Onkyo HTS-3400 review please

Texted Onkyo customer care in India and the Hyderabad local Onkyo showroom called back.

They quoted 25k for hts3400 and 54k for hts5400. I was expecting them to offer better on hts5400. I told him that Global Ebay is offering 38K and he was furious that no one will come to set it up and you will get no warranties. GEB price is inclusive of everything.

Now the price difference is huge for hts5400 while hts3400 is not. I will go and audition them over the weekend and maybe wait around Diwali for local electronics showrooms to come up with good offers.

So far I have had the best experience only with Reliance Digital on Banjara Hills in terms of buying electronics.

I will measure up my living room, but it is not a perfect rectangle. it's like a 12-14feet(viewing distance) x 20-22feet (wall with tv only on one half).
It contains both sofa and dining table and I have setup the tv and HT in the sofa area which is about 12" feet (distance) x 10" feet (area if TV & HT setup). The tower speakers sit next to tv while the rear ones are just on the wall back of my sofa, so hardly 2 feet from ears. I will need to draw it up.

Some questions/doubts:
- should the speakers be at 4-6 feet from ground which I have currently setup or on top corners of room.
- as the room is not a perfect rectangle (with a small L shape of 4 feet at sofa, which I have converted to recliner) is it advisable to just use 5.1 in same config or 7.1 is better for this big room (maybe layout/drawing will help, any easy tools for that?)
- The problem with 7.1 I feel is that the side surround will be near on one side like 10 feet and 20 feet on the other side. It will fill the room but the effect may not be the same.
- i dont have the patience to build my HT piece by piece, its mostly going to be a HTiB and the one which I can get a good deal preferably with EMI. I am still okay with starting at 5.1 and moving upto 7.1 if that makes any difference.

Going from 25k to 38k looked okay but 54k is not :(.

Thoughts?
 
Texted Onkyo customer care in India and the Hyderabad local Onkyo showroom called back.

They quoted 25k for hts3400 and 54k for hts5400. I was expecting them to offer better on hts5400. I told him that Global Ebay is offering 38K and he was furious that no one will come to set it up and you will get no warranties. GEB price is inclusive of everything.

Now the price difference is huge for hts5400 while hts3400 is not. I will go and audition them over the weekend and maybe wait around Diwali for local electronics showrooms to come up with good offers.

So far I have had the best experience only with Reliance Digital on Banjara Hills in terms of buying electronics.

I will measure up my living room, but it is not a perfect rectangle. it's like a 12-14feet(viewing distance) x 20-22feet (wall with tv only on one half).
It contains both sofa and dining table and I have setup the tv and HT in the sofa area which is about 12" feet (distance) x 10" feet (area if TV & HT setup). The tower speakers sit next to tv while the rear ones are just on the wall back of my sofa, so hardly 2 feet from ears. I will need to draw it up.

Some questions/doubts:
- should the speakers be at 4-6 feet from ground which I have currently setup or on top corners of room.
- as the room is not a perfect rectangle (with a small L shape of 4 feet at sofa, which I have converted to recliner) is it advisable to just use 5.1 in same config or 7.1 is better for this big room (maybe layout/drawing will help, any easy tools for that?)
- The problem with 7.1 I feel is that the side surround will be near on one side like 10 feet and 20 feet on the other side. It will fill the room but the effect may not be the same.
- i dont have the patience to build my HT piece by piece, its mostly going to be a HTiB and the one which I can get a good deal preferably with EMI. I am still okay with starting at 5.1 and moving upto 7.1 if that makes any difference.

Going from 25k to 38k looked okay but 54k is not :(.

Thoughts?

I do agree, 54K is so uncool. :) As the cost between 5400 and 3400 as per USD is about 150USD = Rs. 7500, so i think dealers in India are ripping us.

Cost wise, ebay GEB price of 3400 and 5400 differs by about 5-7K because their shipping weight may not differ much. So only total difference on GEB is 5-7K.

total cost of HTS5400 may be 39K+6K (for step down transformer) = 45K, and so diff of Rs. 7K doesn;t make much sense (loosing warranty). :p

I was getting deal on HTS 5400 for Rs. 33K (which was too good to resist).
I will go in for HTS 3400 and may be build my system later - when my ears get addicted to good quality music.

Refer to think link for setting your HT -
http://www.hifivision.com/audio-video-cables/2608-avr-connectivity.html
 
Hey jimmzbond where were you getting 5400 for so less price ?
I feel 5400 is better because one can enjoy MPE/AAC music without turning on anything else (TV/DVD/WD Live)...I guess USB slot can play these formats at-least ?
 
Thanks for sharing the article jimmz. I am using everything which Venkat mentioned (I somehow got it right without any articles :) ) but just that I am using Surround back setup in 5.1. (I have seen most people calls them rear in 5.1 and not surround)

The difference in my room from the picture is that where the surround left is there is a wall immediately next to sofa and where the surround right is there is no wall at all :), so cant really place them there and having them in middle of walls on either side of room did not look productive. I should probably image search on real 7.1 setups of people.

Your point on warranty is right, but do these things generally have a problem? I need to find out some contact in Singapore to maybe get it at cheaper rate and save the transformer cost.

From the above perspective 5.1 with surround back is a viable option for now. Maybe somewhere down the line when I get more dough I try to do funky stuff. (Do some 10.2 kind of setup :) )

Another question which I had is, the existing speakers which one may have (of course, cheaper quality), one should just discard them or plug them also in AVR, would it become an overkill or AVR will not be able to generate enough output or the quality match will just ruin the experience?
 
Hello Guys,

have been using Onkyo 3400 for a month now...and I am very happy with the overall performance....

wud like some advice over one problem I am facing..

currently my setup is

BD player Panasonic BDT110--> HDMI --> Onkyo--> HDMI--> LCD
Kaiboer H1055--> HDMI --> Onkyo--> HDMI--> LCD

when I use my BD player I experience audio loss in the start of the movie (example : will happen for about 8-9 times in first 30 minutes) :indifferent14:after that there is no audio loss at all for the whole movie..sometime very rarely i have encountered video loss for a second as well that too at the start..

while when I play movies from Kaiboer HD player..there are no problems whatsoever....

also one more thing... I am using 1000 w step down transformer for My onkyo and BD player both connected to one power strip...

so does that mean..bd player is having any issues..or do I have missed any setting...

require guidance on that....

no reply :(
 
when I use my BD player I experience audio loss in the start of the movie (example : will happen for about 8-9 times in first 30 minutes)
Initial signal loss happens due to HDMI handshaking. But 8-9 minutes is quite a long time.
Connect the BD player to TV directly via HDMI. Check if the problem persists.
 
This one is way cheaper but I think it does not contain customs or shipping charges to India. If you can find someone who can bring this to you from Singapore :)

I have a relative there but need to check if he can bring along.

NEW Onkyo HT-S5400 7.1 Channel Home Theater System | eBay

Thanks, any idea why 5400 is so costly in India as compared to US or elsewhere, if you see on Amazon the price difference is just $80-$100, but why in India the price difference is too much between 3400 & 5400.

another thing, will USB slot in 5400 play MP3/AAC music files or it will only play iPod ?
 
Initial signal loss happens due to HDMI handshaking. But 8-9 minutes is quite a long time.
Connect the BD player to TV directly via HDMI. Check if the problem persists.

thanks for your reply....and yes you are right.....when connected my BD player directly to TV....it works fine...so how shud i go abt it now ...as each component is working fine ( I mean..Onkyo with Kaiboer works like charm, BD player directly to TV works fine...) only when I connect BD player to ONKYO and from ONKYO to TV...I have problem of audio loss for split seconds in first 30 minutes of movie.....

What can be problem over here..as I said earlier ...I am using 1000W step down transformer and a power strip to connect ONKYO and BD player to it...

looking forward for replies :)
 
Initial signal loss happens due to HDMI handshaking. But 8-9 minutes is quite a long time.
Connect the BD player to TV directly via HDMI. Check if the problem persists.

My HDD is connected via (USB) to a media player and HDMI to AVR 3300 it takes abt 10mins to read my 2TB HDDisk but connecting direct (USB) to TV it immdtly reads. is my media player or AVR suspect?
 
My HDD is connected via (USB) to a media player and HDMI to AVR 3300 it takes abt 10mins to read my 2TB HDDisk but connecting direct (USB) to TV it immdtly reads. is my media player or AVR suspect?

It is definitely your media player. Try unhooking the avr from your media player and see the results.
 
Thanks, so the item isnot in stock, price is very tempting ....have you contacted the seller ? , his rating looks OK...
any idea how will he ships to India ? is he using vPostAsia service ?

Nopes, the prices are mentioned inclusive of shipping customs etc.

no penny extra. :)

In ebay GEB, sellers send it to ebay US address (local shipping for him).

ebay picks it up and sends to India address (Mumbai) and pays for duty/customs.

From Mumbai they are sent to local destinations (generally some local courier company), so as a GEB buyer, zero hassles.
 
This one is way cheaper but I think it does not contain customs or shipping charges to India. If you can find someone who can bring this to you from Singapore :)

I have a relative there but need to check if he can bring along.

NEW Onkyo HT-S5400 7.1 Channel Home Theater System | eBay

Your relative can only carry 20KGs and the package must be weighting about 30KGs, and its volumetric weight lot higher...so I dont recommend asking your relative, unless relative in question happens to be ur wife :)
 
Thanks bond, so GEB looks hassless , i read other thread in this forum ..people have mixed review anyways we can try once...
did you tried to message the GEB seller for more stock ? Should we wait for HTS-6400(ethernet + MP3 from USB) ?
 
Guys,
I recently visited Modern World,Old Airport road,Bangalore to check out Onkyo HT-S3400. The sound was impressive.
They quoted Rs.25K saying it's a special Diwali offer. I'd like to know from you guys if I can go ahead and buy it :)

Also how good is the deal for 25K? Can I expect any freebies like optical/HDMI cables etc apart from the HT package. The guys at Modern world said they'll set it up for free.

If anyone knows of any better deal in Bangalore please let me know..
 
@rav11stars: I spoke to the Modern World guys yesterday, and got the same quote (25K) for HT-S3400. FYI, they told they are also giving some Blue-Ray combo offers as below:

Combo 1: HT-S3400 + Philips Blue-Ray player = 28K
Combo 2: HT-S3400 + Sony Blue-Ray player = 30K
 
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