Surround Sound Sugestions????

[Deathwish238]

Bose makes the most overpriced low quality products you can buy. Their radio isn't too bad, but it isn't worth more than 50% of its price imo.

Clutter of wires? At most you will have two wires being run and you many use conduits or other measures to hide the wires. Many run them along the walls so they're almost "invisible". Also, if you have the money there are decent wireless solutions available from good manufactures like KEF for example

How much you looking to spend on a setup? Audio is the one place imo that your money is truly worth it. Receivers depreciate quickly and need to be replaced every 5 years or so, but speakers and amps can last a lifetime.

[MyXbox360]

Originally Posted by Deathwish238

Bose makes the most overpriced low quality products you can buy. Their radio isn't too bad, but it isn't worth more than 50% of its price imo.

Clutter of wires? At most you will have two wires being run and you many use conduits or other measures to hide the wires. Many run them along the walls so they're almost "invisible". Also, if you have the money there are decent wireless solutions available from good manufactures like KEF for example

How much you looking to spend on a setup? Audio is the one place imo that your money is truly worth it. Receivers depreciate quickly and need to be replaced every 5 years or so, but speakers and amps can last a lifetime.

I seen the cables used for speakers they aren't too bad, so that might work for my room since I have a carpet. I also wanted to get a surround sound system for my living room TV especially since in the near future we want to buy a Blu-Ray player. The problem with the living room though is it has all hardwood floors and a fireplace is in the way so it will be hard to conceal the wires in the molding. Not to mention our couches are not against any wall. Again I would consider wireless but worry about interference.

As far as price goes I don't want to spend a million dollars, I would like to keep the price of the system $800 or less for the living room. Preferably $500 or under for my bedroom. The problem with my bedroom is I had a bit of an odd setup, my TV is in the corner of a wall so I am not sure how I will setup the front channel. Plus I really don't have a place to put the front speakers.

[Deathwish238]

For the bedroom, I'ld just get a HTIB...no need to really spend lots there. The Onkyo HT-SR600 would be good. Wall mount the speakers so they don't take up floor space.

Do you own this house? If so, for the living room you could even consider running the wire through the wall. A bit more work, but you can't beat the results.

Pictures of your living room would help a lot to see if you can do without the wireless setup. With $800 you'll want to spend as much on speakers rather than wireless.



Given the $800 budget you should not look at a HTIB, instead you want to get a receiver and then pick out speakers or a speaker package.

Receiver:
$200 - Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-SR505 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black): Electronics
$270 - Amazon.com: ONKYO TX-SR506 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver - Black: Electronics
$370 - Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black): Electronics

Onkyo is a good bang for the buck without sacrificing sq. The $200 SR505 will get the job done. The SR506 has a few more features like auto eq and an extra HDMI input. The SR605 has HDMI Upconversion so you'ld only have to have one HDMI cable going to the HDTV and nothing else. If you are interested in that you'll probably want to bump your budget up to $1000 or so.

Subs:
$156 - Parts Expressayton SUB-120 12" 150 Watt Powered Subwoofer
$278 - Bic Acoustech H-100 Powered Subwoofer : Audio & Video from Overstock.com
The Dayton isn't bad. I have my parents buy one and it's impressive for the money. However the BIC trumps it in every way possible and will give you much better bass. If you plan to do a lot of music listening, the BIC will be especially worth it for the tighter bass it'll give you.


Now for speakers, I don't have time to look too much atm...but a basic setup would be 5 Polk speakers(Fry's FRYS.com) or perhaps other comparable brands like Infinity, Athena, etc. There are a lot of brands out there and it's always best to audition them first to figure out what sound you like. There are no best speakers, just what sounds best to you

[Deathwish238]

For the bedroom, I'ld just get a HTIB...no need to really spend lots there. The Onkyo HT-SR600 would be good. Wall mount the speakers so they don't take up floor space.

Do you own this house? If so, for the living room you could even consider running the wire through the wall. A bit more work, but you can't beat the results.

Pictures of your living room would help a lot to see if you can do without the wireless setup. With $800 you'll want to spend as much on speakers rather than wireless.



Given the $800 budget you should not look at a HTIB, instead you want to get a receiver and then pick out speakers or a speaker package.

Receiver:
$200 - Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-SR505 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black): Electronics
$270 - Amazon.com: ONKYO TX-SR506 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver - Black: Electronics
$370 - Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-SR605 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black): Electronics

Onkyo is a good bang for the buck without sacrificing sq. The $200 SR505 will get the job done. The SR506 has a few more features like auto eq and an extra HDMI input. The SR605 has HDMI Upconversion so you'ld only have to have one HDMI cable going to the HDTV and nothing else. The SR605 also decodes Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD, the two formats used by BluRay. With the other receivers you'ld have to use PCM/bistream instead...I believe it works just as well but you're just leaving the job to the player instead of the receiver. If you are interested in that you'll probably want to bump your budget up to $1000 or so.

Subs:
$156 - Parts Express: Dayton SUB-120 12" 150 Watt Powered Subwoofer
$278 - Bic Acoustech H-100 Powered Subwoofer : Audio & Video from Overstock.com
The Dayton isn't bad. I have my parents buy one and it's impressive for the money. However the BIC trumps it in every way possible and will give you much better bass. If you plan to do a lot of music listening, the BIC will be especially worth it for the tighter bass it'll give you.


Now for speakers, I don't have time to look too much atm...but a basic setup would be 5 Polk speakers(Fry's FRYS.com) or perhaps other comparable brands like Infinity, Athena, etc. There are a lot of brands out there and it's always best to audition them first to figure out what sound you like. There are no best speakers, just what sounds best to you

[Deathwish238]

Fry's is having a sick sale on some Polk speakers. Check my rec thread for links.

[Shike]

I also nominate the NHT SuperZero XU for speakers . . . maybe even some Mirage sats.

[Jizzylax]

Originally Posted by Deathwish238

Fry's is having a sick sale on some Polk speakers. Check my rec thread for links.

They have Monitor 50s for $100 each. That's very tempting.

[Deathwish238]

Shike, where can you actually buy those?


I just updated my Surround Sound Rec Thread with a whole bunch of decent speaker packages.

[Joshua]

So death would this be even better than the onkyo htsr600? Buy the Onkyo HT-S3100 5.1 Receiver/Speaker System and other Home theater systems at circuitcity.com

[Shike]

Originally Posted by Deathwish238

Shike, where can you actually buy those?

I found them at a local shop, though if you go through NHTs website you can get both an online and in store locater. Compared the the B&W DM 302 (or was it 303?) I listened to they sounded heavenly. The B&W were way to sharp on cymbal attacks that I know weren't supposed to be so sharp.

Unless you're talking about the Mirage, which you can get them at Magnolia Best Buy, though they go on sale at Vanns online . . . one time there was a refurb speaker pack for $400