Best Kit for £2500 - BOSE AND PIONEER - PLEASE READ.

[admin_exported]

Hi i'm new to this site and was wondering what kit I could get for a budget of £2500.

Items I require are a 42inch TV and good sound system to go with. no need to be 5.1 but just want great sound.

I will be using it for Sky HD, Xbox 360 and PS3 so will need to have all the right imputs for those.

The items that I had in mind were the Pioneer PDP4280XD TV and Bose 3-2-1 DVD home entertainment system but to be honest i havent really got a clue what i'm looking for. I have just seen these in store and liek both. the pioneer isn't 1080p which i'm told is bad! - is this right?

Is there anything else out there at the moment for £2500 which would tend to all my requirments or anything that is better value for money. Also is this the right kind of set up that i would need or should i look at amps and seperate speakers etc!?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks

2jabs

 

[Anonymous]

Hmmmm... £2500..... First things first.... stop looking at the Bose systems. My personal oppinion, FWIW, Bose are pants and will not give you good stereo sound... the only advantage being really really small satellites that can be hidden away. I think others on this forum will agree with me about staying away from them. Nice choice with the Pioneer, but have you thought about going for a Panasonic like the TH-42PX70? It has won awards and would save you a bit of money to spend on other decent AV kit. I would then go for a decent amp such as the Onkyo SR605 (£400) or SR705 (£600) which have also won a bunch of awards this year. You mention that you want "great sound". I would say that you definately need bookshelf or floor standers for great sound, especially in stereo, because the style packages tend to lack the same amount of presence unless you increase the budget. Have a look at the Monitor Audio AV packs (around £675 - £800 depending where you go), Tannoy Mercury F1s, Q acoustic 1010i's and then the KEF 2005 or 3005SE's if you need smaller speakers. With your source, a Marantz DV6001 (£250 from Richer Sounds) should do the trick for your normal DVDs and your CDs. As for the ongoing format war, i wouldn't bother with anything too extravagant HD or Bluray wise until later in the year when there is a better idea as to who is going to come out on top. So by my calculations, if you go for the Pana, SR605 and Mon Audio BR2AV with a DV6001 player, that would be about £2150, depending where you go.... leaving plenty left over for a decent AV stand, some decent speaker wires and interconnects. I think I've given enough of my thoughts, anyone else want a go??

 

[Anonymous]

thanks for the info pal, must appreciated, will start to have a look online for prices etc. so what about the 1080p stuff though?

 

[John Duncan]

Agreed on the Bose. Could barely listen to it in a friend's house, was like a transistor radio. Though they do several models in the 321 range, can't speak for which one it was.

Can't speak for the rest of the gear, am out of touch on that side.

 

[Andrew Everard]

The Pioneer isn't 1080p, agreed, but it does look fab. A lot fabber than many a 1080p set, in fact.

Personally I wouldn't rule out the Bose 3-2-1 - having tested it in various forms, rather than just listening to the hearsay, I reckon it's pretty good for what it is, even though its not state of the art in pure specification terms.

If you're looking for a compact 2.1 system of this kind, it's worth looking at the Denon S-series models, the Sony DAV-X10 and the new Onkyo LS-V501 - though with the last of these I might be tempted to buy just the main unit and partner it with a pair of decent bookshelf/standmount speakers and a subwoofer, rather than buying the complete package with the standard speakers.