New to the game

The 3300 has a passive sub woofer meaning it's powered by the receiver. Ac4l.com has a factory refurbished 5300, which has a powered sub, for $319 + shipping but they only have one left. Don't worry too much about the factory refurb thing. We recommend them around here all the time and have never heard a bad word about them. And new products malfunction right out of the box somestimes as well.

A powered sub really takes the strain off the receiver. Low frequencies are harder to drive.

You didn't mention room size.  If you're in a dorm or small bedroom you would be okay with something like the 3300.  Otherwise, if you don't go the refurb or used route you won't get anything decent in that price range.  It would be preferable to wait as long as necessary to get something along the lines of the 5300.

Welcome Sean

For a few dollars more I would recommend the 5300 over the 3300.   With a $300 budget you are at rock bottom to find anything that would have the type of connections that would work best with the equipment you have and might want to add.   It is for this reason we tend to recommend the Onkyo line of HTib.

I am a bit curious about your comments. While subjective in nature you say 'I watch a lot of basketball and football and am a PS3 addict. I'm not much of a movie guy, but I do enjoy loud action packed movies. "

I hope your expectations for either the 3300 or the 5300 are not to high as they may not meet your expectations.  You have some high end equipment with a 60" Sony,  PS3, and monthly HD service.  But you have budgeted $300 for your surround system.  In my opinion half of the HT experiece is the wonderful surround audio that complements your video display.   You might want to listen to a 3300 or 5300 to see if it floats your boat and meets your expecations.

The reason that you can get those speakers from a 5300 is the fact that the owner is upgrading to better speakers that can be used with his 5300 receiver.  This is the reason we suggested to go with an Onkyo in the first place.  So if you spend $100 on used 5300 speakers you have $279 left to try to find a 7.1 receiver.  That would be possible if you purchased the Onkyo 508 for $247.  So you need to compare the features of the two receivers to determine if you are getting a better deal vs buying a 5300 new for $379.

Check out this link. http://www.dolby.com/consumer/setup/speaker-setup-guide/index.html You could set it up as 5.1 surround and use the other 2 speakers set up as zone 2 in another room or in the same room then you can listen to your own music on them while gaming in 5.1.

Another option would be the Onkyo-508 refurb ($189.99) and the Onkyo-SKS/HT-540 speaker package ($169.99). Not sure how this would compare to the 5300 refurb for $319 but for $400 or less an Onkyo receiver/speaker package is still your best bet.

Speakers haven't advanced the way electronics have over the years unless you spend a awfull lot of money. The electronics are up-dated just about every year but speakers can last longer in the market. And there's nothing wrong with buying speakers that are a few years old. BTW, in my living room I'm using an 8 year old Harman Kardon 7200 receiver with speakers that I bought 5 years ago and were designed over 10 years ago and I think the whole thing sounds great. I don't feel the need to upgrade either one. Matched with an OPPO 83SE BR player it's a very nice system.

I haven't heard the Onkyo ht-750 but it looks to be form over function. I think they designed it to be flat panel friendly first and formost. But again, I haven't heard it yet.

AC4L.com is where those refurbs are coming from. Just click on the little blue links.

 I would take the 6750 over that Yamaha but both neither of those subs aren't even as good as the Onkyo one's, and that ain't saying a whole lot. But a good sub starts at about $150-200 by itself and a really good one $350-400. And that's just where they start.

At that price point, the 5300 is hard to beat.  It's a decent overall system and a great way to get started.  It has a full-featured receiver and will work with other speakers should you choose to upgrade in the future.

The Sony BDV-E370?

No comparison - the Onkyo wins hands down.  The Sony system has all the drawbacks of most lower-end HTiB systems:

• Integrated Blu-Ray player - if it breaks, you're out the whole system.  You're much better off with a standalone Blu-Ray player.
• Low-impedance speakers - 3ohm speakers can't be used with any other receiver, and you can't reliably replace these speakers with anything else.  If you want to upgrade a speaker, you have to upgrade the whole package.
• No video inputs - A real home theater has the receiver as the hub of the system.  This is due mainly to the fact that TVs don't pass digital surround sound out from external sources.  Without at least a couple of HDMI inputs, you can't easily connect cable/satellite or game system to the surround sound system.

These are the reasons why the Onkyo systems are so highly regarded.  At their price point, there's little comparable that offers an upgrade path, expandability, and convenience.  Denon offers a system that's close, but I believe supports HDMI devices only, so it's less than ideal if you have any legacy equipment.

Not until you approach the price point of Onkyo's top-of-the-line HTiB (the 9300) do you start to reach the "gray area" where you can find separate receiver/speaker packages that will outperform the HTiB at nearly the same price.

Whoops, sorry.  When I looked at the product list on the Sony site, I didn't see the SS370, should have done a product search instead.

The SS370 does have a few HDMI inputs, so that's good, but it still has 3ohm speakers, which unfortunately, for me would be a deal breaker as it eliminates the upgrade path that you get with a system that supports the more common 8 ohm speakers.

Good luck with your shopping!

With a HTiB system, the speakers are almost always the weakest link - which is another reason why having an upgrade path is so important.

The speakers in the Onkyo 5300 system aren't great:

- They have slightly below average sensitivity (85 and 86dB for fronts and center) - good sensitivity is closer to 90dB, and is a measure of how efficient the speakers are, or how easy they are to produce high volume levels.

- They are 6 ohm speakers, which is about as low as you want to go with a mainstream receiver designed to use 8 ohm speakers (like the Onkyo)

But they are still, IMO, far superior to the Sony speakers (where the sensitivity and frequency response numbers aren't disclosed at all...):

Comparing the subwoofers --

- Onkyo has a 10" subwoofer, Sony has a 6.5" subwoofer.  Bigger is always better when it comes to subwoofers (and technically, 6.5" is not a subwoofer).

- Onkyo sub has 290W of power vs. 165W for Sony (at nearly double the wattage, this is a meaningful difference, and when it comes to subwoofers, wattage means a bit more than it does for the rest of the system.

- Onkyo sub reaches down to 25Hz, Sony sub reaches, well, they don't list that in the specs frankly, because a 6.5" driver isn't going to get anywhere near 25Hz.

Rest of the speakers:

- Onkyo mains have 5.5" drivers plus a 1" tweeter, Sony mains have what looks to be a single 3.25" driver.  It's really hard to have a flat frequency response with a single driver.

Of course, you do bring up a good point - it does depend a great deal on how they actually sound.  The only way to know which is best to you is to listen to them.  We all hear things differently, and you can only trust the numbers so far.  They tell only part of the picture, and a theoretical one at that.

Honestly, I would be pretty surprised if the Sony speakers were to outperform the Onkyo speakers in a head-to-head comparison, but that's not to say it's beyond the realm of the possible.

However, I keep coming back to the upgrade path - at least with the Onkyo system if you decide you don't like the speakers, or need something more, you can actually go out and get something to replace the stock speakers (even do so one speaker at a time, if needed).  With the Sony system, you'd be out the whole shebang and back to square one.

I have to agree with Jason.  I believe if you take the Onkyo receiver that comes with the 5300 you will find that it is pretty much identical to Onkyo's 508 bottom line 7.1 receiver.  That says a lot because you are getting a $250 receiver in a $359 package.   I also don't like receivers that come with any type of a media player as what do you do if the player breaks?    Naturally the weak sister of either of these two system will be the speakers, and Sony does not say much about the speakers with the SS370 but the sub appears to be a passive sub while the sub with the 5300 is powered. that is a big plus for the Onkyo.  While I have not listened to an Onkyo 5300 in person,  I did listen to two Sony systems with Air wireless surround speakers and while I am not sure if was the SS370 I was not impressed with either of them and one of them was the system with the very tiny satellites that cost close to $600. 

The bottom line is the Onkyo will cost you $359 and the Sony $250, In my opinion I would go with the Onkyo, but if $100 bucks is important to you and you want to have those un-wireless wireless speakers and a system you will not be able to upgrade then the Sony is for you.

Hi Sean,

A quick comparison of the features/specs between the 5400 and 5300 systems indicates the 5400 is in many small ways a step backwards when compared to the 5300.

All the speakers appear to be the same, however the subwoofer power on the 5400 system was cut down to 120W (compared to 290 for the 5300).  I thought it was a typo, then saw the same specs listed in several places.  The subs LOOK identical, but it seems they've been pared down a bit on the insides.  Surprising, and a bit disappointing.

The 5400 also ditched the included iPod dock and a powered zone 2.

About the only thing the 5400 has that's better than the 5300 is a more advanced form of Audyssey setup utility that includes a microphone for auto-setup/calibration.  The 5300 system doesn't include a mic, so it's comparitively limited.  Regardless, you could get a SPL meter for yourself from RadioShack and accomplish the same thing, if you were so inclined.

I can't comment much on the deep color issue - I'm not much of a gamer and don't have any experience with it.  Hopefully others can chime in with opinions on the matter.

Based on my quick research, there isn't much of a compelling reason to go with the 5400 as long as you can still find a 5300.  The only other alternative would be if you don't mind getting a factory refurbished unit, Accessories4Less has a refurb 6300 system for $329 plus shipping.  They are an authorized dealer of refurbed units, and provide a full 1 year warranty on their products.  Several members here have shopped there with good results.  The 6300 has the beefier subwoofer, and a slightly more advanced receiver.  The receiver includes the iPod dock, and has the same version of Audyssey as the 5400.  The receiver also upconverts analog video to HDMI, so for older, non-HDMI game systems, you can easily run them into the receiver and still only need one HDMI cable from receiver to TV.

Sean, it's a tough call between the 5300 and the 6300 at only $50 more.  If you have any non-HDMI sources, I would say probably go with the 6300.  The better Audyssey is a selling point, but as this is your first system, I think it's safe to say you'll be blown away by the improved quality of a decent HT system that a slight difference in calibration probably won't be all that noticeable.

Hell, if budget is tight, opt for the cheaper system and blow the balance on a couple of great "demo-worthy" Blu-Rays!