ATTN: Home Entertainment Enthusiasts

Well, I would defe. say that I'm starting to get into decent sounding ****. Quick question for you guys.

Hypothetically speaking, if I were looking for a surround sound system, would you guys recommend going to walmart, kmart, etc - and buying the systems they carry, or should I be looking elsewhere?

If I'm going to spend money, I want to be spending money on quality ****, not stuff sold at walmart.

Opinions?

What's your budget? I know that Sony makes a pretty kick ass full 5.1 system for $300 new

i only watch movies and my crappy $200 panasonic sounds just fine. I leave the GOOD sound quality to my car.

hyewarrior wrote:

What's your budget? I know that Sony makes a pretty kick ass full 5.1 system for $300 new

I'm not quite sure on budget just yet. I'm more so, looking to see what is out there. The most i'd like to spend would be around $500 or so. More so basing my budget off what is recommended and such.

Again, I have no problem spending good money on good quality stuff.

best buy- klipsch very good ****.

^Really?

Have to check it out.

yes really. used to work there. I listened to it in their little room. and that **** rocked the hell out of the home theatre section.

They make all kinds of different speaker designs.

Go to best buy and ask for klipsch youll pay for the difference my buddy has them......and youll never watch a movie the same way again.

You can do well with the stuff from wal-mart and all, but your best overall stuff is going to be elsewhere.

Also, keep an eye out on woot as from time to time they have individual speakers on sale that could help you piece together a system.

If a Tweeter is around you, they provide a lot of high end products that you can sample and get a feeling of what you are looking for.

I certainly wouldn't recommend a HTIB unless that's all you can afford. If your budget is a strict $500, spend all of it on a nice receiver, and go to the local thrift shop and get some $10 speakers to hook up to it, then upgrade as future funding allows. If you get a HTIB, the receiver that comes with it won't power any other speakers, and you'd not be able to upgrade without tossing the whole thing and starting fresh.



That's my setup, minus the rear surrounds and the sub. It's also wired into my computer so I can play music through it (I CAN do video from it too but the resolution sucks).

ViciousBread wrote:

i only watch movies and my crappy $200 panasonic sounds just fine. I leave the GOOD sound quality to my car.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*breath*
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You're saying throwing some subs in your car is GOOD sound QUALITY? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

On topic, you can find some OK/decent home theater systems for pretty cheap. Just do a bunch of research and make sure you know what you're getting.

I would HIGHLY encourage you to look into building your own system. There is TONS of information out there. High quality speaker are dirt cheap. But there's more to it than buying quality speakers and throwing them together. You could spend $100 on speakers and make yourself some tower speakers that would sound better than $1000 speakers.

I laugh every time someone buys quality speakers, throw them in their car, and say it's a kick ass system (see above). No, it's expensive components thrown together by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.

500 is a pretty tight budget if you are looking for high quality.

The real question is more about what you need the system to do. Is this being hooked up to an HDTV? If so you are probably going to want an HDMI upscaling receiver (will process all the video to 1080p and you will only need a single HDMI cable to your TV from your reciever). You will be spending AT LEAST $350 for a receiver that can do that. I would recommend taking a look at Onkyo recievers, they deliver great sound / video at a great price.

If you are looking for the really high quality, your receiver alone will be $500, probably closer to 800 or 900 if you are looking for one with all the bells and whistles.

Now if you are just strictly looking for good sound, and the video processing doesn't really matter, you can save a lot of money. The only problem with that is all the extra cables. Most cheaper receivers have HDMI passthrough or HDMI switching. Which more or less will take an RCA / Component / S-video input and not change anything on the signal and just resend it out via HDMI. Some of these will not process audio/video on the same cable, and some of these will only output video to the TV, no sound via HDMI. Some will not except HDMI at all and cause you to run Optical audio to the receiver and HDMI to the TV.

So the first thing is figure out which features you are looking for.

Go check out www.slickdeals.net They have a really nice starter onkyo 7.1 speaker set for $220 right now shipped. Then if you can find a good deal on a Onkyo TX-SR806 you will have a pretty killer system.


*edit*
PwrRngr is dead on about building your own speakers, there is a done of information out there, but it is very important the towers you put them in are built correctly. You can save a ton of money, but it will require a lot of work and research.

I'll second Klipsch speakers as very nice. Also check out Denon receivers - they are usually very good for the prices.

I'll second the Onkyo recievers ... hard to beat for the price/features/power

Golfer, I don't think that sick "needs" a receiver that does video upscaling and all since he owns a PS3 hat already does that.

Ive gotten 7 of these and a sub in my living room, and all I can say is for a 3 inch speacker they hit extremly hard. Im very impressed. Im not sure were my dad got these, but they werenty cheap. its all BlueToof and ****. Dont know much about them.

A-Ray wrote:

Golfer, I don't think that sick "needs" a receiver that does video upscaling and all since he owns a PS3 hat already does that.

Which is why i asked what he is connecting. Because his PS3 isn't going to upscale a wii, cable box, computer, roku box, sega genesis, atari, Nintendo, sega saturn, dvd changer, etc....

PwrRngr wrote:

ViciousBread wrote: i only watch movies and my crappy $200 panasonic sounds just fine. I leave the GOOD sound quality to my car. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA *breath* HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You're saying throwing some subs in your car is GOOD sound QUALITY? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Well, ****, I didn't say it's the best but I think my stock 10 speaker system from vw can be considered good, *******.

I don't know much about home audio, but I don't think I would buy any of it from K-Mart.

http://www.avsforum.com

in all honesty Sick, just go to Best Buy, and as long as it's a reputable brand and it has what you want, I think it should be fine... I went in a year and a half ago and bought a 2.1 LG Upscale DVD system, and it's been great. Regular price was like $150, and I got it for $90 on sale.. It's perfect for a small bedroom like mine and it does the job for watching movies or playing Xbox

Another thing to look at is WIRES for the rear set .... Since we have a finished basement /heardwood floors in the family room there was no good way to hide the wires so went and upgraded to wireless

Golfer wrote:

A-Ray wrote: Golfer, I don't think that sick "needs" a receiver that does video upscaling and all since he owns a PS3 hat already does that. Which is why i asked what he is connecting. Because his PS3 isn't going to upscale a wii, cable box, computer, roku box, sega genesis, atari, Nintendo, sega saturn, dvd changer, etc....

Agreed to this.

And another vote for Onkyo. That's what I have in my setup, and I have an Oppo upconverting DVD player, but I also have my computer, NES, Sega, and 360 in the mix. I wish I had gotten the 605 instead of the 505, so it would upconvert them all to HDMI and only require me running one video cable to the TV instead of four.

bad venge wrote:

Another thing to look at is WIRES for the rear set .... Since we have a finished basement /heardwood floors in the family room there was no good way to hide the wires so went and upgraded to wireless

No offense, but a quality home theatre is not going to be able to be wireless. You'd have to have serious built-in amplifying capabilities for that.

Yea I'd imagine the quality of sound takes a major hit if it's wireless

i'll third onkyo we have an Onkyo system with DCM speakers sounds great even when the movie's quiet

bought it from American TV not sure if you have one around you but the have great prices and great stuff

research the setup you want, then compare, compare, compare...use sites like PriceGrabber to establish a fair base price. A few years back, (before 1080p was available) we wanted a Bose Surround LifeStyle system and found that the entry level system was around 2400 and the top tier system was well over $5k. Found a reputable dealer with an Ebay store-front and ended up buying a brand new top tier system for less than $2500...got double the product at half the price! Full warranty, support etc...some things are worth checking out if you are gonna drop that kind of money

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=71252

The magnolia theater at Bestbuy is a good place to test out speakers. Personally i like klipsch, definitive technology, paradigmn, and b&w are my top picks. All of those can get quite expensive. If you like the sound of horn tweeters, klipsch is your best bet.

Receivers: i like harmon/kardon, they have low power amps a good portion of the time but the power they produce is very clean, they are also the first mfg to produce the receiver.

I also like outlaw audio, quite expensive as well as sony and onkyo, pioneers arent supposed to be too bad either.

Personally, my HTIAB is a sony and it was 250 and it has 5 channel surround and a a built in dvd player and tuner, would i do it again, meh, i would rather get a 3.1 and be done

Like people have been saying... it really depends on what your using it for. I'm staying partial to LG. I have a 5.1 5 disc upconverting dvd player surround sound system. I personally wouldn't worry about 7.1 b/c: 1. It's not being used much 2. There isn't that much of a noticeable difference.

I noticed no signal lost/sound quality difference going to the wireless it sounds the same as with wires it was an adapter I got off of woot , sounds the same to me , I had to crank up the reciever 3/4 on the rear to get the same sound but I'll live with that to not have wires across the floor ...

Cheap speaker set :
http://www.weeklycloseouts.com/page/en/home.aspx?task=product&itemid=20739

leave you with $400+ for the reciever then you can upgrade later