5.1 Surround Sound System

Steedie · 29 Dec 2012 at 16:26

Hey all,

Looking for a dedicated surround sound system, 5.1. I've been around the major high street stores today but every system on the market today seems to include a Blu-ray/DVD player. I have a fantastic Blu-ray player already, plus I wouldn't want a combination of the two anyway (even though I appreciate it's more convenient), I just want an amp with some nice speakers

Other than that, the only criteria I have are relatively small speakers, I don't want huge stand speakers that a lot of the systems seem to come with now and not hugely expensive, around £200 would be great.

I know £200 won't get the best in the world, but I live in a ground floor flat so can't ever really have it too loud anyway, I just can't stand my built in speakers any longer

As always, much appreciated!

Cheers

Nick1881 · 29 Dec 2012 at 17:05

A soundbar might be your best bet with that budget. Unless you can find a secondhand bargain AV amp and pick up a couple of cheap speakers for now, you can add the other 3 later when you have more funds.

Rambo89 · 29 Dec 2012 at 17:46

I got one of these last month for my living room :

http://www.richersounds.com/product/1-box-home-cinema-systems/yamaha/yht196/yama-yht196

Got my PS3, WDTV Live and Sky hooked up via HDMI, sky needs an optical cable for 5.1 though, works perfect and great sound, wouldnt say it is that loud either, hope this helps, any questions ask away.

lucid · 29 Dec 2012 at 17:55

Steedie said:
Hey all,

Looking for a dedicated surround sound system, 5.1. I've been around the major high street stores today but every system on the market today seems to include a Blu-ray/DVD player. I have a fantastic Blu-ray player already, plus I wouldn't want a combination of the two anyway (even though I appreciate it's more convenient), I just want an amp with some nice speakers

Other than that, the only criteria I have are relatively small speakers, I don't want huge stand speakers that a lot of the systems seem to come with now and not hugely expensive, around £200 would be great.

I know £200 won't get the best in the world, but I live in a ground floor flat so can't ever really have it too loud anyway, I just can't stand my built in speakers any longer

As always, much appreciated!

Cheers

Have you seen the Onkyo HTX-22HDX? It's a bit of a mouthful to be sure but it could be right up your street. Ordinarily it would be out of your price range. But I have seen some used ones for sale recently here in the members market and also at AV Forums in their classified section.

Alternatively, there are AV amp + speaker packages starting at less than £200 which will use your existing Blu-ray player as a source. The Yamaha YHT196 doesn't do HD audio decoding directly, but that's not a big issue since your Blu-ray player can decode the HD sound instead.

Steedie · 29 Dec 2012 at 18:19

Rambo89 said:
I got one of these last month for my living room :

http://www.richersounds.com/product/1-box-home-cinema-systems/yamaha/yht196/yama-yht196

Got my PS3, WDTV Live and Sky hooked up via HDMI, sky needs an optical cable for 5.1 though, works perfect and great sound, wouldnt say it is that loud either, hope this helps, any questions ask away.

That actually looks perfect! I'll look into that, thanks!

Lucid that Onkyo looks good, I know they're decent too, my dad has an Onkyo, a lot more expensive but I know that they make good kit