I'm gonna ask for help again. Remember back in July I purchased a new HDTV. Its great and I love the picture quality. There is only one thing wrong, the speakers are just not good enough quality. I purchased a Sharp Aquos and need something that will be nice sound, not too too loud, but deep and booming at times. I am not a game player, so I don't need it for that, but just for viewing pleasure. It would be nice to view say, for instance, Star Wars and get all the "kabooms" in nice deep sound. Anyone have suggestions or ideas ? Thanks Price range is up to $ 500.
Hope this helps Yamaha YHT 590 - home theater system - 5.1 channel Home Theater System reviews - CNET Reviews
Well I am not sure exactly. I'm not really big on this kind of thing. I already have a DVD and DVR so I don't need these CD/DVD changers some of them come with. I guess I am sort of confused in a way. What I want is speakers and a woofer, that's all I really need. I don't need anything really fancy, because I don't do any gaming at all.
Brother go to Bestbuy.com and type in "Home theater system". Most of them are under 200 and come with everything you need. I recommend looking at the buyer reviews of the products. I have a sony surround system from Best Buy. I never even stepped foot in the store had it in a week. Also if your unsure call and speak to the geek squad. They can help you, and can install them if you need help.
crutchfield has good prices as well. Home Theater: Home Audio, Speakers, Receivers, Home Theater Systems
well its either buy it all together as a package or buy each part seperately. speakers woofer receiver But if your budget is around $500 the whole system might be the way. From what i read from other MBs they always talk about how great Onkyo receivers are which is around $300 for it. I asked some folks which system they advise so i'll post once i get some info. If they reply
Get an Onkyo TX-SR606, and find a 5 or 7 speaker set to go with it. I got the Onkyo HT-Sr800 speakers w/my 606 and it rocks.
Researched it pretty hard. Only 2 recievers in the end, either Oinko or Dennon. Bought me an Oinko about 3 months ago. LOVE IT. I got a smoking deal from Circuit City. Go here: Buy the Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Dolby and DTS Home Theater Receiver and other Home audio receivers & amplifiers at circuitcity.com I actually saved an additional $40 cause I settled on a Silver one. Not much THIS receiver wont do, but I understand it pretty much blows your budget. I am looking at a couple of Speaker packages that will run anywhere from 400-700 depending. In regards to Speakers, what you will see is something like 5.1, 7.1 etc. The .1 means it is a powered Sub-woofer. The 7 or 5 means that many seperate channels of surround sound. Klipsch, Boston Accoustic and Definitive Technology are very nice. I have heard good and bad about the Yamaha. The system that Cal put up is a very nice setup and not too expensive. The reciver I pointed out will drive up to 7.1 and yes that does mean it is ready to drive a powered sub-woofer. I am making do with a couple of Fairly nice Infinity's that I picked up real cheap from a friend (Free ) This reciever will also drive 2 additional seperate channels (For another room or outside). I believe it drives 100 watts per channel at very low frequency...which translates into very clean but powerful sound. One note, THIS reciever gets pretty warm. Not good for a completly enclosed place. I have to leave the door of ENT CENT open if playing for any extended period of time. Heres what I found. Best Speakers in the world are useless you have a "Nice' reciever to power them. Best Receiver in the world is useless without the Speakers. BTW: Stitches from in here bought the exact same receiver I have. Might be good to petition him on how it works for him. Bottom line, I think it is well worth it to pay extra and piece something nice together. IT works nice Bare-bones, and you can expand as much as you desire. Let me know if I can cloud the mind anymore
You will get much better info here: AVS Forum than bestbuy.com. Rarely does best buy have the best price either.
NOTE: I DID find my reciever a few bucks cheaper online, however, it is nice to have Circuit City a couple of miles away. For me the extra $5 wasnt worth having to package etc IF anything were to go wrong. Just my 2cents worth
You will get much better info here: AVS Forum than bestbuy.com. Rarely does best buy have the best price either.
I have the Onkyo 605 and I love it, they make very good stuff and its dirt cheap for what you get. My advice to anyone who wants really good sound is to buy either the 606 and grab a good set of front speakers. Just use it in stereo with two speakers until you have the cash to do the complete surround with sub. In the long run you get MUCH better sound. I am running polk all the way around, Rti8's for fronts that I got from frys for $150 each, R50 rears and a csi 3 center. Frys still has the Rti8 for that price from time to time but whenever they get them in they sell out fast. And yeah, the only negative for the Onkyo's is that they heat up. Between my receiver, 360, and 4 guys or so playing halo it can get downright hot.
Indeed, AVS is king when it comes to finding info on anything in the audio vidoe world.... There are times when Best Buy has a good sale but you are right, you can often find just about anything electronic cheaper online.
Thanks Enforcer, I may just go this route. I generally have had pretty good luck with BestBuy believe it or not. I'm gonn aread what the other guys say too. I was busy the last few days and thanks for all the posts on this one guys. I know I can count on y'all
I love Yamaha's quality. I have had my same home theater system in the garage for almost 6 years and it works like a champ.
Thanks vmarcilfan, this looks intriguing. Now I am very dumb when it comes to all this stuff, and when you say reciever, are you talking about a VCR ? I have a DirecTV HD VCR already. Or are you talking about like a radio type stereo reciever ? I haven't had one of those for years, I use a small tranistor radio with a ac/dc plug for my AM these days, and that is just for sports talk radio like QAM and The Ticket. I listen to music on my computer either on Live365 or on individual web sites. I guess I am a little confused
Wow, lots of info there. I will look into this one a bit more. I may be able to stretch the budget over $ 500 to get the right system. I guess I am confused on all of this. Do I have to purchase a reciever too ? I thought all I needed was a woofer and speakers (like on my computer) and I would be set to go. Do all of these require a receiver as well ? Thanks AZ you are a good man
I have found that if I go to amazom I can get good prices too. New Egg seems to have them as well as Tigerdirect. Bets buy doesn't always have the best prices but they do have the Geek Squad, and they often will even come to your house to fix things.
DO NOT BUY HDMI CORDS FROM BEST BUY GO HERE http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10240&cs_id=1024008&p_id=3992&seq=1&format=2
Thanks everyone for the help, you guys pointed me in a lot of good directions and I'm sure now I can get what I need. If you have any other suggestions, or see any deals withing the next few weeks (I can't buy anything until closer to Christmas, to take advantage of prices coming down)
Cant be said enough. Never, ever, buy any cable of any kind at a retail store. You can almost always get them for a third of the price online without a meaningful drop in quality.
Cables To Go - Computer Cables, Audio Video Cables, DVI Cables, USB Cables, PC to TV, KVMs, Cat5E, Video Splitters, and more! Is AWESOME for cables wire etc. Heres the deal Kevin. Unless you have a Pre-amp in your TV (Very very doubtful) you wont be able to really power speakers. You might have some jacks for audio, but you really arent going to do anything but spread around the same sound you get now. If you pony up the $$$ and buy a decent reciever, the boundries are limitless as far as what you can do with it soundwise. The Oinko I showed you even has an Ipod jack where you can pipe MP3 digital sound directly into it. Then you get digital sound (Huge plus) you can play off of one Ipod all night and never listen to the same song twice. Like I mentioned, well worth it to spend this money up front. If you cant afford it right now, I would do some "Forward Thinking" and invest in speakers that will eventually plug into your reciever.
Brother Kenny, you just sold me on a receiver I will definately fork out for one now Now the job will be to find one that doesn't bust the wallet Maybe I can stretch it to $ 750 if I get the receiver.
Yeah, and that's exactly what I'm telling you. I would fork out for that reciever or whichever one flips your boat (Cost me like 340 for the sliver model, can find it in black for about 30 more), buy a few speakers, like front and Sub-woofer of good quality. Update and upgrade the surround when you can. For 750.00 you could be REALLY enjoying some good stuff bro. Enjoy
Its a question of just how important audio quality is to you. Is it going to be used just for movies? Or do you listen to a lot of music as well? One great website to keep an eye on is slickdeals.net , its a deals forum where people post deals on basically anything you can imagine though much of its electronics. They have found the very receiver Kenny is talking about for under $300, new from amazon its $372 [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Onkyo-TX-SR606-Channel-Theater-Receiver/dp/B0015S8PGW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1224111834&sr=1-1]Amazon.com: Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver (Black): Electronics[/ame] And I will back up his recommendation for it. Back when he was looking for a receiver I told him to go Onkyo because its practicly the only receive you can find for under $500 that will decode the Dolby True HD and DTS MA audio formats. DTS MA is the audio track that movie studies use when they mix sound for the movie and it and Dolby True HD are the 2 highest audio formats currently in existence. Its not being used a whole lot right now but guess what? Now that Blue Ray has won the format war and has introduced Blue Ray 2.0 all blue ray movies are going to have either one or both of those audio formats. Which means after blue ray prices drop and you decide to spring for a blue ray player you will need 2 things to listen to movies in the highest possible quality. A blue ray player that can bitstream Dolby True HD and DTS MA and a receiver that can decode those audio formats. (bitstream means the player reads the audio code and instead of decoding it sends it off to the receiver and doesn't touch it at all. Which is what you want in a perfect world. You want your player handling the video side, and your receiver handling the audio.... So, all that to say, in the long run you are going to be much better off buying a receiver that can decode Dolby True HD and DTS MA then one that does not, which is why I ended up buying an Onkyo. They were the only company I could find that sold receivers in my price range that would be future proof, which is basically what Dolby True HD and DTS MA decoding give you. If you get one that can decode that then you wont need to replace the reciever for a very long time. So basically, in the long run I would recommend the Onkyo 606. Problem is to get the most out of that receive you really want to give it some nice speakers and then you have to make up your mind just how much you want to spend as they can get quite pricey. Just to give you an idea I decided to use Polk speakers all the way around and it worked out like this. Fronts-RTI 8's $170 each shipped Center- CSI 3 $150 shipped Rears- R50 $70 each shipped Comes out to $630 just in speakers, plus another $50 or so in cables from monoprice and I don't even have a sub. Like I said, its a question of what exactly you want and what you want to use it for. If you aren't going to use it for a ton of music and just want some better base when listening to movies your best option is either to get a decent home theater in a box, or get the Onkyo 606 along with a box set of home theater speakers w wolfer, Amazon has a decent selection. When I started my system I didn't have the cash to buy it all up front so what I did was bought the receiver and my fronts, hooked em up and used them like that and then added the center and rears later. The thing that makes home theater stuff a little tricky is that one persons standards for music and sound are not another so its totally up to the buyer as to how much they want to spend and how far they are willing to go for better sound. For instance ever a cheap home theater in a box is going to sound WAY better then your TV speakers, something like the 606 with a home theater speaker kit will sound measurable better then that but will probably cost trice as much while the 606 w stand alone speakers will sound even better.... But again cost quite a bit more. Then you can go even higher and spend several thousand dollars on JUST a receiver, another 5 grand or so just on speakers, even more on a pre amp, a couple grand on a high end subwoofer ect. Heck I have seen JUST a receiver that retails for $20,000. All that to say, its very important to figure out where your expectations are when it come to sound and how much you are willing to pay for it when it come to buying home theater stuff. Sometimes it makes sense to spend a little more then you were originally planing and some times it does not. Sorry for the super post but once I started it just kinda went on.
I will say this though, I don't regret the money I spent in the least. I'm sitting here listening to music being bistreamed from my laptop as I am typing and its awesome. To me at least. I go other places and listen to music and its like, really? How can you stand to listen to this? I am totally spoiled. Having a good receiver and speakers makes all the difference in the world when it comes to listening to music.
Oh, I would say the same about watching movies. Even just a big-screen doesnt do it. When you get the nice Big-screen and mix in some really nice Digital sound split up to seperate channels and all happening when/where it should...COMPLETELY changes the experience. There are movies I watched prior to getting my Oinko and watching them after is completely and totally different. Draws you into the movie and doesnt let you go....
Well, the water is a bit Saltier than usual, and of course you have to deal with Morton's Salt company (When it rains it pours) but yeah, there is Beach-Front property in Utah..as well as some really KICK-AZZ skiing
Thanks 117 and Kenny, wowza.....a lot of info to compute Well not being very versed in all this I feel like I am from the 1800's I'm not made of $ and I just can't afford more than a few hundred $. I have to admit I like to listen to all kinds of music, and I do it now with $ 100 speakers and woofer I bought almost 9 years ago. Still using the same ones......I guess any upgrade will be amazing to me. Now this will tell you just how tech challenged I am......are you guys saying I can hook up these speakers and woofer to my computer AND the receiver for the TV ??????? Like I can play a CD on the computer and then just switch over to watch TV and then use the same speakers & receiver for the TV ????? If soooooo then HOT DAMN ! 117, I just can't justify spending more than $ 750 total and if I can get decent, not maybe to your standards but it would be something I could live with, for $ 750 or under, and that means speakers, receivers, cables, and woofer it would be wonderful. I will try to get some pics of my TV imputs and see if you can guide me about this.....I will owe y'all !!!!
Yeah, I noticed a huge difference in movies too after I first got it set up, now I don't think about it quite as much because I never watch movies anywhere other then here. When the guys want to get together and watch something they come here. Though now that you mention it I did watch something at my sisters a couple months ago and just found the whole thing painful. 480P video and just TV speakers.
Yeah Kevin. The reciever I have has an entire MIRIAD of connections, including a HDMI, "Hot-wire" and USB. HDMI is the way to go between your TV and the Reciever, any other componants you might have (I have a 24 disc cd changer from on "Old" system) and video games can all be hooked directly into the Reciever. You switch which componant you want to run through it and viola. Like I said, I would still consider piecing together better stuff. You might not get the "Full" surround right away, but to some extent the quality will easily outweigh the quantity. EDIT: BTW Kevin, I have learned MUCH of this in the last 6-8 months while shopping. I always new "Some" about systems, but of course they have changed quite a bit with time. For what its worth Oinko has an EXCELLENT Help Desk. If anything is quite right, or doesnt work, they are great at helping talk you through it. I think they also have on Online chat you can talk to a techie that way
I have to admit, I am not much of a movie watcher, but I watch sports just about all day when I am home. I have Setanta channel on my DirecTV and that gives me rugby, hurling and Gaelic football as well as Aussie Rules. Then there is the NFL Network, MLB Extra Innings and the ESPN's......so that leaves little time for anything else. I am Kevin, and I am a Sportsaholic So other than watching sports, I listen to Live365 on the computer and if I can stream that to the receiver and speakers that will be AWESOME.
