New to forum, looking to upgrade to a surround sound from tv

[at_one_point]

So I am new to the forum, new to home theater systems, and new to speakers in general. Here is the situation I hope that people could help me with: My parents are purchasing a new TV (upgrading from CRTs finally). We are looking to put in a home theater system to complement it, but spend very little. So we are going to try to work with the speakers we have now: pair of late 80's, early 90's Polk Audio Monitor 4 (shelf speakers), pair of Vector Research VSP-1230 floor speakers (each has one each 12" woofer, 4" midrange, 3" tweeter), pair of dbx soundfield 3x2 plus (shelf speakers, early 90's probably, have heard they are not very good), a dbx subwoofer that matches the other dbx (might need a better sub, and probably some others replaced), and we also have some floor speakers built by my dad (he says they sound excellent, but I wouldn't know if that is true or not). I can get some pictures and specs up later but I am away for Thanksgiving. I think all of the speakers are 8 ohms and I know we have plenty of speaker wire. I know we will have to buy a receiver (suggestions welcome, probably will have to be 3D capable) but what else will I need? Will these speakers even work with a modern receiver (I assume so but I'm not an expert)?

If this is in the wrong forum, point me in the right direction.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

 

[baniels]

Any modern receiver will work fine with older speakers. As long as they aren't so out there that they have some proprietary connection on the back. But that isn't likely, as I've only ever seen that on cheap HTIB sets.

 

[at_one_point]

I think all of them have just the two ports for the positive and negative wire. I wouldn't be about the Vector Research because I didn't check it. So all I really need is a receiver and speaker wire to get this working?

 

[baniels]

Yup - that's about it. Do you have a budget in mind?

 

[at_one_point]

Yup - that's about it. Do you have a budget in mind?

Well we don't have too much cash right now so probably a couple hundred bucks. Seeing as that probably wouldn't be enough for both a receiver and a decent subwoofer, we will probably buy a receiver then upgrade the subwoofer later. Any suggestions for receivers? Depending on which TV we get we might need 3D capability for the receiver and probably at least a 5.1 system

 

[gabbar]

A suggestion .. Onkyo 608

By no means, am I a good judge but others might be able to second my opinion... I found the onkyo NR608 (269$) or NR609 (379$) to be a terrific steals ... AcuDefGuy and Boredsysadmin, members from audioholics suggested marantz sr6004 or sr6005 (for 3d) but they might fall a bit of out of your price range and I, myself am not aware as to what the differences are between these close to 500$ receivers and the onkyos selling at half the price.

Which reminds me... Can someone shed light on the differences or why the marantz would be better or would the onkyos suffice?

Thanks...

 

[at_one_point]

Could I possibly take a subwoofer intended for a car and make a box for it and use it in our home theater system?