Shawn N

I have yet to buy my home theater system and thought I was ready until finding this forum. I have a couple questions.

1) why are people here so down on bose? I went to best buy and they sound better than all the other speakers to me. Not sure if it had much to do with the recievers each system was hooked up to? sams club sells the bose acoustimass 10 series II speaker system for $683.

2) I'm thinking of a 5.1 system. I've been looking at yamaha revievers in the 200-400 range, but I've been reading here to stay away from the lower end yamaha's. Can someone explain.

3) What are the big things to look for in a good reciever.

If it matters my room size is 18'x 20'. I plan to watch allot of movie's in surround sound and music. I realise I may have to purchase floor speakers later for better music sound.

Any advice or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

I was hoping to spend around $1000-$1200 for speakers and reciever. Anything you would recommend?

Thanks

GrahamT

Welcome to the forum.

1. People are down on bose because they are a poor value among other things. They do sound good to an unexperienced ear (no offense) because they always have the best setups in the store, they have a big price tag (must be good right?), and they reproduce the most easily heard frequencies the loudest (not a good thing).

2. I dont think that entry level Yamahas can be singled out. Almost all cheap receivers have their faults.

3. Things to look for in a receiver.
-DD and DTS decoding, ex and es a plus.
-weight, a good indication of quality.
-component video, banana plugs.
-Ignore wattage ratings, they are basically meaningless IMO.

You dont need floorstanding speakers unless you are going two channel. Most people just set the speakers to small anyways.

Shawn N

Graham,

No offense taken at all. That's why I'm here. I was leaning toward JBL until listening in the store. Like you said maybe the way they are set up. It's hard for me though because I have to trust my ear. Any other places I could go to listen to systems set up already?
By no mean did I look at the price and say must be good though. I just listened to them. None of them are really cheap either . I went to best buy were the have many system set up... Bose, Yamaha, Klipsch, Sony, JBL, and a few others.
Could you explain "low end reciever"? What ball park would I need to get into to leave the "low end area"?

Any recommendations for the $1000-$1200 range?

GrahamT

As for speakers, most companies design them to reproduce all frequencies from around 80 Hz to 20KHz evenly. Bose cubes dont do this. They are a waste of money. JBL, paradigm, klipsch, energy, psb, mission, nht, kef, polk audio etc all make good speakers. You cant go wrong with these. I would even consider radio shack speakers before bose.

As for a receiver, it is more subjective than picking speakers. IMO $400 and up will buy you a good receiver. You get what you pay for here up $2000. Yamaha, onkyo, denon, marantz,harman, pioneer etc all make excellent receivers.

Lew Crippen

My recommendation in this price range for the last three months, has been the Rocket ELT system, which AV123 will package with a Denon 1804 receiver for $1,250.

This is an outstanding value at the price. The speakers (four satellites, a center and a sub) go for $900 on their own, if you would prefer another receiver.

I do not own these speakers, but have listened to them carefully, and I can say very candidly that they have much better sound that the Bose Acoustmass system. I think that you will also be able to tell the difference. Listen to some movies that present difficult challenges in distinguishing speech. Most Bose systems have a difficult time with the center channel speech reproduction in a movie that has softly spoken sections, normal speech and dialogue spoken during an action sequence. A good center will handle them all.

I do own some products by this company, so I may be biased, but I really believe that this system is in a different class than the Bose.

Of course there are other systems which will also no doubt please you. Listen and decide for yourself.

¡Time is not my master!

brentl

If you're in BB again soon, try hooking up the Athena system with their bigger sub. It will KILL the Bose.

Comes with brackets to hand the speakers too.

Brent

Shawn N

brentl,

I'll check out the athena. Any idea on the price?

Shawn N

Lew,

I can't find the Denon 1804 on there web page. Any links so I can check this reciever out.

GrahamT

Athena, Denon, now you're on the right track.

Shawn N

Graham,

So maybe a Denon 1604 or 1804 with athena speaker? I will go listen to the athena speakers at BB tonight.
Any idea on what athena speakers would run me?

GrahamT