home theater missing links

[VINKRILLZZ]

ok i have just bought a new house and am now setting up my living room..

or as my wife calls it... my spaceship

i have a very high end computer , ps3, xbox360 , wii, 52" xbr5, digital hd cable

so i am missing a kick ass reviever and speakers that would tie this all together...

only problem is i dont know much about this subject..

i want a reviever that is high end that can connect my computer and tv and all my systems together and play really grreat surround sound movies and also play very loud great sounding music....


of course i need hdmi connectivity


so i need some suggetions i have about 2000 - 3000 to spend on reciver and speakers


please help me out

thanx

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Take a look at the sticky thread.

As a starting point you might want to think about a 1:1:2 spending ratio on receiver:subwoofer:speakers to get a fairly balanced system. This may need to be tweaked due to room size, specific features you want from your receiver, upgrade path considerations, etc.

That would mean on a $2000 budget I would suggest a starting point of ~$500 receiver ~$500 subwoofer and ~$1000 on speakers

On $3000 budget, $750 receiver, $750 sub, $1500 on speakers

With these budgets, it's really a good idea to go out and listen to speakers.

A good subwoofer will be a good subwoofer, so it's fairly safe to just get a well regarded one. It's going to sound different in your own room anyway.

For the receiver, you shouldn't have a problem finding one that will take care of all those sources. Connecting to the computer may get a bit messy unless you can get a card that can encode DD or DTS. If you do that, most of the issues go away.

The speaker choice is going to be critical so you'll want to go out and listen to some either in stores or current owners auditioning for you.

 

[VINKRILLZZ]

my friend who thinks he knows everything tells me to go buy the top harmon cardom reciever and the bose speakers.... as there is nothing that can match the sound....

for some reason i dont believe that....mabye im wrong but that is why im asking...

as for goin to the store and listening......im no audio expert and i dont know wut im listening for....

they all sound fairly the same to me...

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Please don't get Bose speakers, but Harman Kardon does make good receivers. You probably don't want to listen to this friend anymore.

You can easily get a system on your budget that will blow away a Bose system.

Part of the auditioning process is figuring out those differences and deciding what really appeals to you. If you decide that you really can't hear much of a difference between a pair of $100 speakers and $1000 speakers, then you know that you don't have to spend that much to be happy.

A really powerful subwoofer with very deep frequency response will certainly be noticable and quite enjoyable to most people though. Even if you can't tell the difference between speaker A and speaker B, you will probably appreciate the ability to make your room shake when you want to

Depending on how much time and effort you want to put into this, we could just suggest some products for you that would probably appeal to you. If you really want to make sure you're getting the right system for yourself though you're going to have to do some auditioning. This could take the form of going to stores or possibly ordering a few pairs of speakers from online retailers with auditioning periods and testing them out in your own home at your own pace in a no pressure environment.

 

[VINKRILLZZ]

ok i figured out this is way too much to take in... in 1 sitting.....so i am goining to start off with reciever...


ive narrowed down to 3 companys....dennon onyko or harman kardon


and i want to spend no more than about 1500.....i need atleast 2 hdmi inputs and 2 component inputs....



the denon AVR-3808CI......harman kardon avr 645 ......onyko TX-SR705

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Denon, Onkyo, and HK do make good receivers and would be among my top picks for this range. Could I just ask how you figured out you wanted to buy from one of these companies?

When you say $1500, are you talking about just the receiver budget?

A $400 receiver will meet your requirements so $1500 is a pretty serious receiver budget unless you're going to balance it out with high quality speakers and subwoofer as well.

EDIT: Your three suggestions you added there aren't really competing against one another directly...

You have a ~$1200 Denon a ~$600 Onkyo
(The Onkyo 875 would be the competing model to the Denon 3808)
(The Denon 2308 would be the competing model to the Onkyo 705)

I think the HK 645 is a year or two old too? The current generation ends in X47 (Up to the 347)

 

[erwos]

The Onkyo TX-SR606 is coming out in a couple weeks, so that's worth looking at. It only has 720p/1080i video upscaling (albeit without the annoying 720p limitation of the 605) and two component inputs, but it does have four HDMI inputs, a very modern set of features, and an excellent price ($500). Otherwise, the Denon 2808CI would be my second choice for your price range.