Wanted: decent & affordable Home Theatre sound system
For the near future I'm planning on installing a home theatre system - sound only the rest I've got 
I'm completely without a clue on this one: there are so many systems around, with prices ranging from 100 euros to thousands and brands from completely obscure to world famous.
What I'm looking for is a decent sound (I'm no true audiophile, yet I can hear when it's bad - like I can hear why Logitech computer speakers are sucky) for an affordable price. Not top range, not the very bottom.
What price range should I be looking in? I'm guessing like 200-300 euros?
I'm not willing to pay for brand alone (like BOSE or B&O or ...) or for design alone.
Any suggestions? Brands I should stay clear of? Any info would be most welcome! Thanks!
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You shouldn't pay for Bose anyway. They're tinny sounding plasticy pieces of junk that get outranged and outperformed by speaker sets that cost half as much. I generally list them in brands to stay clear of, as does pretty much every other audio fiend ever.
What are some other popular brands in europe? I'm not sure what is or isn't available over there other than the two you already mentioned.
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Spend a few hours on AVSforum, they have dedicated forum topics specifically for your question.
A few years ago, I went with an well reviewed Yamaha 5.1 theater-in-a-box setup (receiver+5 speakers+subwoofer) that I purchased from one of the big box retailers per the recommendations from AVSforum and I've been happy with it.
Onkyo and Denon are also well reviewed and well regarded by the fine folks over there.
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I think Onkyo's are the way to go for entry-level systems. There are other great options as well, but that's my usual recommendation
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I have an Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver. I also have some pretty old speakers that I'd like to replace, so I can't really speak to the sound quality it produces (aside from the fact that my system does sound pretty good, I know these speakers are nearing the end of their life, and need to be replaced). But there are few receivers out there as well-featured as this one for the price.
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I got a set of those for my father and he loves them.
Pharacon wrote:
Onkyo HTIBs are very good. I haven't owned one, although I've had several Onkyo receivers, but I spent some time in a music store listening to their offerings and came away pretty impressed. I didn't have the time (or space, in that store) for a full-on quiet listening session, but to a medium-length sample, they sounded very good indeed for the price range. Better still, they all seem to be true stereo components, so that you can mix and match and swap out parts. Many HTIBs use these weird nonstandard setups to force you to replace the whole system if you upgrade any piece, and the Onkyos I saw definitely didn't do that.
The only downside I saw is that the styling on the Onkyo speakers is a bit lame. They sound great, but the ones I saw looked pretty strange.
Another thought would be the Energy Take Classics with a separate receiver. I have the old Energy Take2s from a decade ago, and they're still serving me wonderfully as computer speakers. The Take series went up into the stratosphere, and the Take Classics are priced much more reasonably. They're priced, and look, very much like my Take2s, and I rather doubt Energy would ship any speaker that sucks.
You can do better still if you shop for components and assemble something yourself. I replied to a similar AskMe awhile back, and covered the basic process there.
Remember that everyone hears differently, and if you're trying for a really good setup, you'll need to go and spend some real listening time at a boutique dealer. You're looking for the speakers that make the best tradeoffs for your particular ears in your particular price range. One thing to be wary of: watch for extra-bright speakers. (strong treble) They have lots of snap and sizzle in the showroom, but tend to be fatiguing over the long term. Investing time in ear education will do more for your long-term ability to buy and enjoy speakers than anything else you can do.
Be sure to give the dealer first chance at your dollars; those listening rooms aren't cheap to build or keep open. That doesn't mean you have to pay a super-premium price, but don't completely hold him or her over the Internet barrel either. Another thought would be to arrange to pay the dealer directly for the use of the room; then you could buy what you settled on from any source without guilt.
Your first concern is to find out how much power you will need for the space that you are going to put it. You need to see how many devices, and of which cable type(HDMI, Component, S Video, etc) you will need in the receiver. With a 360, cable/satellite, PS3, you will need 2 or 3 HDMI ports.
Only after you get to know this can you really understand your price range. You do not want to just buy something in the arbitrary price range you have set up, only to find out that you cannot feel the subwoofer from your chair, or the rear speakers are too weak for you to hear anything from them in a large room.
Onkyo screams the jury! I've done a bit of research and apparently there's a Onkyo retailer in Brussels so I'll be sure to check them out.
I intend to buy retail anyway. I wouldn't like standing in the dark when a speaker fails after a month or two. Dealing with the cheapest when claiming your garuantee is no fun at all.
Before starting this thread and my research I didn't even know how this would work. Apparently everything, including video input, goes into the receiver and from there it goes to the tv/speakers? Would this work with older devices like my Dreamcast too? My devices are a DVD player, PS2, Dreamcast, Digibox (digital tv decoder). I'd like to leave room for one current-gen console too (Xbox360 probably). Most Onkyo's I've looked at are sufficient.
The research continues...
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I have a front-projection theater system, and EVERYTHING, My Wii, PS3, 360, MythTV box, and even my gaming rig, all run through the receiver (the Onkyo I linked above). The HDMI cable runs from the receiver to the projector. The receiver itself has an upconversion processor, so the Wii signal gets upconverted to HDMI (ultimately it's still 480p, but it saves me from having to different cables to the projector). The receiver itself acts as a passthrough and processor for the audio and video, so you can play your future 360 through your nice big home theater system or just through the speakers on the TV. All of the inputs are customizable, too, so plugging things into the back is pretty straightforward. You just have to remember what inputs you plugged things into and assign them to the appropriate button on the front. Also, the Onkyo comes with the Audyssey automatic setup feature. You just plug the microphone into the receiver, position it appropriately around the room as instructed, and it sets up all of the levels optimally for your space. I originally tried to set it up myself, but then I just tried the microphone and the improvement was dramatic.
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To hijack this thread a little, has anyone had any experience with Cambridge Audio gear? I'm looking at a AV receivers at the moment, and the obvious option is the Onkyo SR605 (or the new 606), but the Onkyo is too tall to fit in my TV unit. The other issue is that I have only stereo speakers (a couple of big three-way floor-standers), and I'm planning to stick with just those at the moment, and I'm worried about the Onkyo's performance in a stereo-only setup.
The Cambridge Audio 540R will fit, and seems to get good reviews for its sound quality, particular in stereo configurations. Has anyone had a play with one of these, or any other Cambridge Audio gear?
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Do you know if you can setup more than one room position? In the near future I'm looking to get some new gear and I have the TV and PC in the same room. I would like to be able to use the same speaker setup for both without having to mess around each time.
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I don't think you can do what you want with it, no. If I understand you correctly, that is. You can, however, optionally position the microphone in I think 9 different areas, so it will be optimized for places where you expect people to sit. But people sitting in front of the TV will get lesser sound quality because the system is trying to compensate for when you're sitting at the PC all the time. I'd say just get a pair of speakers for the PC itself, especially if it is off-center from your speakers.
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Thanks. I wonder if there's any reasonable system that can do it. I'm currently using just a 2 speaker setup and my position in front of the TV and the one at the PC line up pretty well (and are facing the same direction obviously), but that won't work when I introduce surround speakers since the depth axis will be off. It seems like such a trivial feature to implement, since you can do it manually, and I can't imagine that keeping me from using one beefy system rather than having to use two separate for no good reason.
Edit: It's trivial all right. I can just adjust the line levels on the output from the PC, which any decent soundcard should let you do. I'll only get the correct volume, not a customized frequency filter, but that's really good enough. Not sure why this didn't occur to me, especially since I've done it before.
Computers don't make errors. What they do, they do on purpose. By now your name and particulars have been fed into every laptop, desktop, mainframe and supermarket scanner that collectively make up the global information conspiracy.
-- Dale Gribble