Novice Needs Advice on Home Theater System (Budget=$650). Getting rid of my Bose

[heeshboy]

Hi all,
I just moved into my new apartment and bought my 42 inch S-series Sony Bravia. I noticed that the speakers from my TV were pretty bad so I decided to purchase a home theater system from Best Buys. After browsing through their inventory for an hour, I did what any novice would do.... I went with the Bose Cinemate Series 2. I immediately noticed that even with my untrained ears that Bose certainly does suck for the money I spent ($650 with tax). I am planning on returning these overpriced home theater set in the upcoming days and I was really hoping you audiophiles on this forum could guide me to finding a perfect home theater system for my home. I have a 650 dollar budget and my living room isn't all that large so I think a 2.1 system would be best. I would really appreciate it if you gave me the company and products name that I should purchase. Here are what I am mainly looking for:

Needs:
- I play a lot of games on the ps3 so any system that would take advantage of this.
- Watch blu-ray movies
- Watch a lot of sports on Direct TV

Thanks in advance

 

[shadyJ]

You could either get full-range tower speakers or some bookshelf speakers and a subwoofer. I think you will get a more visceral experience with bookshelfs and sub, so I will recommend a few of each.

speakers:
Behringer 2030p
Infinity Primus p162
SVS SBS-01
Tweakcity WAFs
TSC TSBL 6.5
Behringer 2031p

Those speakers all look like they would sound great, and I don't think any of them are over 250 even with shipping.
Here are some subs:

Elemental Designs A3-250
BIC Acoustech PL-200
Hsu Research STF2
SVS PB10-NSD

If you are willing to use a screwdriver, here are a couple DIY subwoofer kits that don't look so bad:
Dayton C1500 15" subwoofer kit
Dayton T1003k

If you can make a little extra room in your budget, I strongly recommend this sub, the ED A3-300. It would be a serious step up from all the others listed above.

As for receivers, on your budget, you should consider looking on criagslist or ebay. There are a lot of decent receivers out there for sale from 50 to 100 dollars, and they are only being unloaded because they don't have HDMI or some new feature. I would say just hook up HDMI to your TV, and if it has a digital audio output, use that to connect it to the receiver. So for simple setups like yours, you don't really need HDMI on your receiver. Another good place for inexpensive receivers is accessories4less, they sell refurbished and discontinued receivers for a very good discount.

 

[DJ in TX]

As for receivers, you can also find good prices on NewEgg.com. I recently found a good price on a Pioneer there, and then Best Buy matched the price. It saved me $50 And if i have problems i can do the return/exchange locally instead of having to ship it somewhere.

As for affordable yet great sounding bookshelf speakers, i have to add the Paradigm Atoms to the list. Www.paradigm.com. I am biased as I just purchased a pair myself, but they sound phenomenal and were only $299. You should give them a listen if there is a dealer near you.

Happy hunting~

 

[DJ in TX]

In case you would like to read an unbiased review on the Atoms, here is a link to a review of the v.5 models from a couple of years ago. The v.6 is out now, and is improved over the previous version.

http://www.stereophile.com/budgetcomponents/907para/

 

[Phil Taylor]

If you're looking for simplicity - which I'm guessing you may be since you chose B*se - you may be a candidate for an HTiB. You could buy two Yamaha YHT-391 systems for what you paid for those Bo*e, have real surround (effects are nice for movies, gaming and sports) and it's not so large as to overpower your smallish living room.