What do you recommend for $1,000? (1 Viewer)

[Jeremy_Bone]

Hi everyone. I've owned a DVD player for almost a year now, but so far have just been using my tv speaker for sound. I've watched a couple dvds at a friends home on his HT system, and have been wanting to purchase one of my own ever since. The thing is, I only have a $1,000 budget to use for this. I know that they can go way over this, but I was wondering if any of you HT gurus might be able to suggest the best receiver and speakers for around this amount. I think from what my friend said, the receiver I get will need a digital decoder, because the player I have (RCA RC5215P) has a dolby digital and dts bitstream out, but not a built in decoder. Thanks for your help!

 

[Ryan Peddle]

Well sir, 1000 bucks eh. I'd say start with the receiver. Look at lower priced Pioneer, or Yamaha models. But probable your best bet is the Outlaw 1050. $499 at www.outlawaudio.com.
After that your skimping on speakers, but you don't have to buy them all at once. Maybe look at entree level JBL's or Paradigm Titans, and a matching Center channel. Get the front soundstage going first and worry about the surrounds later. Remember cabling and interconnect are needed too.
$1000 budget is pushing the envelope on a complete system, but if done the right way can be accomplished.
Good luck
------------------
Oops, I dropped my eardrums.
Could you pick them up for me?

 

[Gerald Levin]

What do you recommend for $1,000?
An IRA!

 

[Gerald Levin]

What do you recommend for $1,000?
An IRA!
------------------
I love being Jewish! Especially on
Saturdays when I temple my butt
off and have a 3:00pm bagel with
cream cheese and chives!
Israel eat your heart out.

 

[MichaelJ]

If I had $1,000.00 I would purchase JBL NSP1 /Sony WM-40 sub and the Onkyo 595 receiver.It's the best start you can get for the money.Look for these things at www.simplycheap.com. Good luck and good listening.Michael

 

[KeithAP]

Hi Jeremy and welcome to the forum.
Kenwood makes a series called Home Theater in a Box. It comes in a variety of configurations that are well below your $1000 cap. If you do a search here for "HTB" or "Kenwood" you should seem some threads that talk about these.
Also, check out www.hifi.com. They have some nice systems in your price range that come with a 45 day money back guarantee. They even pay return shipping if you are unhappy with their products and return the system.
Whatever you decide, make sure the dealer you purchase from has a reasonible return policy.
Good luck with your system purchase.
-Keith

 

[TysonN]

For $1k, I would get the Outlaw and just a pair of stereo speakers. By just getting the front 2, you can add a sub and the center channel & surrounds later as funds dictate. But you will get MUCH better speakers at $500/pair than $500 for all 5 plus a sub (scraping bottom here). You will be suprised just how big an improvement a nice set of stereo speakers are over the TV speakers. Not full 5.1 for sure, but it is better to buy quality in the first place, rather than buy something less than great all at once, simply to replace it all later on anyway. . .

 

[Thomas_Berg]

i wouldnt suggest HT in a box. i say do exactly what MichaelJ said. i usually suggest the same for budget system. i own an Onkyo 595 and love it. good luck!
------------------
-Thomas
Click here to visit my webpage.

 

[Jeremy_Bone]

Everyone, thanks a ton for your help. I think I've decided on the Onkyo TX-DS595 for the receiver, since so many suggested it. As for the speakers, I had people in another forum suggest PSB Alphas: A/V (fronts), center, minis (rears) and also Polk: RT35i (fronts), CS200i (center) and RT25i (rears), plus they include a free $250 sub for purchases over $500 something. Would you recommend either one of these over the JBL NSP-1 set? If I got the PSBs or JBLs I will probably get the Sony WM-40 since several of you also suggested that. I think some of these will go a little over $1,000 with cabling and everything, but it's really not that big of a deal. Thanks again for your help!

 

[Alex_L]

I too have a $1000 budget and settled with a
Denon AVR-1802 (from Reliable Audio Video)
AR HC2 speaker set (from Etronics)
coming in total at about 50 under 1k including shipping, i'm not sure if i need to spend more on cables and speaker stands (probably but that's ok)

 

[Martin G]

For cheap wiring I would suggest Home Depot. The one that I have near me has 12 gauge speaker wire for $.37 a foot. Its good quality oxygen free stuff, and you just can't beat that price.

 

[Jeremy_Bone]

Martin, thanks for the recommendation. That's cool you're in Norman. I just graduated from OU this past spring and moved out here to work for IBM. I live right by a Home Depot so I'll have to go check that out!
Does anyone have any preferences from the speakers I mentioned in my last post? Thanks again.

 

[Brent Cantrell]

I'm running the exact speaker setup you described, rt35i's front, cs200 center, rt35i's rear w/ps250 sub. They sound mahvelous! However, I'd advise you to go with the f/x series, (I think 300i) for your rears, I've demoed a pair, and as soon as I've got money to spare, (college student, just now allotted money on new reciever, pioneer vsx39), I'm going with them. They seem to disperse the surround information better with less directionality. Polks are very underrated in my opinion, I love mine!
------------------
Objective C, the OTHER object oriented language...