Just got a new Sharp 46" D64 ($1524 shipped, no tax) .

Now I need a sound system. I have a pretty small room. I don't enjoy shopping for speakers and am not an audiophile, so very simple is good. Budget is $500 max, preferably less. For ease of setup, I would prefer wireless rear speakers, but for the right system I could put up with speaker wires.

Any recommendations? Thanks in advance.

Wireless speakers suck.

You should piece together a good "budget" system as you can afford it (which you can do for ~$1000)

Here is the thread you need from the AVS forums.

It is the "HTIB alternatives" thread from their HTIB forum...because HTIB suck most always.

(HTIB = Home theater in a box)

You should probably start at the end of the thread (since it stared back in Feb) and work your way backwards, to see what people are buying these days.

I recently bought some of AV123's x-series speakers. One pair of the x-ls Bookshelf Loudspeakers, one x-cs Center Loudspeaker , and an x-sub.

Total was about $480 w/ another ~$120 for shipping (they weigh a bunch of course).
I'm going to get another pair of the x-ls speakers around Christmas.

You should check out their B-Stock inventory for discounts. I got my x-ls speakers there when they had some. Just a little scratch on each that is unnoticeable unless you inspecting them for scratches.


Of course, you'll still need a good receiver. Make sure you get one with good HDMI switching capability. All new receivers have it, but this new generation of receivers is the first one to really have it as standard. And HDMI is the way to go for any brand new TV.
I got a decent Sony from Amazon for about $330. (Can't recall the model number at the moment.)

Hope this helps.

I have these exact speakers (although I have another x-ls instead of x-cs for center) set up in a 5.1 system. B-stock is definitely the way to go. Very nice.

I have a 7.1 receiver but I've got it hooked up as 5.1 (actually 5.0 since I use an old passive subwoofer hooked into the left/right speakers) using all optical and HDMI interfaces. The speaker wire to the side/rear speakers is of course a bit of a mess but otherwise I'm happy with the hookup which is also used quite often to play CDs.

My friend simply uses his flat screen speakers and the sound is awful. I think his big objection to adding a receiver/speaker setup is the look of the wiring to the side/rears. He has his 58" DLP set up near a large wall on a nice piece of furniture that would easily fit a 3.1 system without a wiring mess.

My question is has anyone simply stopped at a 3.1 system forgoing the full surround sound and been happy with the results?

~ Rick

Some of you guys should consider putting together an HTPC

I totally appreciate the effort that you obviously put into your post, but I'm pretty firm on the price and simplicity criteria. That's why I assumed that an HTIB would be the way to go. Do you (or anyone else) have any recommendations along that line?

You should be able to find everything you need to know in this AVS forum.

Good luck!

johnnycakes, he asked about wireless rear speakers. considering the quality and amount of sound that comes out of them, i don't see how it's much of a compromise - especially on a cheap system.

rick, i've run into this rocketfish wireless rear speaker setup quite a bit online. never heard or used them myself. i'd still probably go for that or a native rear wireless setup before considering a virtual surround implementation. luckily, my main viewing room is well-suited for wiring.

huskiez, with all these references i'm starting to think that av123 is either a cult or a good product. perhaps both.

bobman, if you want simple, go to cnet. watch out for inputs. johnny's avsforum link is a great source, but you might get lost in the noise. the owner threads are great when you come closer to a decision and want to see how people are getting along with a given product.

i've been out of this thread for a while and the OP is looking pretty rusty. i threw a 32" westinghouse lcd in my bedroom, and i've been using that instead of my main set for gaming. if i were to buy a replacement today, i would have to consider a 60" 1080p pioneer plasma. they seriously jump out at me when i stroll through best buy.

I assume HTPC means Home Theater PC.

I've written the rough idea of the following elsewhere but will repeat it here (because I can type faster than I can search ).

My interest in a PC/Home Theater combo mostly has to do with music; I doubt I'd ever be playing/storing video off the PC. I love the iTunes interface and want it in my living room but with top notch sound (so I'm not interested in any type of iDock. Another reason for avoiding the iDock is I use the iNano (only 8 gigs) and iShuffle's for portable play and have no interest the clunkier iPod (plus want to avoid unsightly bulges in my pockets and I hate carrying things like a full size iPod).

I hope to use an old PC (I'll have one this winter) and connect to my home theater in such a way that I can do more or less the following:

1. Take the best of my CD collection and convert to files in a lossless format (e.g., FLAC or perhaps Apple AAC). I would perform these conversions from my fast PC in the other room at my leisure. I'd also include the best of my .mp3 and .m4a "lossy" formatted music (e.g., most of my mp3s are ripped using Exact Audio Copy and converted to .mp3s at a high bit-rate using LAME).

3. Transfer copy all this to a huge external HD.

3. Use the huge external HD (they are so cheap these days!) to transfer files to an old computer hooked up to my home theater (which also has great sound for straight music played off CDs).

4. Connect this old PC with tons of hard drive space (or simply use the huge external drive) and interface it in such a way that I can sit back in my living room chair, point at something with a Apple iPod style remote (i.e., the click wheel or device that does the same job almost as well), use the 50" flat screen (problem may be I have a Plasma, an LCD would probably be better but I'm plasma-stuck) as my iPod type display and select artists, playlists and so on just as one would with an iPod/iNano.

5. Sit back and enjoy living room full sound-stage music with iPod style convenience. Never have to get up to change CDs or advance over lousy tracks and so on.

6. Optimize some playlists for romance since gf and I already have the best living room "cuddle chaise lounge" on Earth (IMHO)

Notes:

- realize I may need to put a quite power supply in the old PC.

- not interested in web surfing off the 50 inch plasma (or should I be?) so the PC doesn't need internet (or so I think).

- might be interested in visualizations playing on the Plasma while listening.

- want to use iTunes on the second PC; not sure if iTunes needs to connect to the web to play (none of my .mp3s are copy protected)

~ Rick

My friend's room would look fine with a center channel and a left/right speaker placed to the side along with the sub-woofer. He just doesn't want to hang or run wires for rear/side speakers.

~ Rick

some decent HTPC discussion is here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=12255529

My interest in a PC/Home Theater combo mostly has to do with music; I doubt I'd ever be playing/storing video off the PC. I love the iTunes interface and want it in my living room but with top notch sound

have you looked at the apple tv? it sounds like a slam dunk for your interests.

My friend's room would look fine with a center channel and a left/right speaker placed to the side along with the sub-woofer. He just doesn't want to hang or run wires for rear/side speakers.

the rocketfish product i linked doesn't eliminate all cables, but it does eliminate the front-to-back need. that's the only way i've seen rear wireless setups work: wired speakers and sub, wireless signal to the rear, rear speakers wired to each other. but like i said, i have no personal experience with them.

Need help with a quick question for those of you in the know :

What do I need to hook a laptop up to a HDTV for both audio and video?

A cable that can transmit HDTV video (we're only talking up to 1920x1080 resolution here, so VGA cable or DVI cable should be fine)

and

A cable that can transmit HDTV audio (more likely to be difficult - you may be able to find some high-end laptops that can do high-def sound, or have multiple channels, but this will be rare. Maybe some expresscard or pcmcia card will be able to do it)


You then need the software on your laptop to play the video; windows media player is likely to suffice if you want something easy. other options include VLC and Media Player Classic.

I just ordered this for $214.10 shipped (10% sale on refurbs + $10 off for joining the site + free shipping). You will not find a better deal.

Bought one, thanks!

Haha, wow you're easy! I researched for weeks before finally pulling the trigger this morning.

Just looked at the link and the review on CNET. The Apple TV seems like a neat device and better for music than for decent high def (or at least DVD level) TV; right now I'm confused/concerned about a few things:

1. I noted that only a 40G and 160G model available. My mostly lossy .mp3's and .m4a's already take up 80gigs. Re-converting about half the existing collection from source CDs to a lossless format (looks like it would have to be Apple Lossless) would increase my storage needs for a completely synced Apple TV to about 200 or 300 gigs. Yet 300 to 500 gig hard drives sold alone are in the sweet spot on price (i.e., you don't save much going smaller). Why doesn't Apple have an AppleTV with a 300 to 500 gig drive?

2. I have no experiences with wireless (e.g., I've hardly even touched a laptop computer) so I guess I would have to add a wireless card to my existing desktop PC. Guess my question is what is the approximate cost of adding wireless to a desktop?

I do like the idea of automatic syncing with what's in iTunes on your PC.

~ Rick

If you can't trust the judgment of some guy on the internet, what can you trust?

Rick,
If you google "apple tv new hard drive" there seem to be a lot of sites that explain how to swap out the HDs. I did it for a tivo once and it wasn't really that hard.

Why doesn't Apple have an AppleTV with a 300 to 500 gig drive?

it uses a 2.5" drive. the largest available is 250GB, and those currently run $169.99 at newegg. compare to $109.99 for a 500GB 3.5".

Guess my question is what is the approximate cost of adding wireless to a desktop?

it looks like you can't use an external usb drive with the apple tv, although there is apparently a technical hack available. you can still stream directly from an itunes pc. since you don't have wireless, one straightforward avenue for expansion might be an airport extreme if the drive sharing feature is actually compatible with the apple tv. if not, or if you're not interested in that feature, i'd probably look for cheaper options. you won't need to add wireless to any existing systems, though, as any wireless router will cable into your network.

Then why did Apple go with such a small expensive hard drive? This product doesn't really require a small footprint (or the fast access times associated with small drives); anything less then the size of a regular cable box, DVD player or receiver seems to me akin to a refrigerator that doesn't fill it's opening.

Read a couple other reviews of the Apple TV since my last post, I think I'll wait on this. It seems like a product that is a good idea that simply isn't' ready for prime time (although it may be very good at playing my iTunes library of music in my living room).

This rant is really directed at Steve Jobs; I know he has many hits put sure can swing and miss now and then .

Meanwhile I'm putting off building a new PC for a while. My emergency desktop (a souped up eMachine running under Vista) is working fine and although I'm OK with Vista I'm not sure why it's taking so long to get established (other than the fact that it appears only marginally better than XP). The hand me down of this fairly fast PC would have given me the real old PC I'd tinker with to drive iTunes in the other room.

I'll look at your other links tomorrow; need to go out and celebrate Red Sox victory number 2 now

~ Rick

presumably because it makes the box svelter, less noisy, and gives it a lower power draw.

perhaps they wouldn't want a mongo version to usurp sales from their other products as well.

those bastards sent me a mismatched set - black receiver and sub, silver everything else. i hope yours works out better, now i have to figure out how to sort it out for myself.

For someone with a nice stand or piece of furniture running against a wall 3.1 doesn't require that many wires in plain sight. But the rears and sides for a 5.1 and or 7.1 are usually mounted higher and well apart so even with Rocketfish you have to run wires from the receiving unit to the actual speakers. That's still covers a lot of wall and is hard to hide for most people.

~ Rick

Astro:

Thanks for the links in the above paragraph - learned a lot.

With the streaming capabilities it sounds like the Apple wireless router to a Apple TV is a good choice and may not be all that expensive. But since it's so new I'll probably wait a while; I'm simply not a version 1.0 type guy.

~ Rick