hm thanks scotch, a soundbar could be perfect.

People were asking about cheap players about a year ago. Here is an updated answer. I bought the Sony BDP-S370 for 98 with no tax and free shipping on Amazon the other day. It streams netflix, slacker, pandora, and a few other services as well and actually sounds good and starts quickly. I just finished building my HT setup, I will post some pics tonight. Fairly Basic 2.0 channel system. Sony 46" LCD (posted link earlier in thread), Rotel RA-1062 Integrated Amp with B&W 684 Speakers and the above blu ray player feeding everything.

A soundbar with a subwoofer might be OK if it fits but the big jump is from the TV's built in speakers to 3.1. The center channel really matters for centering the vocals in the typical tv show and usually fits nicely on most flat screen stands (assuming you have a narrow speaker laid on it's side). It will usually sound decent with almost any room and speaker placement is only a minor headache. The sub can be hidden almost anywhere.

OTOH jumping to 5.1 adds a lot more ugly wiring and problems with speaker mounting and placement - something most older folks don't like. What you gain with the sides (or behinds in 7.1) is only going to matter a lot if you're into things like action movies; it won't make American Idol or Oprah any better.

My current setup has three old Cambridge Soundworks MC300's with a passive base (originally attached to similar CSW speakers). It's partially in a corner in a longish 25 x 13 foot room. The helicopter in Apocalypse Now won't quite fly around but it still sounds about as clear and loud as most adults could take.

I quit making music awhile back but kept my studio monitors for home theater..I'll take Mackie HR824s over basically any consumer home theater setup I've ever heard. Zero need for a subwoofer, could shake the house if I wanted to.

thanks rick.

yeah the room is kinda large, maybe the sameish as yours.

i know the stand they are getting only has one shelf so i dunno if that will complicate matters. i am bugging them to hurry up and get the tv/stand so i can take a look at what would work, and actually hear the tv first.

will report back.

Agreed that the difference between TV speakers--->2.1 or 3.1>>>>>>>>>>>>>the difference between 2.1/3.1--->5.1

The center channel is not necessarily necessary (wow, that is a mouthful) unless you have seating areas spread across the room and are unable to confine your seating area to the "sweet spot" that a two channel system will create. If your seating is spread across the room, the center channel will pin the vocals to the tv, which will help a lot.

Yeti, what kind of budget are you working with here?

edit: And do they already have an A/V receiver or are we going to need to purchase one of those as well? Budget for this component?

no they don't have an a/v receiver. i didn't think i needed one if i went the soundbar route?

i wasn't hoping to spend much, maybe $200-250? though i'm in england and things are more expensive here.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharp-HTSB20...2033032&sr=1-2

i feel like this will probably do the job. like i said they are not audiophiles and rarely watch movies really. i just feel like something with a little oomph will make a big difference.

i have read good things about the sony ht-ct100 but i don't think it's available any more. the 150 seems good but i don't believe it's out in the uk yet.

Didn't realize that you were leaning towards a soundbar. I'm not really familiar with what's available in the UK, if you were US I would have lots of suggestions.

This one looks pretty good, although a little above budget (about $330 US): Pioneer HTP SB300 It has HDMI, digital optical, and analog inputs.

First thanks to everyone who has kept thread alive for several years and been helpful. I've read through a lot of it over the past few days and feel a lot better about my knowledge level as I plan an AV upgrade for my house.

Here's my situation:
I have a 46" Vizio and am using just the television speakers. I don't feel like they're terribly inadequate or anything, but I'm aware that even a Home Theater in a Box (HTib) is >>>>>>>>>>>>>> television speakers. So I'm thinking about an upgrade there. So my first question:

Earlier posts in this thread seemed to think that Onkyo held the best value in entry-level HTiB setups. Is that still the case? I'm thinking about buying the Onkyo HT-SS3300 5.1 HTiB. But at this price ($450) it's still a bit much for my wife. So I also wonder about speaker bar or stereo setup. How is that technology improving?

Second, it's important to my wife (and me, to a lesser extent) to not have a ton of electronic components sitting out in public. But our living room makes the most sense as far as housing our entertainment system, so we're looking for a way that it's just the T.V. on the wall (with the components in a cabinets and the speakers unobtrusively situated).

Am I wrong in thinking that the way to make this happen is either:
1) Frosted glass panels on my entertainment cabinet (to allow for the passage of signals from the remote) - or -
2) Buying the Harmony 900 Remote (which appears to put signal repeaters in the cabinet with your components so that you can control them through cabinets and walls). This option is pricier, and I'm wondering if there's a simpler way to do the "signal repeating" thing using one of the more entry-level Harmony remotes (I intend to buy some Harmony remote as I think making this easy to use will defuse most of my wife's concern with making a substantial investment in a home theater set up.

Finally, I want to use this system to control one (or two) additional speaker zones in my house, so that I can play music throughout the house from my TV room (including using the 5.1 setup). Earlier in the thread someone mentioned using a Y-splitter right off the iPod dock (or other music server) and basically having a separate zone (or more?) that you could power on and off from the Harmony remote if you wanted to listen to music elsewhere in the house. This is a long term goal, but I'd like to know if it's possible for a reasonable cost (<$600). I'm happy to run wires wherever they need to be run (great attic for that) so I guess I'm just wondering what the minimum price is for a decent setup and how to do it (I'm pretty handy and can figure stuff out if you tell me it's possible and which components to buy).

Here's where I'm looking to be with all this stuff:



Thanks in advance for any help!

If you want to be at the quality level on your graph you are going to need to raise your budget significantly.

scalp,

not much time to post now, but with respect to signal repeaters, you can buy various forms of signal repeaters for fairly cheap that work with either all or the harmony remotes. note that not all devices are RF capable, so it's not just like buying the harmony 900 will instantly make everything awesome. however, you could use an opaque cabinet with a signal repeater of various types and keep just a "signal catcher" outside the box (small), and have it either blast the front of the box with the IR signals, thereby operating the devices, or have it line in to the back of the devices, meaning no light, but the signal passing to the device, depending on what signal repeater/receiver you have.

my advice for multizone support if the second zone will be music only is to not worry about 5.1, and just get a receiver with 2nd zone support and 2 speaker support for second zone, since music doesn't need surround in general, and because this is cheaper. depending on the setup, you can either then run wires or use a wireless system to connect the main receiver to the satellite speakers (wires being cheaper in general and higher quality connection). then, your harmony remote will have a button for "second zone" if you configure it to, and you're set to go.

Citanul, thanks very much for your reply. A few follow up questions:
Just to make sure I'm understanding you. The Harmony900 is not the only way to get signals into an opaque cabinet. I could probably make things cheaper by buying a lower-tier Harmony remote and buying one of the two kinds of "signal catcher/repeaters" you mentioned (of the two, the IR-blaster seems easiest).

I mentioned 5.1 because I hope to play this music on my actual 5.1 TV setup ALONG WITH whatever other two-speaker setup I have (or multiple two-speaker setups). This would be possible, right?

Also, would you recommend getting one receiver to control both my TV/5.1 setup AND my other zone(s)? Or should I get a separate receiver for the other zones?
*If I went with the first option, it seems that it would rule out getting a 5.1 system (thought most 7.1 systems seem to allow you to run them as 5.1 + Zone B). If I went with the second option, it would seem that the Harmony 900 would be my remote of choice, so that I could control the Zone B/C receiver through several walls. I'd still need to pipe the music to the other zone, so this option wouldn't save me any wiring.

Two quick follow-ups:
1) Does the Harmony 900 only put out RF signals? Or does it also shoot IR?
2) Does anyone have strong feelings about a pair of in-wall speakers that are a good sound for the price? These get good reviews, but are cheaper than I would think.

I recently moved into a new house and was thinking about getting a surround sound system for the living room. I'd mainly be used for watching TV or music (the dining room is just through the double doors). I do watch some movies, mostly on TV I just watch sports. I'm assuming an out of the box system is best since I don't really know anything? I'm looking to spend $500-$1000 but would be willing to spend more if it's worth it and happy to spend less. My biggest fear is getting something cheap then deciding I want to replace it in 2 years.

Should I get a 5.1 system, 7.1, just 2 or 3 speakers? Where should I place the speakers? Here's a layout of the room, I'm still looking to add maybe another chair and coffee table at least. As far as wiring goes it sounds like wireless aren't the best so I can run the wires through the walls and in the basement. Thanks, any help is greatly appreciated.

With your setup I would go 5.1.

Are you sitting 13' from the TV or what is the distance from TV to your eyes?

re: center channels

Get the same center channel speaker as your left and right fronts if possible. A lot of setups may not be able to do this because of the lack of space/location to put a vertical speaker in the middle but in my experience it's near impossible to get even timbre across the front with different speakers/enclosures and I went through 3 center channels trying to match my front speakers (all same company) and decided I'd be happier with 2.1 until I could upgrade the the L/C/R at the same time.

From the back of the couch to the TV it will be about 12'. The couch is pretty large though, it's about 3.5 ft wide so it will really be more like 10 ft from the TV I think. I know it's not the ideal set-up (the TV is 50") but the room also has to please the significant other, hence the piano!

+1

Given your viewing preferences I think 2.1 or 3.1 is your best choice. I'd start with a receiver and 2 front speakers and then listen to that for a few months before buying anything else.

Make a mix CD of high quality recordings of your favorite songs that you know inside and out and use that to audition speakers. The "knowing the songs inside and out part" is crucial for judging quality imo.

Two-pronged question here, figured this was the right place.

1. Is delivery and "set up" of a TV included in the Best Buy sticker price? I don't need it mounted or anything, but I figure since I am going to have it delivered, it makes sense to have it good to go and hooked up before the guys take off, in case anything is wrong. Is this included (with a tip) or do I need to shell out for Geek Squad?

2. How much would you tip the Best Buy guys to carry a TV up to the 4th floor of a walk-up (and take it out of the box, attach stand, etc.)? I was thinking $20 a guy... but if I need to pay some Geek Squad premium, I am going to lean in a more Jewish direction.

as a mixture of hanukkah and christmas presents, my gf got me the harmony one remote, and the logitech ps3 adapter.

the only downside so far of this setup is that it's sometimes not super easy to hit the button you want to on the touch screen, specifically when you have 6 activity buttons + the 2 scroll left/right through menu buttons + the 2 buttons on the bottom of the screen for device/favorites or whatever. i think i'll probably get used to it in time, but yeah, not super easy.

as for the newest version of the ps3 adapter, nothing but love. wireless connection to the ps3 and doesn't take up a usb port. snappy response from remote, and super easy setup.

Does anyone have recommendations on soundbars. I'm not looking to get a top of the range home theatre system at the moment but would like to get something to add to the tele. We would like something simple and don't have the space for multiple speakers and wires.

I have some amazon vouchers to use up and the soundbars seem to fit our need at the moment. Any suggestions on makes or models we should be looking at would be much appreciated.

re: soundbars, I just got a Vizio VSB200 from Costco for about $80. It's not the finest piece of audio equipment ever, but on a bang for the buck basis I can't imagine much beating it. The speakers in the LED set I got are pretty pathetic, this thing is a 200x upgrade. Easy to set up, just ran an optical cable from the TV to the bar, all of the inputs into the TV are automagically routed out to the sound bar.

Yeah, I have the same soundbar. Bought it when I had some Amazon $$ left over that was about to expire. I had it since the first day I had my new bigscreen. When I moved, I went a week without the soundbar and zomg, what a difference.

Just bought a new house a few months ago, upgrading from a small townhouse. In the process we had to deck out a couple extra rooms, which we ended up doing with the following:

Living room:
Panasonic TC-P54G20, 2 x Energy RC-70 Fronts, Energy RC-LCR Centre, 2 x Energy RC-R Surrounds, SVS PC-Ultra 13 subwoofer, Denon 3311CI AVR, Cisco Explorer 8642HD PVR, Oppo BDP-83, PS3, Harmony One remote, BDI Avion II stand (stand, remote and ps3 from old living room)

Family room:
Panasonic TC-P42G15 (pulled from old living room), 3 x Energy RC-LCR Fronts and Centre, 2 x Energy RC-R Surrounds, 2 x Energy RC-Mini Heights (pulled from old living room), SVS PB12-NSD, Denon 3311CI AVR, Cisco Explorer 8642HD PVR, Panasonic DMP-BD60, PS3 Move, Harmony One remote, Thomasville Wanderlust Media Console for a stand

Bedroom:
LG 37ld450, 2 x Energy RC-Mini Fronts, 1 x RC-Mini Centre, Energy ESW-V10 subwoofer (all speakers pulled from old living room), Denon 790AVR , Scientific Atlantic PVR of some sort from old living room, Harmony One remote

We have a bit of a harmony one addiction. We snagged all of the new Energy speakers at half price as they were discontinued. I am volume restricted so everything is more than ample to do the trick for us – the SVS sub-woofers are both overkill in their respective rooms. The PC-Ultra13 shakes the house on bass heavy scenes and gets me frequently screamed at – I love and highly recommend it. The 42” Panasonic was always more than ample until my wife insisted on getting the 54”. Now the 42” looks pretty small. So far, I haven’t had any reason to want to go back and do anything differently - quite satisfied with everything.

Ordered TV last night, Sony 60" KDL-60EX701 from Costco for $2k

Planning on this for speakers

Front
2x Polk Monitor70

Center
Polk CS2

Rear
2x Polk Monitor60

No idea for sub and need suggestions.

Receiver still planning on Yamaha HTR-5063

Room is very large, probably 20x45. Main (and probably only purpose) is movies.