Need Speaker setup for less than $300 (1 Viewer)

[DavidJohn]

I'm on a tight budget and am looking at $300 to spend on a 5 speaker setup. Cnet's review of the Onkyo SKS-HT500 caught my eye. Link: http://electronics.cnet.com/electron...2.html?tag=lst
They gave it a better score than the popular NSP1 (recieved a 6). Is it that much better?

 

[Pablo Abularach]

David,

By specs the Onkyo SKS-HT500, it seems very tempting, it has 1'' tweeters like the studio series, and 5.25 drivers, not bad. Although the sub with an 8'' woofer will be for me the weakest part of the setup.

But still, I'm loyal to JBL, I think the NSP1 has been in the market for some time, and I have read many, but many great reviews, here and in audioreview, and I audition them about six month ago, and I was very impress with the clear midrange and high frecuencies it reproduced. I thought for the money you couldnt beat it.

Another thing you should consider is that if you are so in to this or someday you will be very in to HT, that you will start thinking on upgrading, and with JBL you will have a lot of options, let say you want to go to a 6.1 setup or a 7.1 you can buy N26, N28 or N38 and you will be set. But with onkyo I dont know if there is more speakers timbre match that are sold separatly.

Try to audtion both sets, I think the onkyo could be a good choice. It look like JBL could have a good challenger in the $250 range.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

For your budget, the JBL NSP1 package that Pablo mentioned would be my choice. I own four of the JBL N24's that comprise 4/5th of this package, and am very impressed with the sound quality for the money I spent. I use the speakers for a music-only application in our basement recreation room. They were a steal at $200. You should be able to get the entire 5 speaker package for about $250.