Surround Sound for under £750

[pba_target]

Hey all, this is research on behalf of a friend on a budget

Seeking to replace an ageing denon receiver with a more modern one packing HDMI. TV is also middle aged, thus only has one HDMI input, so rather than replace the tv my advice was to get a receiver that did all the switching.

Essentially the options boil down to a seperates system or an all in one system. Requirements are as follows:

5x HDMI in (PS3, appleTV,Sky, Xbox & something else that I forget)

Relatively nice to look at (the "Mrs" test)

(Bonus points for wireless rear speakers due to rented house not having a good way of running cables to the surrounds)

My idea for a seperates system was an onk 608 with a set of Q Acoustics, which totals out at around £750 if bought ex-demo. That's right at the top end of their available budget. (Also consider the BA XS setup, but I haven't heard them before, I assume theyre decent enough being award winners, but mrs Friend is in to her "bassy" music....) and AFAIK there isn't a cheap product to get those bonus "wireless rears" out of the Q's. Anyone know of a discrete way of wiring along laminate flooring? Problem is the position of the tv is very central along the long wall of a long room, so to go around the edge would be an epic task, and the house is a rental, so the idea of digging bits up is a bit of a non-starter.

As for all-in-one's, I'm not really clued up on that area of the market. Most of the systems I've seen come with a limited number of HDMI in's. In addition, most of them are "built into" a BluRay player afaik, which kinda seems a waste as they're perfectly happy with the quality of the PS3 for movies.

Any thoughts on all in ones, or products that fit the spec?

 

[d4v3pum4]

If you want 5 HDMI inputs, then you are going to have to look at a separates based setup. I don't know of any all-in-ones that have anywhere near 5 but I suppose you could add an external switch that automatically switches between active sources but HDMI can be a pain sometimes so I personally would keep the 'chain' as short as possible and go with a separate AV receiver e.g. Yamaha RX-V767. As you said, you already have a bluray player in the PS3 which is a more than capable machine.

You could look at thin speaker cable and just use cable clips. Obviously these make holes so you would need to polyfilla them and paint over them when you leave. Another option would be something like the Ixos 233 flat cable which has an adhesive backing. I don't think it would damage anything when you remove it when it's time to leave but again, this could be fixed. A more neat and therefore permanent solution would be d-line conduit. Have you thought about asking your landlord for permission? Something like the d-line stuff looks pretty neat and I'm sure future tennants would be happy to use it, providing of course they're also AV nuts.

 

[d4v3pum4]

http://wireless-audio-products.co.uk/picture-gallery.php