Total noob to home cinema, I have questions...

Vidar

Vidar

Vidar

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Hi Guys,

So I currently have a Samsung 55" Q6 QLED that's in painful need of upgrade. I have a Samsung Harmon Kardon HW-Q80R Soundbar, subwoofer and the matching 2 wireless surround speakers.

I use my PS5, mostly for media consumption and I have my PC as a plex server.

I want to upgrade my experience, being disabled and mostly housebound, other than gaming on the PC when I can, Movies and shows are Important to me.

I was thinking initially about building a low power HTPC with a disc drive so I could play my steelbook collection etc but that doesn't really seem to be a thing anymore with a shift towards gaming.

From what I can see on here and youtube etc, the meta appears to be a dedicated media player like the Nvidia Sheild Pro, a NAS and an AVR with speakers. Ripping physical media and storing it on the nas.

So my main question is, would there be any benefit to me doing this? Could I get a much better experience, beyond getting a better TV?

My Samsung sound system is the only thing I'm not interested in replacing as it sounds amazing to me. Would an AVR bring it up a level or should I think about upgrading this as well?

What setup would you guys recommend? If I do this it will be in stages, and while I don't have a set budget in mind I also don't want to overspend. Also which component do I get first, other than the TV?
 
Avr and 5.1 or more will give better movie experience. How many speakers depends on budget room size , shape and how far you want go

Minimum is 2.0 all way up 9.4.6 or even more

Since you're gaming you'll want hdmi 2.1 capable avr so you get 4k 120hz. If your TV supports it

Cheapest but good enough system could be wharfedale diamond 5.1 system about £500 and avr probably about £450 or so. Add another £100 on cables connectors etc.

What is your budget?
 
Sorry pal, I don't have a budget in mind. I'm just putting feelers out to get an idea if it's worth me doing or not. That said, I'm not averse to paying up to get the best bang for buck experience
 
I'd just rip everything to PC personally and if you want to upgrade your cinema experience consider adding some sync lighting.

Seems like you have money to burn and just want to spend it.
 
This is a massively open question and especially so without a budget - you'll get recommendations for anything from a new TV to building a dedicated cinema room. Even an indication of whether you're talking £2500 all in or £10,000 all in, will give people a steer on roughly what you're looking for. After that, consider if you want a decent lounge setup - something that gives a good experience but is a lounge first and a media room second (and whether you have adjoining neighbours to be worrying about) or if you're after a dedicated room for media consumption where function takes priority over form.

TV - an obvious candidate for an upgrade - you could go OLED which will be a nice quality upgrade for a 'decent lounge' setup. If you're thinking bigger, a room dedicated to media, maybe a chunk spent on a short throw projector and screen would provide a big wow factor through sheer screen size.

Sound - for 'decent lounge' it's probably OK as it is. You can't really add just an AVR into the mix, that'd be the start of a whole new system, which would be worth considering if you were tending more to 'dedicated media room'. If you go that avenue, you're looking at an AVR, front and rear speakers, centre speaker, sub(s), height speakers etc.

Media storage - this is more of a 'usability' thing and probably the area to focus on, as it seems a usability improvement is high on your list of priorities. I'm perfectly happy throwing discs in a player and using a few streaming services, so others will give a much better steer here.

Lastly, don't let @hornetstinger get too excited or you'll have THX on the phone by the end of the month wanting to use your house as a reference technology showcase :p
 
I'd start with upgrading your TV, your sound system is perfectly decent. Get the biggest TV or projector you can while maintaining quality, so something like an OLED. You might be perfectly happy to settle after that, home theatre setups can spiral into being insanely costly so I'd not dive into the rabbit hole unless you're legitimately unhappy with what you have.
 
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@hornetstinger Thank you for the responses pal, the reason I didn't have a set budget as I was thinking a long the lines of buying a new TV, 6 to 12 months later buying the next bit of kit and so on. But, I see your point so let's say as I haven't won the Euromillions yet, I have a budget of around £5,000.00 after buying a new TV.

I'm looking at the LG OLED65C34LA at the moment.

@Kenai Thank you for such a detailed response, there's a lot of food fir thought there.

First of all, I don't have the space for a dedicated media room. That would be awesome though. So this is a lounge set up.

My bungalow is detached, so annoying the neighbours isn't too much of a consideration, but my internal walls are only plasterboard and frame so upsetting the missus and kids while they're sleeping is an issue.

Apart from the physical difficulties I have getting up and down change discs, I do love my physical media and have a steadily increasing library of steelbooks and 4k blu rays so was thinking about a dedicated player as opposed to using my PS5. But then I don't want to risk scratching up the precious lol so a dedicated jellyfin server seems appropriate.Though I can't get the player on my PS5 for that so do I need something like the shield pro or will the new tv suffice?
 
£5000 should get you a decent surround system.

Typically minimum is 5.1 but can go 5.2. or 7.1 or 7.2 or 5.1.2 or 5.1.4 whether 5.1 or want Atmos

Getting whole shebang 9.2.4 means speaker budget will be stretched, and need a higher end avr.

So lesser number of speakers but better quality and or 9.2.4 but lesser quality.

Good idea to have a demo of a few speaker brands.

As for sub there's sealed and ported sub also.
 
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X2

That's 3.2 system as start so will need surrounds and rears maybe heights as well
 
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