Help picking out surround sound system

Yeah sony's are good too, loved my Kenwood till an amp blew, I dig my Onkyo I have these Energy speakers that are made in Canada, badass subwoofer, i got two smaller ones for my FR and FL, love these speakers, they are not cheap though

 

I have an all in one system (Samsung) blue ray surround all in one that was $400 for the whole thing and that was couple years ago. I like the all in one because of my tv stand and only having 2 components since I don't have a lot of room for more equipment. Mine sounds just fine for me. So It depends on how much sound you want. Mine is not a powered sub and it is plenty for us. If you want to go that route just go around and listen to different systems. When I bought ours, I listened to some of the cheap ones and got discouraged until I heard this one. So basically you can find a decent system for the $, just depends on how big you want to go.

 

Here is an option from each brand I mentioned, in the $300-$400 range (to save you money).

Onkyo TX-NR509

Yamaha RX-V471

H/K AVR 1565

Denon AVR-1712

All of these will have essentially the same qualities (75-100W per channel, HDMI, 3D support). Depends on feature set, quality (ie user reviews), and your preference.

You would need speakers. I have a 5.1 set from Aperion Audio which I absolutely LOVE (I can not ever see myself selling them), but you should also check out Definitive Technologies, Energy, Fluance, and Mirage for less cost and still decent sound. I will admit, I have not heard them all. I do like Definitive and Energy speakers. Bigger brands to look at include Klipsch, Polk Audio, and Boston Acoustics.

 

I put about $400 into my audio surround. I got a Sony 7.1 (but it runs in 5.1 too) AV receiver that's got about 110w per channel. It's an STR-1000 or something like that. Picked it up on a nice discount for about $225 I think. I found a 5.1 sat speaker system for $150 that was an "old" model - so it was clearance priced. Sounds awesome. We use it all the time; never use the TV speakers. Audiophiles wouldn't even walk in the door of my house, but that's fine. I don't need granite speaker enclosures! Sure, 10x the cost would buy me better sounding stuff I'd bet, but the living room is acoustically challenging as is, so why spend up if the results will always be less than perfect, IMO. If I had a "home theater" room, then I'd invest more. I enjoy 1080p and DTS, but I just don't care to over spend on it for diminishing returns. Everyone I know has out spent me; some sound worse, most sound as good, some sound better, and one is awesome.

If you monitor the SlickDeals website, you'll often find limited time discounts on receiver/speaker combo's that aren't just "HT in a box".

Also, with the savings, you can get stuff like a Harmony One remote which replaces all your other remotes. My 6 yr old can use it to turn everything on and watch a movie of her choice. I also have a little HTPC that cost about $500. We use it for everything....but that's another thread.

 

Energy's are nice .

My speakers are Klipsch

 

They're not really that expensive, are they? I was thinking like $400 for a set?

 

I listened to some Energy stuff last year, (sounded good). Ended up going with JM Labs/Focal speakers. As far as Klipsch, that was my last set of loudspeakers, (still have them, need to sale) they were awesome, but just too big.

 

Those are nice too, i did some work for a friend of mine and when her hubby passed she gave me all his equipment, two pairs of 1st gen Bose 901's, bunch of Denon stuff, the Energy speakers and a nice Denon record player which is in my set up now. I ended up selling the Bose, bought the Onkyo and now it's full on 7.1 with the 52 inch, movies and sports rock!

 

I think this thing steamrolled a lot faster than the OP anticipated.

 

Yeah, some of us would be happy with the out of the box, some of us are not happy unless it involves massive amounts of watts

 

My Klipsch fronts are the bookshelf ones , I can't remember the model off hand , but they are only about 18" tall by 8"x8" . I have a Klipsch center channel speaker and sub , my rears are JBL in-wall speakers

 

Seems the ones I have were KG4s. They are big floor standing speakers. The're older, wooden cabinets, hand made, and signed by
the assembler and QC in pen. Made in Arkansas.

 

I have the MK 1 version of these

http://m.klipsch.com/products/produ...umber=3691/3579.0.1.1.65527.83413.0.0.0?pp=8&

 

My nice setup is in my man cave. In my living room, I bought a refurb'd Visio sound bar for 50 bucks from tiger direct, and added an old infinity 10" powered sub. For the money, the sound is incredible. *FOR THE MONEY*

 

I liked the older infinitys, thought the newer ones were crap. My TV is too big for floor standing speakers, my little Energys have huge magnets in them, i have the center speaker too.

 

Wow, this went nuts, lol. You guys are really into the home audio much more than I thought! After reading all of this, I guess I should have said something like .. looking to upgrade over tv speakers, but dont need anything good, great, or super .. just something that will allow me to turn the volume up (wthout speakers cracking) and on sundays hear football in surround sound. .. I am going to look into some Onkyo tuners and then speakers ... thanks guys!

 

Yeah, we do that a lot around here, good luck

 

$300 bucks is a tough price range to get a full system. My advice is to wait till you can spend about $1500 on an amp/receiver and speakers. Don't skimp on the speakers you will have them the longest. I wouldn't spend less than $600 on a surround receiver/amp. I reccomend either Yamaha or Dennon, my preference being Yamaha. As far as speakers/subwoofer goes, look at Definitive Technology, they have some very affordable 5.1 sets that preform very well and are well rated. Make sure not to go too small on your subwoofer or it wont do a thing. If you are on a concrete pad you will need more power (say minium 300 watts). If you have downstairs neighbors you might not want much. You will also have to decide if you care about blue ray. If not get a brand name dvd player with hd outputs. Check reviews on on cnet.com and testfreaks.com. Look at buying equipment just as the next generation of equipment is being released, you can find some great buys that way. (Right around the time of the vegas electronics show.) My A/V system (I have a seperate audio only system) which is about 2 years old is as follows: Receiver Yamaha RXV-867, Blu Ray Player Yamaha BD-A 1000, Speakers Definitive Technology Mythos XTR-50 system, Panasonic 50" Plasma TV (Can't remember the model sorry) This system would in no way be considered a really high end system but it preforms better than many which cost much much more. (I have about $9500 into my system including tv and cables.) If you have any other questions pm me. I love to reasearch audio so I will find out anything I can on any setup youare considering.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882120182

this might be more in line for what you are looking for

 

Optical is better quality with less interfence than HDMI. HOWEVER, optical will not carry some of the newer decding formats (I don't recall them all). The twist on that is most of the newer decoding formats are only used on Blu Ray which is dyng out anyway. If you have a system where you can tell the differnce with your ear alone then use optical if not don't worry about it. On my audio system I use optical. On my A/V I use HDMI. Now here is the real stickler and why I only recomend Dennon or Yamaha products and only of certain ranges. Most A/V receivers will not allow you to use optical audio if you have HDMI plugged in. The either have an internal precedenance set which determines if you have HDMI plugged in its using the audio as well as video feed from that source because its considedered better. Therefore, if you had the optical cord pulgged in it wouldn't be using it. Some systems allow you to choose the preference of what you want to use but not mix and mach. Yamah and Dennon have systems starting around $500 which allow you to choose every single input and output source and destination. For example if you are running component video in from your DVD player you can select to have it go out on HDMI to you TV and out on RCA jacks to your DVR. And so on with all the ins and outs including audio. Most people will never use this or need to worry about it. But for those like me who are really crazy about quality you may have determined that your video output from your DVR is actualy clearer on component video than hdmi. (this isn't suposed to happen but does)