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Newbie, need advice on new system.

post #1 of 8
11/19/09 at 9:36am
Thread Starter 
Alright, I'm planning on a surround sound system.  I absolutely have no idea what to get.  My only option up till now was to get a Bose system, any one, doesn't matter, b/c I've gone to a Bose store and the presentation was awesome.  But doing just a few simple searches has shown that Bose isn't to respected in the home theather community and other systems are better and cheaper.  Can you guys help guide me.  I don't want to go all out on one.  I've never had a surround system, nor has anyone i know, so something that will be decent.  There's no expectation except for what I've seen at Bose.  Here's my thoughts so far:

A - Yamaha receiver
B - Bose speakers
C - Some type of power conditioner.

BTW, budget is around $1k, if under, better.
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post #2 of 8
11/19/09 at 12:55pm
If you thought the Bose demo was awsome, you will be amazed by most anything we suggest.

Are you stuck with using speakers the size of Bose cubes or are you willing to go with larger speakers?  Same question about the sub?  How large is your room?  Movies/music/both?  How loud do you listen normally?  Why a power conditioner - do you not have a clean power source?
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post #3 of 8
11/19/09 at 8:02pm

Hey dude. Well for 1000$ you could get setup with a pretty decent setup.

I'd honestly skratch the power conditioner from that list of ideas as it will not be doing much. As long as you have a surge protector you are all set. 

Since you are new to the whole home theater experience I'd say demo as much as you can. You never know you might hear a cheap system for half of your budget and love it. I got my main theater setup and a second cheap Yamaha setup and for a small room it sounds great and was under 600$ for the whole setup. Only prob is it came with a crappy subwoofer.

 

If I was you i'd keep my eyes out for the Pioneer 1019 to go on sale and scoop that up if its a good deal and then start looking around for speakers that would match your listening/budget preferences.

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post #4 of 8
11/21/09 at 4:09pm
This advise is coming from a person who owns a set of 1970's vintage Bose 901 series II speakers.   Skip the Bose cube systems.  There are much better choices at much lower prices that will do a superior job.  Bose likes to demo their home theater systems with specially produced audio sources that are mixed to produce what sounds like an awesome sound experience.  The fact is that Bose demonstration would sound great on just about any 5.1 system you could buy.

Your task at hand is to develop your budget, and determine what size speaker system suits your taste.  You are then going to have to spend as much time as possible listening to different speakers that fall into your price range.   Let your ears make your final decision as to what speaker to buy as we all have different perceptions as to what sounds good to us.  Take along some audio sources you are familiar with and use that as your benchmark in listening to each system. Speaker selection is going to be the hardest but most important decision you are going to have to make in putting your system together.  All of the other components such as your receiver should flow from your speaker selection.
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post #5 of 8
11/24/09 at 2:29pm
Thread Starter 

Robert_J, I'm willing to go with larger speakers and sub, what ever makes the sound better.  I'm currently looking at buying a house, so the room size is unknown at the moment.  I'll be using the system for both movies and music.  I usually like it loud with watching a movie and moderate when watching tv.  Music would vary depending on the occasion. 

The power condition was something I threw in from a reading on the forum or somewhere else.  I do have a recevier I picked up for free, it was dead, and I fixed it.  I think it might me a yamaha or phillips, I'll have to go home and double check. 

Can you guys suggest a few good quality speakers I can buy? 
 

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post #6 of 8
11/25/09 at 11:34am
Yankie,

You are going to need to give us a price range of what you are willing to spend for your speakers.  For example the current B&W line that are considered to be quality speakers range from $225 each up to $11,500 each.  Other manufactures have similar price ranges.    Speaker selection is going to be your most important decision you make.

I would scrap the power conditioner, but I would invest in a quality power strip like the ones used for PC's  to protect your components from power surges.
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post #7 of 8
11/25/09 at 12:49pm
Thread Starter 
cb750, price range for speakers will be around 500-1000.  the receiver that i fixed is a yamaha, i don't have a model number to share yet.
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post #8 of 8
11/27/09 at 5:19pm
Yankie,

I would have to say that the $800 to $1,500 range is the sweet spot for a 5.1 speaker system.  You will have many choices of Manufactures to choose from, from satellite systems to towers and free standing units and should find a system that sounds right to you.   Since you were interested in the Bose Cubes I suspect that you are looking for a smaller satellite system.  This is what I was looking for last year when I purchased my system.  Some of the Manufactures I listened to were  B&W M-20, Definitive Technology Pro Cinema 600,800, 1000,  Energy Take 5.1, Marage Nanosat 5.1 and  MX 5.1. and a number of Klipsch systems. We also considered on line purchases from on line sellers,  SVS and Aperion but found their satellites were larger than what we were looking for. 

After much listening I have to say that all of these systems sounded good and would do a much better job than even the most expensive Bose system.  We ended up with the B&W M-20 system which cost about $1,400 as for my Vietnam ears they sounded better than the rest.  That is only my opinion and I would suspect that others would favor other systems.
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