home theater help!

[toddworsham]

what is a good value blu ray dvd player, also what is a good set of speakers and reciever for a 5.1 set up. For the blu ray I would like to spend under 400, for the speakers and receiver under 1000. look forward to suggestions

 

[Tiamat]

Welcome to Anandtech!

Please read this thread to help focus your questions a bit more. Since this hobby is extremely subjective, we will need to know where your preferences lie and also what constraints you are dealing with in your room.

I can't really help you very much with your blu-ray questions, but there are several people here that can offer some advice.

For receivers, you need to tell us what features you are looking for. Without this knowledge, we could be suggesting receivers that just do not fit your needs.

For speakers, are you willing to start off with better but fewer speakers? What speakers have you heard already that you were not fond of? How big is your room including the spaces that it opens up to if it is not a sealed room? Do you have any specific requirements in terms of size of the speakers or color of the speakers?

There are many more questions that need to be answered but we will get to those later.

Setting up a home theater system correctly requires great thought, research, time, understanding, and effort. If you are unwilling to make these investments, then it may be prudent to just pick up a typical home theater in a box set.

Everyone has their own compromises, we need to understand what yours are so that we can help point you in the correct direction.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

HomeTheater Magazine recently did a review of a Blu-Ray HT package that they really liked a lot. The whole system (BR, receiver and speakers) was around $1000.

 

[erwos]

Here's what I would do:
BR-D Player: Sony BDP-S550 ($350) or Sony Playstation 3 ($400). The S550 is the better BR-D player, the PS3 obviously has way more functionality for other stuff.
Receiver: Onkyo 606 ($350)
Speakers: 2x Polk R50 (on sale), 2x Polk R15, 1x Polk CSR, 1x some Dayton sub

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: erwos
Here's what I would do:
BR-D Player: Sony BDP-S550 ($350) or Sony Playstation 3 ($400). The S550 is the better BR-D player, the PS3 obviously has way more functionality for other stuff.
Receiver: Onkyo 606 ($350)
Speakers: 2x Polk R50 (on sale), 2x Polk R15, 1x Polk CSR, 1x some Dayton sub

You can also apply for the Sony card and get $150 off your first purchase of $299 or more. That's a $250 PS3 or S550 player.