buying home cinema systems

trets77

3rd vote for visiting your local Richer Sounds . they might have some decent 2nd hand kit available .

No , you won't get close to a 5K system with £200 but you will probably be happy with the results over standard TV sound .

if you don't yet have a Blu Ray then consider one of these packages

http://www.richersounds.com/information/home-cinemasystems

just about all my high end stuff has come from Richer sounds . they are a proper Hi-fi retailer for pretty much all price ranges except super silly money .

you can build yourself a package with decent kit from stuff that is a few years old on sale from ebay , but seeing as you are novice i would get some help .

if you want to give it a go , i personally i would start off with a 5.1 amp/receiver ( same thing only one has built in radio ) , some half decent speaker cable , 2 reasonable speakers , and some standard interconnects . you could then add a Sub ( the .1 ) a centre , and rear speakers later .

simple 2.0 set up with good kit for less than £200 . 5 mins of searching on ebay .

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Denon-AVR-1802-Home-Cinema-amplifier-receiver-Amp-/310262722909?pt=UK_AudioTVElectronics_Video_HomeCinemaSystems&hash=item483d19715d#ht_7437wt_858 =£70 ( although no remote is bummer . simply put this in as it was a buy it now , ,if you had the time to bid i'm sure you could do better)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/WHARFEDALE-VARDUS-VR100-SPEAKERS-/170551463485?pt=UK_AudioVideoElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_HiFiSpeakers&hash=item27b5a8ce3d#ht_1986wt_799 = £80

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/QED-Silver-Anniversary-XT-Evolution-Speaker-Cable-NEW-/260655193787?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item3cb0429ebb#ht_744wt_799

=£8 for 2 meters

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CAMBRIDGE-AUDIO-DIGITAL-INTERCONNECT-/280568422887?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item41532e61e7#ht_500wt_814
for DVD sound =£10

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Pro-Ultra-High-End-TOSLink-SPDIF-Optical-Cable-1m-/390252383389?pt=UK
for SKY box sound =£11 or £22 depending if you xbox has a optical out you can plumb in ( if it's a elite you really need to find a Amp with HDMI switching, which will cost more )

Total = £180 spend change on some speaker wire terminations


okay no HDMI switching or HD sound but you cannot have the moon on a stick for £200

Hammyman

We don't want to spend much more than £200 but don't want to buy something naff either.

There's an oxymoron if ever I've seen one. You're not going to be getting anything but naff for under £200 and probably under £300.

Please for the love of god do not buy a DVD or Bluray player with built in surround sound. You'll find out why the very time you come to add something and go "oh, nowhere for this wire to go".

My last surround sound amp cost me £300 for the amp from Richer Sounds and lasted me 14 years before it needed to be replaced and even then, it was only replaced because it didn't support Dolby TrueHD surround that bluray discs use. It has been passed onto a friend and is serving duty just as well as the day I bought it. I'm still using the original speakers I bought with the old amp 14 years ago. Spend money on decent kit and it'll save you an absolute fortune in the long run.

Either buy a good one second hand and spend some money on some good speakers or do without for a little while and get another couple of hundred quid.

money_saving_mummy_2

Many thanks to everyone who has given advice - we have managed to pick up a speaker system that is doing the job nicely for us at the moment - although I am far too embarrassed to say where from or how much we spent :embarasse:embarasse:embarasse - we are not connoisseurs and just wanted something with a bit of depth to it. We are going to save up and get something "proper", probably from richer sounds as that seems to be the place to go, when we upgrade the tv as well, so might be a couple of years off, unless we come into an unexpected windfall.

Again thank you all for your sound (pun totally intentional;)) advice! As always money savers come up trumps.

x

almillar

See the problem that I have with these speaker packages is that people seem to forget that they (or family/mates) have speakers already, or somehow think they're incompatible. Even ancient speakers can sound far better than the ones you're buying as part of a £200 package. They'll be fine for the 2 fronts and 2 rears, you can go without a centre speaker for a while, and try to find a decent 2nd hand subwoofer for under £100. £150 will get you a starter home cinema amp with more features than you know what to do with (and HDMI switching for goodness sake!) which will blow you away as long as it's not a huge room.