HTiB Recommendations? (1 Viewer)

[Jon.M]

Looking to get a basic home theater in a box system for my brother in the $300 range (give or take $50.) He already has a Panasonic DVD player, so I don't need that included in the system. He doesn't have a large living room (probably 12'X18') so it doesn't have to be booming. If there's a system at Best Buy or Circuit City you can recommend, that would be ideal because I could just have it drop shipped to him (it's a birthday gift.) Thanks in advance.

 

[Jon_Gregory]

The best HTIB that can be purchased in my opinion is the Onkyo ht-760. Spend the little bit extra to purchase it at $500 at CC. It will be worth the extra cash. You can find it on sale sometimes for less.

 

[Jon.M]

Thanks, Jon. I had to get this over the weekend and I settled on the Yamaha YHT-100. I'll be setting it up this weekend and will let you know what I think.

 

[Tim Holyoke]

I'll ask this so as to not clutter up the board w/another thread.....I'm looking for a cheap HTiB for my parents. They don't need much special, I'd like to keep it around $200, give $50 or so. I really don't want to spend the $500 for the Onkyo one. Maybe there is nothing decent in that price range, but I thought I'd ask. Thanks.

 

[ChuckSolo]

At that price range, you are pretty limited to what you can get. A lot depends on how your parents are going to utilize the unit and if they need an HTiB with or without a DVD player. I had the same dilemma during the summer last year. My parents live in a mobile home park in a double wide home so overall power was also a consideration given the thinness of the walls in their home. They didn't want to distrub the neighbors too much. After doing a lot of research, and being on a budget much like yourself, I went out and bought them an Onkyo GXW 5.1 system. I Don't know if it is still in production, but the system does not come with a DVD playeer and has the DD 5.1, Dolby ProLogic II and DTS decoders built into the subwoofer. The power is modest, only 20 watts per channel and 25 to the sub. but in their living room, the output is perfect. The little Onkyo comes with everything you need, including an optical digital cable. I had the unit up and running in less than an hour. It also has a coaxial digital input and an extra analog input, to which I hooked up their VCR. Overall, I must say that the sound that comes out of the GWX 5.1 is pretty good. The only gripe I would have with it is the smallish center channel speaker, and the bass response from the sub could be better, but that is only comparing it to the separate powered subwoofers I have installed on my two HTs. Cicuit City had it for sale at $169.00 and have put it ON sale for $139.00. I actually got their's from Fry's Electronics website, www.outpost.com for a whopping $105.00 plus shipping. BTW - Onkyo's website store actually had the GXW 5.1 listed at $369.00 at the time. One of my buddies was so impressed with it that he went out and bought one for the secondary HT he has in his den.

 

[Tim Holyoke]

Thanks Chuck, that sounds promising. Their living room is on the smaller side, I'd say about 15x20. They do already have a decent DVD player. They also just got a DirecTivo, but their TV is an older (8 years or so) RCA 32". Nothing special, and all it has is 2 sets of composite in's and 1 out, and svideo. Thanks for the help, I'll look into that.