It was a bit of a journey (and budget creep) to be honest, so this is a bit of a big post. I originally intended just to get a decent 2.0 setup and build from there, rather than a budget 5.1 that would ultimately end up being replaced in full because my living room is fairly big due to the higher ceilings, approx. 64m³ in volume. But as I was warned, the bug bit hard...
- AVR: Denon X1800H | it's modern and comes with a microphone to calibrate it automatically.
- Front L/R: Dali Oberon 5 (Walnut) | Dali have wide dispersion, which is good for a regular living room. The sound is warm and rich and with the lower frequency being rated as 39Hz I found that they handled the bass nicely.
- Centre: Dali Zensor Vokal (Walnut) | I wasn't digging having a phantom centre, so I got this used and it's essentially the previous version of the Oberon, so the sound signature is essentially the same (important for front L/R/C to be the same). This really enhanced dialogue and you have full control over its volume, EQ settings etc to really bring out the clarity.
- Surround L/R: Dali Oberon 1 (Walnut) | Perhaps overkill as surrounds and these could happily be front left and right if paired with a subwoofer.
- Subwoofer: BKE XLS300-FF | This is where things get interesting and you can get to frequencies that you feel vibrating through you rather than hear, just like the cinema. It also takes pressure off the rest of the speakers in the more demanding lower frequencies (you can manually set the crossovers) and allows them to open up in the mid and high range for more clarity and a richer sound.
The biggest mistake I made was with the centre speaker. With movies I believe it handles like 70%+ of the heavy lifting, so I shouldn't have scrimped with this. I'm currently looking for a used Dali Opticon Vokal Mk2 but that will mean a furniture upgrade as well. There's a bit of a learning curve with some of the settings, but there's tons of help out there and you can play around until you are happy with the results.
The Denon X1800H is very good value at £404 new from Peter Tyson and I've struggled to see any of them used at a better price or much else used that would be a big enough saving to make it worth going used for the AVR.
Speaker wise, if the priority is dialogue clarity then certainly in my case a 2.0 wasn't good enough and it had to be a 3.0 minimum (as in front left, right and centre and no subwoofer). But considering your budget, you would probably have to look at bookshelves but mind to factor in the cost of stands. Then add a centre. At the very least, I reckon you'll need at least an £800 budget, but be prepared to want more soon after!
Back to soundbars, as said the Samsung higher end ones seem to get rave reviews from owners and I've seen some amazing Black Friday deals with them. I think they also do cash back offers as well, which can really help drive the cost down. I've seen some good things said about the Samsung Q930D, which you can get new for about £630 and comes with wireless rear speakers, saving all the cable management but still giving you extra immersion. I would thoroughly check reviews and owner experiences with soundbars though and if possible try and demo to see what dialogue is like.
If there's a wife approval factor in the mix, here's what my fronts currently look like and it only just got my wife onboard. It's a working living room with a lot of furniture, so they aren't ideally positioned, but as said they have wide dispersion so they sound good in most seating positions (there's also a chair to the left off camera).
Hope this helps and good luck whichever route you take. My knowledge and experience is limited, but if there's anything else please feel free to ask.
