whew, where to start

[mattlewis]

first off, hello, how's everybody doing?

i am a rank beginner at this stuff. i am trying to find out what equipment i need to purchase. i have a fairly clear path, and am looking for recommendations/advice.

the goal:

i have a small living room, in which i want a nice home theatre sound. i plan on starting with 2 nice bookshelf type speakers and maybe a sub, then fleshing out the speakers as i go. i also want to listen to music from 4 inputs (fm/am, cd, mp3, and sat radio).

the questions:

what are some baseline speaker specs for a 5.1 setup? bookshelf is good, looks count for me, as well as my wife. i'll be constructing a custom built-in entertainment center, so it would be easy to build in front speakers and a center channel. i am also very interested in (and capable of) building my own speakers.

what am i looking for in a receiver? i would think i would need 2, one for theatre, one for multi-room music? (not looking for independant room-by-room control, just want to have speakers in the den, kitchen, patio, bedroom etc, and be able to listen or not listen. a simple speaker selector switch would be fine.)


the budget: i am not an audiophile. i have no desire to drop a wad of cash in anything. however, i prefer to purchase quality equipment, even if it's used. i don't have a clue about frequencies, and i don't have a violinist ear. and as mentioned before, i can do this a piece or two at a time. i'd like to spend less than $1500, total, as i have to buy a tv also. $1000 would be better.

i have a jvc receiver (pro logic) and cd changer, and they work fine for what they are.

any advice is appreciated.

 

[krzywica]

For starters if your bookshleves and center channel will be flush against a cabinet in the back stay away from rear ported speakers.

I would say get a reciever with zone 2 or 3 features but they are not really an option in your price range.

 

[BMXTRIX]

First think of your budget and all the things you need.

1. A new A/V receiver - it will have no problem with running your theater and your audio side of things. Something like the Denon AVR-2805 is a good value and gives you plenty of bang for the buck. $800.00 (or less)

2. Speakers for your room. You obviously own some already, so how good are they? If they suck and you KNOW you want new ones, then there is lots of info on speaker options in the speaker section of these forums. Price ranges from under a few hundred bucks to tens of thousands of dollars. Easily $1,000.00 for anything with some quality though.

3. Subwoofer for those speakers. Once again, prices vary wildly, but I would spend at least a few hundred if I wanted to really enjoy some movies.

4. Speaker wires & interconnects - even cheap stuff will set you back at least a hundred bucks. But, I would expect you will need to spend a little more.

5. Additional rooms: You will need to run speaker wire and have in-wall/ceiling speaker in each room. Really, no less than $100.00 per room for about the cheapest, lowest grade speakers out there. You will also want at least one good 60 watt amp designed for audio distribution and a speaker selector. That'll run about 200 bucks if you go through eBay. A lot more in retail stores.

A cheap HTIB (Home Theater In a Box) system runs around 500 bucks. You could definitely go that route, but you won't have zone 2 capability and no guarantee that anything in that box is better than what you already own. But, you may want to think about it and do some research on different HTIB packages if it interests you.

Stay away from Bose & Monster Cable unless you really want your cash to disappear.

 

[Leprkon]

You didn't really say so, so I'm going to assume you need a DVD player out of your budget as well.

A decent system might look something like this:

Receiver- looking for something that will give you decent HT and decent sound on a budget. A good 6.1 receiver with about 100 watts will set you up. Yamaha is particularly good at movies and is pretty simple to set up. Sony is probably easier to use, but won't sound as good.

can go with this one, which is an excellent value ($250 shipped)

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_27285.htm

or if you don't mind taking a little risk for some good savings:

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_27749.htm

DVD player- we will try to take advantage of a couple of things here. Since you didn't give any information about the TV, I don't know if you have an HDMI input or not. We are trying to get the best possible picture.
I recommend you get a universal player, so you can do SACD or DVD-audio in the future if you want.

If you will have an HDMI input, then this is the way to go. It gives you upconversion on the picture and multichannel music for about $ 260 shipped:

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_23169.htm

Another choice would be one step down, losing the upconversion, but still having a DVI output (keep in mind that DVI and HDMI are the same video signal, except that HDMI also carries sound). It's about $ 170 shipped

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_23168.htm

A nice extra about the Samsung units is they ship decent quality cables with all their products, so you won't have to pay $ 100 for an HDMI or DVI cable. Either unit will give you 480, 720, and 1080 output to the TV.

As far as speakers, don't buy Bose, especially don't buy a Bose system. You simply will not get the sound you are looking for and you can spend alot less for better quality.

Front speakers- with a bookshelf, you want a main driver that's 5 to 6 1/2 inches to get decent bass, but not lose all your midrange. they will also carry all your stereo music, so we're going to spend a little ($230 shipped) here:

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_15540.htm

Center Speaker- need to voice-match to the mains ($180 shipped).

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_15543.htm

Rear speakers- they don't need to voice-match to the fronts, and we will save a little money by getting indoor/outdoor with a built-in bracket ($ 120 shipped).

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_15081.htm

Some Best Buy stores will have the Athena products. Other good speaker brands at this price range include Polk Audio and Infinity, both of which can be demo'd at the local Circuit City.

Sub- most people say to not scrimp on the sub, but there's not a lot of money left. there's two very decent, affordable options. I have one of these in my bedroom HT and it sounds perfectly great to me ($150 shipped):

http://ww1.onecall.com/PID_26740.htm

a second choice (one that has been getting some good press in posts here lately) is the Dayton unit, probably also $ 150 shipped

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=300-632&DID=7

This leaves us needing to get a Toslink (fiber optic) cable from the DVD player to the receiver, a subwoofer cable, and some speaker wire.

for the Toslink, one of these ($ 10)

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=180-948

or $ 30 if you want a really nice one

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=263-892

you will need one or two rolls of this for the rears and alternate speakers ($ 14 a roll):

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-734

a roll of this for the fronts ($ 23 a roll, though you could use left-over from above):

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=100-150

and a sub cable. this one already has the Y on the end, which seems to make any sub sound just a little bit better (and the $ 5 price tag is nice too).

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=189-300


A package like this would put you in the $ 1250 range, but you can probably trim a little with some aggressive internet pricing. It's solid, easily upgradeable, and can always be rolled into your bedroom (or your kid's college dorm room) somewhere down the road should you replace things.

I don't work for OneCall, but I really didn't fell like bouncing all over the internet looking for links. Take some time and look at the specifications of each of the products I showed you. You don't need to have these exact items, but look for things that have similar performance.

Oh doggone it, I almost forgot. There's two more items you MUST have !!

one of these: http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=COL007438

and this:http://www.deepdiscountdvd.com/dvd.cfm?itemID=MGD000362

everything else is optional.

 

[mattlewis]

thanks guys. after reading your input(s), and talking to a friend of a friend, i have a much clearer picture of what i want to do...

 

[nibhaz]

Leprkon's suggestions will defiantly give the most bang for your buck, but it also requires a quite a bit of effort and time. If I were in your shoes I would look at the Onkyo HT-S777C HTIB. It can be had for somewhere between 6-700. It's a hard to beat value at this price point and you also gain the ability to upgrade in the future. Just buy some better speaker wire, and interconnects, and then use the left over money on a better TV. Just my 2 cents.

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=2761610/