OF FATHERHOOD, 3 LITTLE PRINCESSES AND AN AUDIO VIDEO CONFESSION

When I was still single, I was totally into the audio video, home theatre thing. My old Civic LX was fitted with the finest and latest CD audio component, since at that time I was spending way a lot of time travelling.

I had 2 systems in my home. For my listening pleasure I had an Audio Lab amp, Marantz CD and a Technic double casette deck player, pair of Infinity floor standing speaker for playing cds and cassettes. For movie playback, I had a Sony Laser Disc for LDs, a Panasonic VHS for videos a VCD player (cant remember the model) for VCDs. An Onkyo AV Receiver and Paradigm surround speakers completed my home theatre set up.

And lots, lots of casettes, VCDs and CDs. LDs were so expensive back then. I think I owned perhaps 2 or three movie titles on LDs and usually rented other LD movies from a favourite video rental shop in Alor Setar.

I did not consider myself as an audiophile, but I know enough, and I used to keep track of the AV evolutions and happenings over those years.

Then marriage happened.

Following that, then , fatherhood showed up.

And somehow, slowly and surely, I drifted away from the audio video world. I found that I no longer have the pleasure and time to listen to musics and experienced movies at the full blast of a home theatre system. Driving my car while listening to booming sounds of heavy metals bands became a thing of the past. Babies on board.

My life was centered around my infant daughters. You know, the can't-make-any-noise-or-the-babies-will-wake-up-and-give-you-hell sort of stuff. The other thing was, I realized that I cannot win the fight for my rights to hear full blast music (as I usually did when I was single) with my love one. "Yes dear, I'll shut it off right now" was the only response I could offer when my love one reminded me that we have babies sleeping in the house whenever I tried to listen to some music or watching movies. It was indeed a losing battle. So I ditched my AV stuff to concentrate on the fatherhood routine and drills.

Only on rare occasions I had some moments and glimpses of the latest gadgets and happenings in the audio video world. My listening to music was reduced to hearing it from Ipod, which is great for exercising but not so if I really want to enjoy the details.

A few days ago I decided that my years of self impose exile from loud noises were now over since my youngest daughter is finally attending primary school.

I already have a Toshiba 42 inches Regza and I needed a good home theater system to go with that. I was looking for a system which can fit in a small room . After some research and test I decided to get the Philip Soundbar DVD Home Theatre HTS8100. Its an integrated 5.1 surround channel in a one piece system with a built in CD/ DVD player.


It has all the necessary HDMI, Optical, USB and digital input. A separate auxiliary input for MP3 links/ players, it can play music from any MP3 players as well. A FM tuner allows you to listen to favourite FM stations.

The soft touch screen on the control panel is an excellent and a very cool feature. The panel slides to the right revealing a hidden compartment to slot CD/DVD in for playback.


The best thing that surprised me was that it also came with a separate Ipod dock. Once connected, it play the songs, and you can also watched movies or video clips from your Ipod on the TV screen. This unit remote control also controlled the Ipod's functions, which I found very convenient.


Digital photos can be viewed on the TV via the USB input. Just plug in your USB drive, and its good to go.

This Philips Soundbar has a separate sub woofer unit to complete the system.


For this system review, you can check out the following website.

I was lucky in the sense that I bought this Philip Soundbar way below the normal price, as it was on offer. And on top of that I managed to get an Integrated TV Mounts with heavily discounted price, which is a perfect place for all my audio video components including my children game consoles.


I definitely am back!