Home Theater in a Box - Sony, Pioneer or RCA? (1 Viewer)

[Stephen Orr]

With Christmas coming and all, and what with Best Buy having 0% financing until Jan 2003 on all purchase this Friday and Saturday, I've decided to pick up a HTiB to replace the cobbled-together from spare parts HT I now have in my small townhouse living room. I'm only getting a 6-speaker and receiver outfit -- my Sony DVD from 1998 is just fine, thank you, as is my 35 inch Trinitron.

I'm only prepared to spend around $400 and change (speaker mounts, optical cable, speaker wire, etc.), with budgets being tight this year, and I see that BB has the Sony HTD-DW830 and Pioneer HTP 210 for $299, and an RCA RT2280 and Aiwa HT D580 for $299. Nothing is more than 550W, which is fine with me, because of the size of our living room.

Waiting to buy more expensive components is not an option, as I have to have all of this paid off by this summer, before I take a paycut at retirement...

 

[Chuck C]

How bout the Kenwood HTB-504? Highly regarded as the best bang HTB. I think etronics.com has it for under $400.

 

[John Garcia]

If you don't plan on buying a sub to replace the one that came with the HTiB, make sure you pay attention to the sub specs. The best specs I've seen are the Sonys, for lowest frq. and decent power (peak).

It's a decent way to start out cheap, but they are easy to outgrow also, with power tending to be the weak point.

 

[Stephen Orr]

I've been nosing around the internet, and ran upon a couple of JVC HTiB, the DS-TP350 and the DS-TP450. Both have a $50 rebate on them, and I found them way under suggested retail at Etronics.com $289 and $345, before rebate, respectively. Anyone have experience with either of these? I only saw one review on Epinions....
Thanks again in advance...
(Later that morning...)
Just found Ron's review of the TP350 from last December. Guess that one is at the top of my list now, and I can get it shipped for $280, after the rebate. That'll make the missus happy...
Maybe I can talk her into letting me use the extra $ we WERE going to spend on a new DVD player....

 

[Sean Conklin]

Yeah, for HTB, you can't really beat the Kenwood HTB-504.
However the new JVC HTB's look and sound pretty good.
The Sony HTB (at least the ones I have seen)come with a pretty bare bones receiver, it's not even a receiver you can buy separately.
The Kenwood HTB comes with the VR-507 and is loaded, S- Video switching, dts, PL2, binding posts, you get a real receiver with the HTB, The 507 would be the best receiver you can get in a HTB.
Remember all HTB speakers are not that great but are a good start till you can upgrade.
Do not leave Kenwood off your list, make sure you see and hear it for yourself!