Help picking out surround sound system

You know, go to Best Buy or another audio store around you that has returned items for deep discount. Sometimes you can find some nice prices on stuff that's hardly been opened. I picked up a nice little Toshiba LCD TV that way for 50% off. Point is, look for a HT In a Box, take it home and try it out. If it sucks, return it. That'll give you a reference to work from.

 

Were we separted at birth?

 

Maybe we need a home audio/video page?

 

we just purchaed the bose cinemate 2.0 for 599 and it blows away my panasonic 1000 5.0 i had. completely satisfied and not all those wires hanging around

 

How do you figure Bluray is " dying out " ?

 

Because streaming is taking over. Rentals on blu ray dvd's through whatever source you like are declining. Most people can stream unlimited hd titles for much less than renting 2-3 blu ray dvds. NetFlix is considering droping bluray titles all together. (Not that they make good choices as a whole) The physcial dvd is going the way of the cd.

 

ditto

 

That's funny, my older brother and I were talking about this just this past weekend. Some folks have never owned a piece of music they could hold in there hands. Me I've had 8-track, cassettes, reel to reel, laser disc, (my ass still hurts from that one) CDs, and DVDs and BluRay disc. Now it's all in a hard drive somewhere, well, most of it.

 

I think there will always be a market, although maybe not as big as we are used to, for physical media (Blu-Ray). I love Blu-Ray and do that over streaming all the time. Streamed 1080p media is often compressed to the point it looks like crap anyways (Netflix, etc). As far as the optical (or coaxial) vs. HDMI argument, you have to be some kind of audiophile savant to tell the difference between the 2, IMO. I've spent a fair amount of time setting up home theater, and by and large, digital audio is digital audio, in my experience. Now, I can tell a distinct difference between DTS and DTS-HD. It's not even close.

Most receivers in this day and age will do all of the things you are describing above, including assigning digital audio inputs and individually adjusting levels for each speaker. I know my Onkyo does. That being said, I do agree with Denon and Yamaha being good brands. I also think most of those features are above and beyond what the OP is looking for.

 

I am very impressed w/ my Samsung sound bar and wireless sub. Guest are always surprised when I tell them there are no rear speakers.

 

And everytime the create a new audio format it invloves degrading the dynamic range. Video quality gets better and better and audio get worse and worse. AHHH take me back to the DAT days! Don't get me started, I still have every record, 8 track, tape, dat and cd I ever bought. I am in the process of learning how to create digital lossless copies of all my audio media.

 

I completely agree that we have jacked this thread from the op but can you blame us?

And for the record most a/v receivers will not do what I described earler as far as allowing cross utilization of different types of inputs and outputs. If onyko does its something very new. Yamaha only began doing it 3 years ago and they were the inceptor of the technology.

 

You may also see what you can find on craigslist, might be especially good pickings right after xmas. You can probably work a deal for those gift cards.

 

I guess maybe we are thinking different things on "cross utilization" of inputs/outputs. Can you give me a specific example? Do you mean if I plug my Blu-Ray into an HDMI slot on my receiver, I can also plug in a optical audio cable from the Blu-Ray and tell the receiver to play off of that? I'm 99% sure it can, although I do not use that feature, as I prefer DTS-HD. I do know for certain I can assign various digital audio inputs to various outputs (i.e. Optical 1 to CBL/SAT).

 

Ok I re read my explaniation its its granted not clear enough. So forgive me and let me try again. On a standard a/v system you can run rca cables from your dvd players audio to your a/v receiver and have the signal go out to your tv's audio on the hdmi cable, or out to your dvr's audio on rca cables. (I think this is what you were refering too.) What a normal receiver cannot do is the following. Run hdmi cable AND a optical cable from your dvd to your amp and CHOOSE to use the optical audio instead of the HDMI audio. A standard a/v receiver will automaticly select what its programmers considered to be the highest quality signal available, thereby making the optical signal irrelevant. It is deseriable in the eyes of audio and video philes to be able to choose which one is actually the best signal. HDMI video signal should be the best but is not always. Optical is definetly the best audio signal but has the disadvantages I mentioned earlier. Does this help?

 

I agree 100%. I still think a piece of vinyl (I omitted this format) sounds better than anything. And not the new wave of vinyl, it's all transfered from digital anyways, I'm talking pre 80's stuff.

 

AMEN!

 

Oh ,

I gotcha , but no such thing as Directtv here , and I've never heard of Redbox , but I get your point

 

Guess I'm old-fashioned, I like holding the music in my hands, and vinyl does still kick ass

 

This is almost exactly what I settled on before I had to reallocate my money. What do you guys think ... Remember I don't need/want anything crazy