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I was hoping I could get some advice. I have a HDTV and a Bluray player and want to get some surround sound speakers going but am unsure as to what I need exactly. I don't want anything particularly fancy, just a better sound experience. Budget £250-500 pounds ish, any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Neil
 

professorhat

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Dec 28, 2007
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Hi Neil,

With that budget, you basically have two routes you can go down. You can either:

(a) Get a separates system. For yourself, this would consist of a separate AV receiver and speaker package since you already have a Blu-Ray player. AV receivers in your budget can be found here, here, and some here and here (as some will now be less than the WHF advertised price as they are bit older now). Given you have a Blu-Ray, it's best to look for one which can decode the HD audio formats of Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio - most will now, but some budget ones leave this out so it's definitely worth checking. Probably the best at this price range at the moment is the Sony STR-DH810 - it can handle these HD audio formats and it's also 3D capable so it's as fully future proof as you can currently get. The separate speaker package could either be a full size speaker package (which consists of larger speakers, but gives better overall sound for the money) or what's known as a style speaker package (where the speakers are smaller and easier to fit into the living room, at the expense of the overall sound though). An example of a standard speaker package in your budget would be this, or a style package could be this. The benefit of this route is, it's easier to upgrade one part of the system later if you decide you want something better and it is also more flexible. AV receivers have lots of inputs meaning you should be able to connect virtually any other device you buy easily into the surround system (e.g. Sky or Virgin TV or a games console). The downside is, it will max out your budget and it is a bit more complex to setup (though there is help here and you can always post a question on the forums on anything you're not sure about - plenty of people can help you with these sorts of things here).

(b) You can get what's known as an all-in-one system. This will likely also have a Blu-Ray player built into it which you don't need, though there are some systems which just include the amplifier unit and speakers together. Examples in your budget are this and this. The benefit of these are they are fairly simple to setup and are less bulky and easier to fit in a standard living room. However, most only have two or three inputs, meaning you may be limited if you ever want to connect another device into the surround setup, and if you ever want to upgrade, you'd need to upgrade everything in one big go, you can't just upgrade separate components as you could the separates route above.

I hope that gives you an overview of your main choices, once you've decided between these two routes, it's easier to start breaking it down into what actual components you should listen to on the route to deciding what you should you buy.
 
A

Anonymous

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Thank you very much for your advice! That's perfect
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