Home Theatre Help

almillar

Yes, option A sounds good to me. And the HTP-071 is a proper AV amp (VSX-321) plus some speakers, so would also be good.
That BCS-222 system, I wouldn't want. I don't like the idea of cramming the amplifier (lots of heat and big components) in with the blu-ray player. I know it's integrated, I know it takes up less space, but I'll bet the full systems above will sound better, and last longer.
Wireless streaming - I'd forget this to be honest, unless you buy a PS3. The BDP140 above will take a dongle to enable this - AS-WL200 - but I can't even find it in the UK and it's $90 in the US!
How about you buy the amp and speakers for now, while you decide whether you want wireless streaming? If you do want it, a second hand PS3 would be the way to go.

mouttou

almillar wrote: »

Yes, option A sounds good to me. And the HTP-071 is a proper AV amp (VSX-321) plus some speakers, so would also be good.
That BCS-222 system, I wouldn't want. I don't like the idea of cramming the amplifier (lots of heat and big components) in with the blu-ray player. I know it's integrated, I know it takes up less space, but I'll bet the full systems above will sound better, and last longer.
Wireless streaming - I'd forget this to be honest, unless you buy a PS3. The BDP140 above will take a dongle to enable this - AS-WL200 - but I can't even find it in the UK and it's $90 in the US!
How about you buy the amp and speakers for now, while you decide whether you want wireless streaming? If you do want it, a second hand PS3 would be the way to go.

Thank you everyone for all ur great advices.
I have now purchased the pioneer htp071 from richer sounds and a sony blu ray with built in wifi BDP S390 from argos, totalling a litlle above £300.

The guys at ricker sounds said that the above combination would be crap and i would need a seperate hifi if i need to listen to audio. I went with my instint of trusting you guys and went ahead and purchased it, and am happy with my pruchase :T and wanted to thank everyone, specially almiller, googler and inside insurance. The effect is not very great, but definitely is better than the sony bluray surround system that i tried earlier and far better than my old goodmans...and exactly serves my purpose. thanks again.

Almiller, can u pls help me further. If i need to improve on this setup, inorder to get better audio, do i need to connect a seperate audio player to this setup? if so can u pls suggest a cheap good one! I will put it down to xmas to upgrade.

Thanks again.:beer:

almillar

Hope you get years of enjoyment out of the system!
The first thing to do to get good sound, is position the speakers and sub correctly and use any setup aids there may be.
If you've got the Blu Ray player connected to it via HDMI (and you should) then you'll get a great picture and sound. Make sure the amp, blu-ray and TV are all set up correctly (for example, 1080p, 24p, no overscan, 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS enabled, and generally, any 'enhancements' switched off) and this will get you great sound, without spending a penny.
I don't know what kind of 'audio player' you're talking about. You've got an AM/FM tuner built in to it, the blu-ray player will play DVD and CD too, and has a USB port so you could plug a memory stick into it an play stacks of mp3s off it, so you're covered for most types of audio I can think of. Best way to improve sound would be to start upgrading the speakers, starting with front left and front right.

InsideInsurance

Left and Right are the most important to replace for stereo music but you should plan to upgrade the Centre to the matching one for the L&R fairly quickly after.

The front 3 handle the majority of the sound from movies and evidently a lot of things pan from one side to the other. Its thus important that these three speakers match each other tonally otherwise they wont integrate properly.

To exaggerate a little, at the worst you could hear a motorbike pan from left to right - starts sounding like a harley, changes to a moped as it goes to the centre channel and back to a harley as it goes off screen on the right.

In some cases it can be better to remove the centre channel after upgrading the fronts and allow the centre channel to be ghosted between the front 2 by the amp until you buy the matching centre.