Originally posted by: knyghtbyte
Bose are overpriced crap......like Sony.....sure they sound ok and have reasonable build quality, and obviously looks arnt bad (due to them spending lots of money on designer companies) but how many times do Bose or Sony win awards online or in magazines dedicated to these things.....very rarely! You are just paying for the name and nothing more!
If you read a wide enough spread of magazines so you can do away with the bias opinions of the writers (either due to underhand sponsorship or general personal preference) you will find that Denon & Yamaha are the main contenders in the budget level and medium level stakes (budget = £0-£1,500, medium level = £1,500-£3,000. this is per piece of equipment). For top range kit u need companies like Tag Maclaren, Musical Fidelity, ArCam, Linn, Mark Levinson, to name a few. These boys go from £3,000 to WAAAAY higher..lol.
Being honest, DD and DTS in their current forms are likely to remain the stock favourites for DVD films for the next 5 years. To dispel a mistake some people make, even though you see lots of speakers lining the walls in cinemas, they are still only using a 5.1 or 6.1 soundtrack, just hooking lots of speakers up to one channel. So getting your receiver now wont make much difference really. And if you spend more on the receiver your standard stereo reproduction will be better too....another reason to recommend Denon, at the price point they are good on normal CD stuff.
One thing i will say, if you can find a dealer in USA selling them, check out Monitor Audio speakers, they look very good and sound bewdiful......they have some cheaper range stuff, both satellite size and normal bookshelf/standmounter, as well as higher end floorstanders.
my own system took me 2 years to put together and sounds gorgeous both with music and films, Denon 3803 surround amp, a somewhat bigger brother to the 1804 mentioned earlier, DVD player im about to upgrade, currently using a cheapo one i won at work...lol, speakers are Monitor Audio Silver range, S6 floorstanders, SLCR centre, SFX bi/dipolar surrounds, REL Quake 100E subwoofer (which will get upgraded to their Strata 5 sometime in the new year). Total cost once i've done the DVD and subwoofer upgrades will be around £4,500 (US$7,500 give or take) BUT you guys get techno stuff cheaper than us Brits usually, so i would imagine you would be paying around US$5,000 at the most for all i've got/getting)
Final note, dont go cheap on the subwoofer, many cheap ones are just bassboxes, they dont hit subbass levels, u want it to go down to 25Hz, although the LFE .1 channel only hits 40hz itself, there is still low bass on a DVD in the form of music. This also means your CDs will play to their true potential, u'd be surprised how many artists use low bass you never realised existed, from classical to hip hop, rock to R&B. Also needs to run with an 8in woofer minimum & 100watts, also u need both high and low level connections (low level for LFE and high level for stereo sound)
scuse the length of my post, im at work and INSANELY bored....heh...typing passes the time..lol
