Looking to purchase 5.1 Package (1 Viewer)

[Luke Zhang]

Hi there:

I am new to the forum and I need some advice on purchasing a set of 5.1 speakers.

Now I understand to achieve real good HT experience you need to purchase big sub-woofers, floor standing speakers. But since I have a small room and am tight on budget, I am focused on small 5.1 speaker packages like the JBL SCS series, Panasonic HEP series.

I am planning to purchase the Toshiba SD4700 that has a Dolby decoder built in, so I am in no need of the receiver.

Can anyone tell me what is a good 5.1 speaker set that is reasonably priced?

 

[DanaA]

Luke,
If you could be more specific on your budget, then we could help out a bit more. You might want to post both your low end and high end of money you might be willing to spend. Also, please remember that you will probably be living with your system for a while and a little extra money here could result in significantly more pleasure and pride of ownership down the line. I've included a link to an Ascend/Hsu 5.1 speaker system that costs $1100. Both Ascend and Hsu are excellent products and highly regarded. The price might be above what you have in mind, but, again, they are excellent for the dollar value. Others on this forum will be able to recommend lesser priced products that are also excellent. But, we need your price range.
Link:Link Removed

 

[Ryan Schnacke]

My parents bought the JBL scs135 from Best Buy for $380 a while back. Could have got it a bit cheaper on the internet but they wanted the convenience of a b&m store.

If your budget will allow it, I'd recommend moving up the scale a little bit. Like maybe the JBL NSP1 speakers (5 speakers for about $280 from an internet store) plus a budget sub like the Sony SAWM40 or 10 or 12 inch JBL (I can't remember the model numbers).

But for what the scs135 is, its actually pretty decent. 5 tiny little speakers that will disappear in your room. An 8 inch powered sub that will put out some boom even if it won't really hit that last octave or rattle the windows. The highs are pretty clear and the midrange is okay.

The drivers in those speakers are so small ... I doubt they play down very low. The subwoofer doesn't have any crossover frequency control, which makes me think they're using a fairly high crossover point. You'd want to place the sub near the front speakers to prevent localization problems. It is interesting that the sub has an LFE input. Using that would effectively bypass the sub's crossover and use the receiver's crossover instead. If you did that you'd likely end up with a big gap in the frequency response between where the satellites give up and the subwoofer takes over. But its possible that even with the sub's crossover point there's some gap there.

I'd say it beats out the Bose Acoustimass in quite a few areas:

Satellite speakers have separate midrange and tweeter drivers rather than just "full-range" drivers.

Frequency response is likely a bit better.

Powered subwoofer rather than passive.

Costs about 1/2 as much as the Bose.

Wall mounts are included I think.

So for the money its not bad. Its just not a lot of money for 5.1 speakers.

 

[Luke Zhang]

Thanks guys. I should have been more specific. For my budget I have to say I can spend no more than $500 US for the set. Since these will be my first set of speakers, I don't want to invest too much just yet. (When I have a bigger home, maybe an HDTV to go with it, then I'll get serious and get some Velodyne (correct spelling?) speakers)

I thikn size is important for me, sound doesn't have to be very loud (newbie term, I don't know the tech terms to describe the quality of the sound).

I will consider the JBL speakers then.

Thanks again for helping me out.

 

[Thomas_Berg]

www.hometheaterdirect.com Level II is also good.