Review of a future of TV - Samsung UA55B8000 LED HDTV

First look
It is no overstatement to state that the Samsung LED 8000 is amongst the classiest large panel TVs in the market today. The sleek black panel, with a delicate transparent frame stands gracefully on a silver stand that will intermingle flawlessly into any Interior setting. With a depth of jus 3 centimeters, the sleek Samsung LED 8000 is the skinniest model on the international ramp. With the optional wall mount, you can hang the TV on your wall like you would do with a delicate piece of art.

Technological aspects:
Samsung LED 8000 is not an LED TV In the true logic. The clarification is straightforward. In regular LCD TVs, they use CCFLs (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps) to light up the liquid crystal layer but in the Samsung LED 8000, they have used LEDs (Light Emitting Diode) placed on the edges in place of CCFLs to light up the liquid crystal layer. Thus basically, LED TVs (as they call them) are nothing but LCDs with a twist.
But the LED twist has a number of reward over the CCFLs, the most significant being up to 40% less power consumption and better luminance. Also, usage of LEDs helps deal with the most prevailing problems of the LCD TVs poor black levels and "smeary" motion.


Just as the 7000 series TV was upgraded from the 6000 series, the Samsung LED 8000 series is also an advanced version of the 7000 in a number of ways. For instance, the Samsung LED 8000 comes with the Auto Motion Plus Technology (AMPT) with which the TV refreshes at a astonishing frequency of 200Hz. This radically reduces the response time of the TV but at the same time, the algorithm of the AMPT might cause motion blur, an issue that ideally you would want to avoid.
A unique feature is that the Samsung LED 8000 comes with a pre-loaded content library of 1GB; that comprises remarkable content like lively images, games, animated picturesque landscapes coupled with relaxing audio and mouth¬watering recipes of delicious world cuisine. Likewise, you can download added content worth 1GB more from Samsung's website. To download, the Samsung LED 8000 comes with a LAN port onboard through which you can connect to your network. Moreover, the TV comes with a cool widget where you can save your favorite websites on the screen for later browsing. You can connect a USB drive or a hard-disk drive and transfer movies, music and photos to the onboard memory that has a 2GB capacity. Another way you can download is by wirelessly connecting a DLNA device like a mobile phone or a camera to the TV. The onboard content library is a great add on with its attractive menu and interactive navigation keys.
When you have to make a TV do all the things that the Samsung LED 8000 can do without leaving your sofa, your only rescuer can be its remote control. Accordingly, the Samsung people have designed a remote that puts the viewer in the captain's seat and enables smooth cruising with a hot key for every important functions like accessing a hard-disk directly or the onboard content. Moreover, the remote complements the aesthetics of the TV and fits at ease in the palm of your hand.

Viewing experience
Apart from superb picture quality, this TV also has equipped with a great user experience. The menu interface is sensitive, whereas other features like that of DLNA or accessing content through USB drives are quite handy to navigate. The best part is that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use all these facilities. As mentioned earlier, the remote has all the pertinent hot keys for each of its features. So all you have to do is just plug in the devices (pen drives, hard-disks etc), sail through the menus and sit back and enjoy your date with the Samsung LED 8000.

Bottom line
A price tag of Rs 3,50,000 is quite a shock, especially when we are still on the road to recovery from the tremors of the global recession. However, for the premium that the Samsung LED 8000 demands, the UA55B8000 will reward you with perfect picture quality, exceptional black level rendering, and crisp images along with a great user experience and a host of pioneering features that only make viewing your favorite DVDs and Blu-rays an memorable experience.

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Review of high end speakers from AAD - Silver Reference 7

Look and Technology
This is what you describe ‘tower speakers’, because of their slim yet very hard boned chassis that soars to the skies like Donald Trump had something to do with It. They present with three proprietary 5" Kevlar/Carbon Fiber drivers with a Helical Conductive Tweeter or HCT on the very top. Unlike standard dome tweeters, the HCT has a flat horn-loaded diaphragm to reduce roughness and improve off-axis response. The tweeter, as AAD claims, can go all the way up to 40kHz without a dip or a rise in the frequency response, something that's exceptionally hard to pull off.

As for the honeycomb bass drivers, they are split over different crossover points to give them their own allocation of the mids to the lows, while the three little bass ports on the back expel the cabinet's role in the acoustics. The reason for using small drivers or rather 5" drivers to reproduce bass rather than larger drivers are primarily for their promptness. The reason why they aren't used in other speakers is because the bass produced by smaller speakers doesn't project as far as that of a large driver.


They are surprisingly heavy for their size, but mass is always a good aspect in floor standers, especially when you see only four little drivers looking at you from the metallic finished front baffle. The speakers come to an end of their height with a curvy top plate that sure perpetuates the largeness of the glossy coat finished cabinet.

Cabinet is braced and dampened at very precise resonance points to reduce internal resonance and coloration.

Bottom line
Everything Phil Jones has claimed about these speakers is right. Using little drivers for low frequency response may just be the greatest thing that's happened to bass, especially with cabinet engineering and delicate crossover technology to boot. The Reference 7s had the added benefit of displaying clean highs and strong mids; but what bolstered its overall worth was its slim but extraordinary soundstage. It is worth the money you spend on them, and judging by their build class, they'll be assets in your living rooms for a long time.

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