Help me w/ Surround Sound...

[Wlogan31]

I recently purchased a house and it has a projection TV. I need to by the surround sound receiver, speakers, subwoofer, and dvd set (can come w/o dvd player as I have an extra one of these).

I know NOTHING about this sort of thing and was hoping the community here @ CAG could point me in the right direction as far as what brand to get, where to get the stuff, deals that may exist, or general information.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Will

[javeryh]

www.avsforum.com

They know everything.

[Wlogan31]

I'll check that out. Anyone have personal recommendations?

[heavy liquid]

What's your budget? That's the biggest question.

I prefer to look around an buy everything separate. It also makes it easier to upgrade whenever you want. Although "theatre in a box" packages have come a long way, and some are decent quality.

For sound, you'll need:

Receiver
2 front speakers
2 rear speakers
1 center speaker
1 subwoofer

This is 5.1 surround sound. 5 speakers, and the .1 standing for the subwoofer.

You'll want to buy an optical cable to connect your DVD player to the receiver for the sound. If you have an Xbox, 360, PS2 or older Gamecube, you can run the sound through the receiver with an optical cable, too. The difference is VERY noticeable when the games take advantage of it.

Personally, I bought the Pioneer VSX-1014 (the newer version being the 1015: http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product_Id=4031462&JRSource=linkshare.datafeed.PIO+VSX1015TX-K).
It's a great receiver. It can do THX, Dolby Digital and DTS. It's very helpful to be able to handle these different formats.

For the speakers, I bought Polks through a combination of Outpost.com fire sales and eBay. Definitely shop around first. You can find some great deals.

Oh, another tip: For your speaker wire, go to Home Depot and buy the big spool of a decent gauge. Don't waste your money on Monster Cable or anything like that. The folks at AVS will tell you the same thing. Speaker wire is speaker wire.

Another tip: For good cables, go to http://www.bluejeanscable.com/. Again, it's better than Monster at a fraction of the price.

[battleroyal33]

You can buy seperately or as a group, I personally picked up a Onkyo HT-S780 Theater in a box over the summer from Circuit City and I couldnt have been happier. It has 6.1 surround sound, comes with the reciever, 6 speakers( 2 front, 2 rear, 1 center front and 1 center back) and a 10" sub ( 220 watts I believe) ,, now the speakers are big and some could say bulkly, nothing tiny about this set but the sound is amazing. It will blow almost anything in the $500 price range away, hands down.. I got my set up on sale at CC and it was under $450.. Check online reviews and forums for home audio and you will see that Onkyo is a very good brand for those wanting quality home theater sound but dont want to break the bank...

[thetshell]

Congrats on the house....I just bought a new (well, actually older) home back in October. I also purchased a new surround system as a Christmas gift to myself. I found the ppl over at www.avsforum.com to be quite helpful in the decision process. I also did a bunch of research at www.audioholics.com My biggest recommendation is to find a store where you can actually listen to the different systems you're considering before you buy. I spent a couple hours roaming around the local BestBuy and playing with the different setups and it helped me eliminate certain products. After I narrowed it down to a couple that I liked, I went to the Internet to do the final research. In the end I went with the Pioneer 815 (just slightly less power than the 1014/1015) with JBL 180 speakers.

I purchased the receiver here:
http://store.hdtvtime.com/vsx-815-s.html

and the speakers from here:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4013670

For a grand total of $480 shipped (Reciever $215+$35 shipping & Speakers $230 w/free shipping). I should also note that this receiver can do up to 7.1 surround sound, but these are only 6.1 speakers so you could buy one more speaker to go up to 7.1; but personally I'm happy with it as is.

[Wlogan31]

Thanks for all the help...

I have about $500 to spend (give or take), so I can't go too fancy. That Onkyo sounds like a pretty good deal from CC. I'll definately check that out.

Thanks all!

[bjkrautk]

The big thing you need to concern yourself with (especially if you're on a budget) are the A/V connections. Count up your accessories: DVD, Playstation 2, PVR, XBox (+/- the 360), GameCube, and any earlier systems you want to connect to the player.

If you can't get inputs into the reciever, you can't get outputs on the screen and speakers. Based on my experience, Home Theater in a Box sets generally don't have enough inputs on the reciever for all the things you'd like to be able to output. While it is possible to buy component switches, it's much cheaper to find a good reciever to handle as many inputs as you can afford. For the Home theater part of the equation, digital audio connections are just as important as the video: Be sure to find out if the digital audio connections are fixed to certain inputs, or assignable. Assignable inputs are way more convenient, especially when the fixed inputs have labels like 'DVD' attached....it's nice if the 'DVD' input actually runs your DVD player. Which reminds me -- try to pick out a DVD player that has both forms of digital audio (coaxial and optical); not essential, but it will give you more flexibility when wiring the setup.

(Also, sounds stupid....but make sure your projection TV has the necessary inputs to do what you want it to. If it's old enough to only have S-Video and not component inputs - all the component inputs in the world aren't going to help you.)