Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Common Interests Surround sound systems...

Well, to me they are not over-hyped or over-rated. A bit pricey yes, but like anything you will buy, when you are buying name brand items, where lots of R & D is put into the product, you'll pay. Bose sound is superior to many other brands to me and as a Bose product owner, I'll vouche for them any day.

I heard alot of good things about these and not too pricey!
Fluance speakers
And they don't look to bad stylewise!

Review 4.7 out of 5

For the best sound make sure your receiver and player have optical in\outputs and IMHO between your receiver and player spend the bulk of your money on a good receiver.

For a reciever I would look at some brands such as yamaha, onkyo, harmon kardon, and denon. Avoid sony unless you plan to buy one of their higher end models. I have klipsch speakers myself and a velodyne sub and I'm quite happy with the sound. There are so many different brands to chose from so I suggest taking your time and sampling many different types. Ask yourself exactly what you want out of this system and give alot of thought into how much you want to spend. If you need some advice on specific models ask away as there are some folks around the CEG who really know their shiz.

If you can find a Denon receiver in your price range, jump at the chance. Amazing quality, upgradeability, and just all around great to work with.

Speakers... and there will be a few people on this board who've heard of them, I wholeheartedly recommend Cambridge Soundworks. In whatever price range you buy their speakers, you'll get twice that price's quality, easily. The $150 sub/sat system that I have (5 satellites, plus one non-powered 8" sub) is more than capable of handling the enormously loud sounds that I can put through them at 100w/ch, and the sub, although passive, does rumble a little bit.

Check out www.hifi.com for details. Unfortunately, CSW isn't in many cities, but, you may just have one near you- www.cambridgesoundworks.com. There's a store locator on the site. For an example... here's a real good speaker package- Movie Works 108 Home Theater Speaker System

Some people will rant and rave about Monster Cable this, Monster Cable that, but, you don't need to spend that type of money on cabling, esp. on shorter runs. Speaker cable... don't get the cheapest you can find, but, don't spend a lot, either. You're not building a high-end dedicated theater, you're going for an entertainment room. You won't notice the difference in quality. The connectivity cables (audio and video) shouldn't cost you that much $, but, again, don't get the cheapest you find.

Ok since he didn't ask about the bloody wave radio...........


I have Kenwood. I'm not saying go and buy them, but I have found that for the price its an awesome set up. Bose is nice, however you must factor in the HUGE price and the reason they are dubbed "All HIGHS and no LOWS". However Bose sort of solved that problem with thier subs thats nearly bigger than your TV . However this is what I reccomend. Go get a Crutchfield Catalog, look and what you need and figure out what you want. Then go on the internet and get it cheaper somewhere else(Crutchfield has great information but HUGELY over inflated prices). Also are going to get a combo (DVD/Receiver) unit, then you may be sacrificing some of your power. Those units usually don't offer the same power as the seperate units. I do recomend seperate units, However at a $400 limit, you may not have the power to push $600 in speackers to their potential. I did alot of study on this area a year ago. I'm not sure about your TV, but it you have Progressive scan than make sure you get a DVD player player that can read that format. The differenct is huge. Onkyo and Denon are awesome if you have the cash, however I"ve found that Kenwood makes a great product for the price. Here is a pic of my "unit" set up. Its before I moved so it looks slopy:




PS2(Which I never play)
Satalite Reciever
RCA VCR
JVC 7-Disk Progressive Scan DVD Player
Kenwood Reciever pushing 100 watts to each of the 5 surround speackers and 200 to the Sub

If you shop around you can get Onkyo's for a decent price,I've had 3 now and am still amazed at the sound quality
for the price,and if you hang on a couple months until xmas you can get great year end deals when the
stereo guys start really wanting to unload their stock...

I'd say Onkyo is probably the best bang for the buck, though I've heard too many nightmare stories about their service and support, which drove me to Denon.

You can find better equipment than Denon, but not for the price and support. They have the best package for the best price these days, IMHO.

I went with a Denon 3803 and haven't looked back. I've been nothing but pleased with it. I've got a set of Polk RM7600 speakers/sub that I purchased, and it sounds great and all, but for the money I could have purchased seperates that would have offered better sound. I'm missing some mid-range in the center and front speakers and the only way around it is LARGER cabinets/drivers. I certainly don't have the ideal listening area, which is probably 50% of my gripe on the speakers, so take that into consideration. Also take into consideration that speakers are almost a "taste" item; depending on what you like in terms of sound, there are a slew of choices out there within EVERY imaginable budget.

All in all, I'm pleased with what I have, though I'm working on building a better listening environment and am going to see how that will effect things. Since it sounds like you have the chance to really set things up from scratch, I'd put a fair amount of time on insulating the hell out of the walls, putting up some sound foam around the corners of the room and getting rid of as many hard surfaces as you possibly can.

I have a friend that has a "reference" room that he poured a lot of money into making as acoustically perfect as possible. Listening to a CD in his place compared to mine is a joke; you could give me a 6-figure system and a boom box in his room would still sound better in comparison.

Good equipment is wonderful, but you can really go a long ways with proper placement, imaging and making a room as "sound-friendly" as possible.

Can't believe no one has mentioned Klipsch. I've always liked their speakers and I think for the money you get very good sound quality.

I know someone here talked down on Crutchfield, but I was just looking at a catalog and they have some nice systems by Denon and Onkyo that you might want to look at to get some ideas. They fit into your price range, too.

I am also impressed by HarmonKardon recievers. This story is no sheeit...

One of my best friends in college had an HK reciever. Some guy actually pissed on the thing one night during a party (how he was not electrocuted, I will never know...) It worked like crap for one week, and then it fixed itself. I don't know how, it just did. It worked like new. For me, that was a strange but convincing demonstration for HK's reliability.