Looking at cheap HITB, willing to accept compromises.

[Turin39789]

I'll try to get measurements of the room and layout posted up tomorrow, but wanted to get the post started.

Now that we have our first HDTV(pany 50 s1), its time to find some budget speakers and a receiver. It is a largish room, with a cathedral ceiling.

I started to write up more detail but it will be better with a drawing tomorrow.

The big thing is that its going to be a bit of a pain to try to get surround working, and I know the layout is not ideal and can't/won't be changed.

so look for off center/poorly placed wireless rears?
a setup that is just up front?
or drill and run wires under the floor but still have poorly placed rears?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Are you looking at the dolby guidelines for speaker placement?
(I'm mentioning this since you're saying rears vs. surrounds... whatever)

What's your budget for this?

 

[Turin39789]

I'd like to stay around $300, could go to $500 if need to, but el cheapo is better.

Here is a paint diagram

I had thought about putting two rear speakers on top of the closet(there is a low ceilling on the closet and bathroom but the area above them is open to the roof), but they will still not be in the right places.

The red path is our normal walkway to the back door. I know the room itself isn't ideal for a home theater, but its what we have. Small chance on changing the layout much, with the fireplace and all.

I was looking at the onkyo outlet, and they have the ht-s5200 for $380, but I don't know where all the speakers would end up. We have just the tv right now with an old dvd player with no remote. Don't have ipods so don't need the dock. Halfway thinking about someday doing a budget htpc so I can backup dvd/bd and play pandora and browse some on the tv.


edit - Here is a pic from my earlier thread, New TV is now on stand where old tv is in picture

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/turin39789/DSC02175.JPG

 

[kalrith]

As far as speakers go, it seems that the front speakers will be as much or more of a problem than surrounds. You typically want about 8 feet between the main speakers to have a good separation between left and right, and it looks like you have about half that. Your front, center, and left speakers would be quite close to each other, and the sound might get a little too blended together. The only exception to this is if you wall-mounted your mains and placed the right one above the fireplace pointed down toward your seating position. This obviously wouldn't be optimal, but you'd at least get some separation between the speakers

 

[jtvang125]

How about pushing everything back against that back wall. Separate your fronts as far apart as you can without blocking the back door. The right surround can be place along the wall with the fireplace and the left surround on the left edge of the couches.

 

[Turin39789]

prbably won't work for the room layout, and I doubt the wife is going to approve any large furniture changes.

Yoyo have you forsaken me?

 

[Modelworks]

Set up the front speakers so they point towards the center, that allows you to hear them but not so directly that they overwhelm . The back speakers can be done the same way placed on the walls slightly behind the sitting area but angled up towards the ceiling so that the sound will reflect off the ceiling and into the room.

It is an old trick I learned about in the late 70's with quadraphonic sound, but it works great too with 5.1 surround.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

prbably won't work for the room layout, and I doubt the wife is going to approve any large furniture changes.

Yoyo have you forsaken me?

Well $300-$500 doesn't get you a whole lot, unfortunately.
A HTIB from Onkyo (or some other similar option) is a decent bet.

If you pieced it together, you'd have a hard time getting all the pieces for $300. A really basic sub runs $100, and a really basic receiver is probably $150 or more, leaving you not much at all for speakers.

Is this something you're interested in putting more money into later, or do you want everything now and be done with it?

For surround speakers, they should be to the side or slightly behind the seating area (not directly behind you... that's where the rear speakers go for a 6.1 or 7.1 setup).

 

[Rio Rebel]

This is going to sound trite, but I don't mean it that way:

If you care enough to create a diagram of your room layout, then you care enough that $300 HTIB won't do it for you.

At least with $500 you're starting to at least get in the ballgame. I would strongly suggest looking at used equipment. You could probably squeeze out a nice system going with used but quality speakers (paradigms are on ebay all the time), and a minimal receiver (once again, there are tons of great used receivers where someone upgraded - particularly if you can live without hdmi switching.)

Final suggestion: consider putting your money toward a nice 2.1 or 3.1 setup, and worry about the rear speakers later (or throw just about anything that can put out sound without distortion.) The biggest challenge for quality audio on a budget is getting the fronts and center. Focus there and then upgrade the rear later. Even though the sub is vital, don't sink all your money there. For your budget, you simply can't get the kind of sub that most people want to recommend. You'll have to cut corners somewhere - do it on the rears and sub, and go used.

Good luck.

 

[s44]

A decent Onkyo HTIB (~$500 shipped) would give you not-great speakers but at least you'd have a full-featured AVR to build on. Either that or go used as Rio Rebel said.

 

[Turin39789]

Piecing together a system sounds like a good option, I can pick up a speaker or two at a time every few months.

Now where do I go for reviews/recommendations for budget speakers/receivers, etc

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

One thing that's tricky about this whole process is that almost all professional reviews end up being positive. There are some rare exceptions, but it makes it difficult to sort out what happens to be particularly good in a sea of things that are rated as "good".

Unfortunately, user reviews also tend to be overwhelmingly positive. This may be due to the fact that most people buying budget speakers are experiencing "real speakers" for the first time... so even mediocre sets will sound great in comparison to what they're used to.

Places like Audioholics will sometimes do speaker roundups for various price brackets and actually provide some comparisons of product A to product B.

To some extent, this is about personal taste too... so it's not as straightforward as comparing benchmark tests on computer hardware for example.

A couple courses of action
1. Go out to local places that have speakers and do some demoing of various models to try to determine what you like (this can be tricky for a number of reasons)
2. Look at a bunch of threads on here and AVSforum to see what people recommend
3. Look for whatever the latest and greatest bargain deal is and get those
4. Read professional reviews and attempt to pick something out that way.
5. Look around for used speakers in your area to demo
6. Pick out a couple potential options from internet direct companies (with their in-home demo offers) and order a pair of each... demo them in your home and decide which ones you like best

Basically it comes down to how much time and effort you want to put into this. If there was an easy single answer for you, that would be great... but it's not.

A note about picking up speakers over time:
In the end, you want your front three speakers to be the same brand and model line-up / series. This will be the best way to get a front sound stage that meshes well together.
(I mention this because sometimes there's a great deal on a pair of speakers, but there isn't a matching center channel that you may want to add later).

 

[jacktesterson]

I'll be honest here.


I don't have a lot of money. I work hard and my setup below took everything I had. I consider myself fortunate as I've got basically the below setup x 2, one upstairs and downstairs, networked and 2 50' LG Plasma's. I have a Cerwin Vega system upstairs. It was given to me by my father. Its very powerful and sounds great.

But for my 2nd setup, I couldn't afford a nice system at the time. I went to a local store, and bought a $400 Sony HTIB system. It has 3 Digital ports. I've been more than pleased with it. It is clear, it has ample bass, and Its loud and clear for the size of my downstairs room.

I don't think you'd be disapointed in a $300-400 system

 

[3chordcharlie]

Based on your room setup, I would suggest a receiver, and a pair of decent bookshelf speakers on stands. Save a few bucks over time to add a decent sub, and call it a day.

You aren't going to get anything like good speaker placement in that room, but you CAN get decent 2.0 sound for the price of poor quality 5.1 sound.