Full review
There's only one rule of thumb when it comes to buying an all-in-one home-cinema system -- never buy cheap. The HT-D6750W sits at the top of Samsung's shiny, happy home-cinema line. Including a 3D Blu-ray player, five speakers and a subwoofer, the HT-D6750W costs around £700.
Up and running
The jigsaw puzzle of plastic pieces that awaits you in the box may look daunting, but it's easy to make sense of everything. Coded speaker terminals make it straightforward to sort out the jumble of cables, and then everything else slots quickly into place.
Once assembled, you'll have a slim console that combines a 3D Blu-ray player with a digital amplifier, four tall speakers, a slender centre speaker, and a modestly sized subwoofer.
Connections on the all-in-one console include two HDMI inputs, a digital optical input, stereo phono jacks, and an Ethernet socket. Video outputs comprise HDMI, component and composite video. The unit has both integrated Wi-Fi and an FM/AM tuner.
Also supplied is a microphone, for the auto-calibration system. Alternatively, you can calibrate by ear using distance and level adjustments.
Intriguingly, the rear speakers are wireless. That's to say, they use an RF receiver to get audio. The supplied SWA-5000 RF receiver plugs into a wall socket at the back of the room, and cables run from that to the floor-standing enclosures. In many homes this will certainly make multi-channel speaker installation much easier. During our tests, the wireless system worked well, never dropping out or adding unwanted noise.
Not really 7.1-channel
The HT-D6750W may be touted as a 7.1-channel system, but only five boxes and a sub are supplied. In a conventional 7.1-channel home-cinema system, the bonus surround-sound pair would be located behind the listening position. Here, two extra channels are fed to independent swivelling drivers on the top of the left and right stereo speakers. Once you activate the system's 'vertical surround' mode, these can bounce their sound off the ceiling or walls.
As a 5.1-channel all-in-one system, the rig has real charm. While the auto-calibration mode pumps up the rears slightly, the soundstage is Walkers crisp. This is entirely due to the 50Hz 'super tweeter' used in the front left and right speakers. It's a high-quality component that allows the system to outperform more mainstream home-cinema systems.
Unfortunately, as only the stereo enclosures have this tweeter, voice matching across the front soundstage is rather rough. And, needless to say, those lonely upward-facing solo drivers don't sound like anything else in the system. The rears are also sans super tweeter, but the loss there isn't so acutely felt.
That aside, this is a superior-sounding home-cinema set-up. Stereo presentation is good for this category of kit, and the multi-channel experience is fun. One of the best sounding Blu-ray releases of the year, Tron: Legacy, left us grinning like a cat with the keys to the dairy.
On the deck
The 3D Blu-ray player in this system shares DNA with the company's BD-D6500 stand-alone player. It's a solid, mainstream deck with hyper-sharp video output and, rather pleasingly, bits that glow in the dark.
The co-habiting amplifier features Samsung's proprietary digital amp tech, Crystal Amplifier Plus. Samsung claims a rather unlikely power output of 1,300W. A more sensible estimate would be around 30W per channel.
The receiver itself offers a variety of digital-signal processing modes, including an MP3 enhancer that does the opposite to what you might expect, making compressed music sound needle-sharp rather than plump and round.
Also included is Samsung's Smart Hub portal. This looks much like it does on the company's TVs, although there's no Web browser or Live TV window. Key attractions include YouTube, DailyMotion, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Google Maps and the Acetrax movie-rental service.
Conclusion
If you're looking for a glossy, multi-functional home-cinema system, the Samsung HT-D6750W won't disappoint. It's packed with the latest technology and looks pretty smart. If only Samsung offered a multi-channel 3D package that employed those fabulous super tweeters all around, we'd be first in line.
Edited by Charles Kloet