Help requested selecting new Home Cinema / HiFi system

[chillychrisy]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum and looking for some help and advice. I have posted the same request in both the "HiFi" and "Home Cinema" sections.

We have a great new Samsung Smart TV and DVD Player but (not unsurprisingly) find the sound a little weak. We are therefore looking for a STYLISH (and ideally silver colour) Home Cinema system for general TV viewing and watching DVD's.
However, we also want to use the same system as a HiFi for both playing CD's but also (mainly) for playing music from our extensive iTunes library. It would be great if the TV were able to show visuals of the iTunes library to assist browsing but this is not essential.

At this stage, we are thinking about buying Apple TV + a Samsung SoundBar with SubWoofer but are concerned that the sound will neither be good enough quality nor loud enough for playing music.

We have a budget of around £500.

Thanks in anticipation for some help and assistance

 

[Leeps]

If you want to enjoy music, I wouldn't recommend a soundbar at the price point you're looking at. Visually they may be acceptable domestically and they may be popular but you're buying it for the sound right? I think in the (near) future, the soundbar fashion will demise when people realise how much better sounds can be had for the same dosh.

Couple of suggestions to consider;

Q Acoustics Q-BT3 - active speakers @ £400. You could purchase something like a Marantz CD5004 for CD spinning from Richer Sounds which might just take you a smidgen over budget, but these speakers throw in a wireless ability if that interests you.

Or...

Marantz M-CR603 & some Q Acoustics 2020i speakers. This system can do pretty much anything (CD, streamer, Airplay, Tuner & digital inputs into the amp all in one box) except gapless playback. It's newer but much pricier successor plugs that hole.

Both will comfortably outperform similarly priced soundbars.

 

[mr malarky]

I would echo leeps' advice about steering clear of soundbars - on a £ for £ basis a full receiver and speaker set up will always outperform them for sound quality so they should only be considered if room set up or a pathological allergy to speakers rules out a full 5.1(+) set up.

do you have any scope to stretch the budget a little?

£700 and some shopping around could get you yamaha's RX-V375 or pioneers VSX-922, and tannoy's HTS 101 5.1 speaker set.

 

[mr malarky]

Home AV Direct are offering the Yamaha and the tannoy's as a package for £599 - not used that site before but looks like a cracking deal!