem is released. Personally I didn't mind watching the movie in another room, but not everyone has that option.
04-30-2008 - There was another update listed on the Sharp website, this update again addressed the True HD problem. Fortunately this time was the trick to finally fixing the problem I had with 30 Days of Night. This movie now plays perfectly, so now everything seems perfectly once again. Back to 5 Stars!
04-07-2009 - It's been a year since anything out of the ordinary has happened. The player recently started having trouble with some of the newer Blu rays we were renting. At first it wasn't a big deal, but eventually I decided to check for updates. The newest update (Oct 2008) was loaded but somehow it refused to accept the new firmware. So we had to call Sharp for help. They walked us through a few steps but soon realized that there was something wrong with our BD drive. We shipped our player to Sharp and they emailed us to keep us updated through the process. They had my player fixed, updated, shipped back to us within a week. They shipped it back via FedEx overnight and we were watching movies on the player within 8 days of my original phone call. I can't say that this player is perfect, but I can say that I feel very lucky to be dealing with Sharp. The Sony process for returning my player was very complicated and ended with me spending over $200 to receive a completely different Sony model. That was never an issue with Sharp. The woman at Sharp said what was going to happen and politely assured me that this was going to be a painless process. She was right. Thanks Sharp!
More updates to come...

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sharp Aquos BDHP20U 1080p Blu-Ray Disc Player

Now you can enjoy the best of 1080p video on your Sharp AQUOS HDTV. Especially designed to work with AQUOS LCD TVs, the BD-HP20U AQUOS Blu-Ray Disc player provides seamless operability via the AQUOS LINK™ function, through the HDMI connection. Performing as if it were all one system, the BD-HP20U's Quick Start feature lets you begin enjoying gorgeous Blu-ray Disc video with the touch of a button in less than 10 seconds.* The BD-HP20U provides outstanding versatility and is compatible with a wide variety of formats including BD-ROM/RE/R, DVD Video, DVD-RW/R and DVD+RW/R.Additionally, the BD-HP20U plays audio CDs as well. With eight terminal outputs including HDMI inputs and 1080p as well as DVD up-conversion to 1080p, you'll enjoy full digital high-definition video and high-fidelity audio. The piano black finish and slim profile design make it the ideal HD source for a large screen AQUOS TV.*Quick Start time may vary depending on movie content, type of video connection, and type of monitor being used.

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Sharp HTSB200 2.1 Sound Bar Audio System Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Bought the wife a new 40" Samsung LCD and while I was very pleased with the picture, I was severely disappointed in the sound quality. No matter how much I played with the adjustments, it just sounded very flat with absolutely zero bass. After reading up, it appeared that a sound bar was exactly what I was looking for. This was for the living room which is primarily where my wife watches TV. She doesn't care about having the sound of a big 7.1 system like I have in the den. Her primary requirements were something that didn't add clutter like speaker stands, wall mounts, etc. but still improved the sound quality a bit.
I bought two sound bars to compare and just planned on taking one back. The first was a Vizio VSB200 and the other was the Sharp HTSB200. Since they are probably two of the closest that people will be comparing when looking for a budget sound bar, they are the two I will compare. Of the two, I chose the Sharp for the following reasons:
1. It is much smaller in size but sounds as good. The Vizio was large enough to stick up above the bottom of the TV on it's stand.
2. The Sharp remote is an actual remote unlike the Vizio which comes with a very cheap looking remote with the bubble buttons on it - in my experience, remotes like the Vizio's don't last very long.
3. The Bass and Treble are adjustable on the Sharp, on the Vizio they are not.
4. You can adjust the "subwoofer" on the Sharp, I don't even know if the Vizio has anything resembling a subwoofer. I use subwoofer loosely because while the sound bar does have some bass, don't expect anything like a stand alone subwoofer.
5. The Sharp has an actual display on the front, the Vizio just has a series of lights behind the cloth cover.
A few things I liked abut the Vizio over the Sharp:
1. Has an optical input, the Sharp does not (the next model up in the Sharp line, the HTSB300 DOES have an optical input).
2. Is controllable by my Dish Network universal remote. The Sharp may be as well but I haven't found a code that will work yet.
Make no mistake, neither provides a true surround sound experience. At no time did I feel as if sounds were coming from anywhere other than in front of me. I think it's stupid for the companies to even promote them as a surround sound experience. What they both do and do well is expand the sound stage of crappy flat screen speakers but the Sharp does it in a smaller package and with more features and adjust-ability.
Edit:
May have spoke too soon with such a positive review for this unit. After having it hooked up all day, I am frequently experiencing an annoying, random half second drop out of the audio. I have contacted Sharp CS but haven't heard back yet. Saw on a few A/V forums where there are others with the same problem. I'll update here as the situation progresses.
Edit 2: Contacted Sharp by phone regarding the audio drop out. I was impressed with their customer service. Very short wait, rep acted genuinely interested in helping. The problem relates to a power saving feature that turns the speaker off automatically when a signal isn't detected. I had my TVs internal speakers turned off (I bought the sound bar due to my TVs crappy speakers in the first place, of course I'm going to turn them off). This apparently tricks the circuitry in the sound bar into periodically thinking there is no sound so it clicks on and off, thus the audio drop out. The rep had me turn my TVs speakers back on and put them at a low setting of 5. I can just barely hear them with the sound bar off and not at all when the sound bar is on. I was skeptical but it apparently worked because I watched a few hours of DVDs and the issue didn't reappear. Poor engineering on their part if you ask me but I can live with it. They should have given an option to turn the power saving feature on and off. Next issue is tracking down a code that allows the sound bar to be controlled by a universal remote.
Edit 3: Problem still occurs occasionally but as I turn the volume up on the TV itself, it happens less frequently. At this point though I can't turn the TV up any louder without hearing it in conjunction with the sound bar, which actually degrades the sound quality. Contacted seller and they agreed to send me a replacement unit to rule out the first one as a defective unit. I'm not willing to give up on this product yet but it still baffles me that it could be engineered so that you have to leave your TV volume up a bit to get past the power saving feature. Makes no sense.
4th and hopefully final edit: Got a replacement unit and knock on wood, this one seems to be working properly. I have my TV volume set at zero and have experienced no drop outs with the new unit. I guess it can be chalked up to a defective unit. At this point I am completely satisfied with the product and would recommend it. Still no luck with a remote code though.
If any other owners of the product are experiencing the same drop out, please post a reply.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Sharp HTSB200 2.1 Sound Bar Audio System


Designed to simulate a surround sound effect without the bulk and added cost of a full home theater audio system, the Sharp HTSB200 Sound Bar provides a 2.1-channel surround sound environment. The compact Sound Bar encases left and right speakers, as well as a subwoofer, in one clean unit for 32 watts of total power output (5W x 2, plus 22W subwoofer). It can be placed on a TV stand (32-inch class LCD and up) with included mounting plates and adjustable feet to straddle the base of an LCD TV.
The Sharp Sound Bar simulates a surround sound effect without the bulk of adding a full speaker set.

Click here for more information about Sharp HTSB200 2.1 Sound Bar Audio System

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