I'm glad you're having success with your Samsung. Yes, the one I had was very loud & felt cheap compared to the Sony players so absolutely that alone was very telling. I mean it was alot louder & was an easy decision to part ways with it. Did if directly affect the image? I don't know but paying $299 for it, one deserves a tad more refinement.
Each of us has certain things we look for in our gear & certainly image/audio is top tier but how it gets there is a factor too.
