Surround Sound on a SD TV

[thejushinator]

Hello everyone I have been thinking about purchasing a surround sound for my living room. I have a 35" SD TV, but will likely be getting a HDTV within the next year. I was looking in purchasing an adequate surround sound. I am by no means an audiophile, I have never had any kind of surround sound in my house or any kind of aftermarket speakers. Just looking for something with decent sound at a decent price. I dont need a 7.1 surround sound system with 20 speakers and 5000W power.

The main things I am looking for are:
1. Reliable
2. Capable of hooking up to my SD TV, but would also be able to hook up to a HD TV in the future (that is why I like that this one upconverts to 1080p)
3. Good sound, but not overkill for what I am looking for.


Here is the surround sound system I have been looking at:
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Home-T...roduct_top

If this doesn't look right for what I would like to do, anyone have any suggestions ?

Also, I have never hooked up a surround sound system, do they just hook into the red/white audio in the back of the TV then play surround sound from whatever is on the TV ?

[zodiac711]

Quote from thejushinator : Hello everyone I have been thinking about purchasing a surround sound for my living room. I have a 35" SD TV, but will likely be getting a HDTV within the next year. I was looking in purchasing an adequate surround sound. I am by no means an audiophile, I have never had any kind of surround sound in my house or any kind of aftermarket speakers. Just looking for something with decent sound at a decent price. I dont need a 7.1 surround sound system with 20 speakers and 5000W power. The main things I am looking for are: 1. Reliable 2. Capable of hooking up to my SD TV, but would also be able to hook up to a HD TV in the future (that is why I like that this one upconverts to 1080p) 3. Good sound, but not overkill for what I am looking for. Here is the surround sound system I have been looking at: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Home-T...roduct_top If this doesn't look right for what I would like to do, anyone have any suggestions ? Also, I have never hooked up a surround sound system, do they just hook into the red/white audio in the back of the TV then play surround sound from whatever is on the TV ?

There are a few key questions that I think need to be asked/answered:
1) Are you in an apartment or a house? I realize you don't need something over the top, but if you're in a house (where you can have a bit more depth to the noise, e.g.: subwoofer), it will enhance your viewing experience. If in an apartment, while not to say you can't have a sub, but clearly a much weaker sub.
2) How much are you looking to spend?
3) Do you just need sound, or are you also looking for a DVD/Blu-ray player as well?
4) Do you currently have any speakers, or truly looking to get something put together from scratch?
5) What will be your input source(s)? TV? DVD? Gaming?

If you're really wanting something on the small side, and not looking to spend too much, I'd setup a deal alert for ONKYO. I helped my sister pick a HTiB Onkyo refurb a while back for ~$110 shipped. It came with a receiver, 5 speakers, and sub. All-in-all, a great *small* and *inexpensive* 5.1 setup for watching DVD's and hooking up to Cable/Satellite. The audio quality isn't fantastic, but for the price, it absolutely couldn't be beat. In fact, I would go so far as to say anything <$300, this is probably your best bet -- picking up a refurb deal from the ShopOnkyo site.

If you were willing to spend a bit more money (and lived in a house), you might consider trying to pick-up some used gear on Craigslist... The caveat to this, is that you need to be ensure you're not overpaying.

Some folks might tell you to get something that allows you to feed your video signal to the receiver to then have it feed to the TV. In this price range, I do NOT recommend it. There is no reason for it. If you have cable, just use the white/red outputs to connect the audio to the receiver. For a DVD player, get a cheap digital coax or fiber cable (depending on the DVD player and the receiver) from monoprice.com, and use that for the audio connect, and whatever you're using for video (be it the yellow, S-Video cable, or component cable hookup).

Having a receiver that can support hooking up via HDMI, for some folks, is absolutely critical. Again, in this price range, I highly disagree.

Finally, back to the whole video thing... the only advantage that I'm aware of to have video run thru the receiver is for component switching... if you want to do this, just buy a Harmony remote -- make your life a lot easier.

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions. I'm not an expert, but do consider myself very knowledgeable nonetheless.

[Rebound]

That unit isn't the fanciest or top of the line, but you'll get the surround sound effects from it, especially with DVD's, which have 5 channel soundtracks.

If you really want to know, you'll have to try it to decide if it's loud enough and sounds good enough.

[zodiac711]

Quote from thejushinator : Here is the surround sound system I have been looking at: http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Home-T...roduct_top Also, I have never hooked up a surround sound system, do they just hook into the red/white audio in the back of the TV then play surround sound from whatever is on the TV ?

In taking a closer look at the system you're thinking about getting, I have one word for you: DON'T.

First, the speaker wires to connect the speakers to the system are using a proprietary plug for starters. While this makes for an easy connection, as it's propritaery, if you ever wanted to swap wires and/or speakers, you couldn't. Or, what happens if your wire somehow gets messed up (lets say the dog/cat eats it). You have a problem...

Second, based on the picture from Amazon, this does not have a digital coax/fiber input. While it does have an HDMI input, this is limiting. Yes, the receiver has a built-in DVD player. But, if you get two (or more of the following): Blu-Ray, PS3, XBOX360, HD Cable/Satellite; you'd only be able to hook one of these up for surround-sound.

Third, the Amazon specs do NOT mention anything about Dolby Digital 5.1 support. This is even worse than the above, as you won't be getting true surround-sound.

I did take a look at the user manual, which states it supports DD5.1, and also shows a picture for a digital coax connection.


Bottom line: I'd be *very* cautious about getting this unit -- I believe it's overpriced, and depending on it's feature set, will be very limiting for you.

Hooking up just the white/red audio cables will get you stereo sound, and the receiver can attempt to transcode this into 'surround' sound, but it (a) isn't true surround sound, and therefore (b) won't sound as good.

Right now looking at Shoponkyo, I don't see any good deals on refurb lower-end HTiB systems... but if you wait, they will come.

[thejushinator]

Thanks for all the help everyone, time to set up an alert for onkyo