Newbie needs help!! (1 Viewer)

[Matthew23]

My wife and i are purchasing a home that has hook ups for speakers around the top of the wall around the room in the family room. The house is still being built, but the wires are hanging out from their locations. I want to mount speakers to work with our plasma TV, DVD player and ipod dock. I am not an audiophile and do not need top of the line stuff. Its more just to have some sound around the room and watching movies but I do not require anything too great to be satisfied, at least yet. I know nothing about home theatre systems. I am pretty sure the wires pre-installed around the room will require terminal jacks (the red and black clips??). I have been looking at home theatre systems in a box to keep the price down. We are on a budget now, baby arrives in one month and we splurged a lit on the house we bought. Yikes!!! I do not want to spend more than $300, less if possible. Can anyone recommend a good system that will work with this set up? I believe all of the pre-installed speaker wire converge at one central location near the cable jack hook up but I am not sure what I need. Can anyone recommend any decent systems that would be compatible with the pre-installed speakers locations on the wall?? Thanks in advance, Matt

 

[Robert_J]

Most HTiB's have proprietary connections that will make interfacing with your current speaker wires difficult. Onkyo has one of the more popular HTiB systems that uses a real receiver and normal speaker wire. It may be more than your budget but will cause fewer headaches in the long run.


As far as terminals go, Monoprice.com has many at different price points. I decided to get some binding posts- http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=091-1245 and single gang, blank wall plates (unbreakable models from Lowes) and make my own terminals. I used cheaper binding posts that I found on Ebay. I spent a total of about $3 per speaker.

 

[CB750]

Welcome Matt


You post is not unlike many we see. Tight budget but a desire to have an improvement from the sound that comes with today's TV speakers. You spend lots of money on other things but you hit the wall when it comes to your audio equipment and some how think you can build a quality system on the cheep.

You say you are not an audiophile but you must have listened to music, gone to the movies, and owned a TV so you must have some expectations or goals to meet, Do you plan to use your HT to listen to music in addition to watching cable TV, do you plan to watch Bluray movies, play games. These goals may be a better guide to what you should purchase rather than just imposing a $300 budget ceiling.

Perhaps you should do some listening. Visit some HT stores or check out equipment that sounds good to your ears and tastes and see how much you are going to have to spend to make your ears happy.


Don't get me wrong, many folks are very happy with an entry level HTib, and that may be all that you might need and it could be done with a $300 to $400 budget. One brand of HTib we like to recommend are made by Onkyo. They come with a real receiver, powered subs, and the speakers can be upgraded down the road. Other alternatives in that price range would be a sound bar, or start out with a 2.1 or 3.1 system that you can add speakers to down the road. Even a good set of PC speakers can improve the sound of toady's TV's.



However, if none of these low budget alternatives meet your needs then you should save your money and purchase the equipment that will suit your needs.