Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Hey guys,
I'm new to the home theater thing and I was wondering if anyone could help me out deciding on my first components. First, the setup is going to include a Samsung 32" 720p tv, a playstation 3 (for music, games, and blue-ray), and that's about it actually. Baby steps haha. Anyway, I am looking for the following things to start out with (eventually working my way up to 5.1). The first things I would like to get are:

1. Suggestions on the best receiver for under 300 dollars?
2. Suggestions on the best floor standing speakers for under 300 dollars?

Can you guys help me with those two points to start off with?

Thanks a lot

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

I haven't been in the market for a long time, so I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions, but I do have one suggestion: Make sure that there is a timbre-matched center for any set of front speakers you get. You want a continuous front soundstage, since many of today's films have very aggresive mixes that frequently pan and use directional cues. If you have a non-matching center speaker the sound will change noticably as it pans from side to side and trust me, you will find it annoying. It is very tempting to think of the left and right front speakers as the "mains" and everything else as secondary, but the fact is the center channel also needs a "main" speaker, one that has the same sound quality as the other front speakers.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

When you say timbre matched center what do you mean? Also, I have been advised to purchase a higher quality pair of bookshelf speakers instead of cheap floor standing ones.

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Speakers on a budget: Fluance SXHTB+ 5 Speaker Surround Sound Home Theater System. They are not the highest quality but they will get you by. Save for a good sub to add later (SVS highly recommended).

For the receiver, check out the Onkyo 507. It can be found for about $350.

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

I would rather just buy the two mains and the receiver so I can spend a little more to get a better overall system in the long run. Are there any floor standing or bookshelf speakers (not the whole system) that would be worth looking in to?

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Timbre (pronounced TAM-br, or TAM-bar) refers to the "color" or "tone" of a voice, musical instrument or speaker, as opposed to pitch or volume. You could have three professional singers all sing exactly the same note, but you'd be able to tell them apart by the timbre of each voice - the overtones and other sonic qualities imparted by their vocal aparatus.

Similarly speakers have timbre. Timbre-matched speakers use similar (preferably identical) drivers, cross-overs and case tuning. The center speakers in a timbre matched system may be exactly the same as the front left and right only mounted in a horizontal case. For obvious reasons it is very difficult to timbre match across different brands, or even different speaker series within the same brand.

Without timbre matching you risk having the audio shift in tone every time an actor crosses from one side of the screen to another and the sound pans from left to center to right along with him. Same with multichannel music. You want to make sure you buy a pair of speakers now that will allow you to add a matching center later. Proper planning now can save you headaches down the road, as long as you know what to plan for.

Since you're building your system in stages and will add a subwoofer down the road, I would go with quality bookshelf speakers the provide good sound for the kind of stereo music you listen to most. They will lack the thumping bass for movies, but do a good job overall until you add the sub, and won't be effectively redundant, or even become a problem, when you do.

I would just make sure I was picking from a line that offers center channel speakers timbre-matched to the "mains" I was buying - and probably make that my next purchase (because companies discontinue speaker models and change components and you don't wan't to be left with orphaned front speakers that can no longer be matched to a center.)

Does this answer your question, or have I still not explained it properly? Timbre is kind of a difficult thing to describe.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Yes I know exactly what you mean. I'm a pretty musical person, just not in the sense of audio equipment. As soon as you defined timbre I knew what it meant I just wasn't thinking

So bookshelves>floorstanding? I was looking at some floorstanding speakers last night, the Athena AS-F2. And the Athena line in general. The AS-F2's get great reviews. What do you think about them?

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

For a bit more money, check out the offerings from Axiom Audio and SVS. The Axiom M22's are a kind of a hybrid. They are bigger than most bookshelves but smaller than towers. Bookshelf Speakers - M22 v2 - Axiom Audio

The SBS-01 from SVS are true bookshevles. They can be packaged with a center and sub. SVSound - Speakers.

There are other internet direct companies to look at as well (others are more familiar that me).

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Those axioms look NICE. Great reviews as well. Would you find those in stores anywhere?

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Axiom and SVS are both internet direct companies.

Re: Newbie looking for advice...can anyone help?

Would you recommend axiom or athena? I will mainly be using these speakers for ps3 games and music.