I agree with pretty much everything above. However, I would caution a LOT more strongly against the single speaker, sound bar solution.
Short Version:
It won't work in his setup anyways. These sound bars work by reflecting the surround sound channels off of walls and by applying delay to simulate that it's coming from the rear/sides, etc.. They are missing key walls from thier room layout so I can't see a sound bar ever working there. They are almost impossible to calibrate in a plain old square room.
Long version:
I have been in two homes now where these have been installed.
In the first home, the surround effects were obviously still coming from up front. We spent a couple of hours fidgeting with the aim of the different drivers, the timing delays and scratching our heads with the manual trying to reproduce a surround effect that actually felt like it came from the sides or rear. All it did was make surround effects sound, well.... peculiar. No go. He took it back to the store.
The second house had it installed and calibrated by the stores audio pro. I still could not detect any sound coming from a 'suround' angle. Maybe on extremely high pitched effects but to me it seemed more like an echo of the original sound from the front. Made it sound worse than if it just plainly came from the front. Might have been a delay problem but I wasn't touching his "professionally calibrated' system as he was very proud of it. I did my best to appear positive and not spoil his fun.
Both systems were very lacking in bass. This is to be completely expected considering the tiny little drivers in the bar. Both had a sub but in at least the first house, it was connected to the LFE channel and his cheap 'all in one' receiver didn't allow him to play with the crossover setting. Second house was a bit better but as Tom said, the bass wasn't natural as the sub was doing the work where it shouldn't be. It kept drawing my eyes down to the sub when there was a bit of bass in a scene. Very distracting.
Separate components absolutely are the way to go. here are my two votes, inline with Tom's an in no particular order.
Option 1
Spend your budget on cheap but decent reciever (Tom's example was good), a cheap but decent upscaling DVD player (dirt cheap these days) and spend every other cent left in your budget on the best pair of main speakers you can buy. Of all the items you buy, the speakers make the biggest difference in sound quality. The two main speakers work the hardest of all so they should be the best you can afford in order to give you the most "wow" factor.
Then save up for a decent sub. (or throw it in with the mains as Tom suggested.) A good sub can turn the worst action movie into a whole new exiting experience. Then save up for some surround speakers. Surround effects are a lot of fun but I think I have come to agree with Tom. Many producers do a poor job of adding surround effects into their movies. Some movies just have hardly any effects at all. It's a lot of fun when you hit a movie with lots of surround action but I'm often disappointed by the lack thereof.
Leave the center channel for last. It anchors the speech and other directly front sounds to the middle of your screen where they belong. A good set of mains will naturally do this on thier own as long as you are sitting near the middle of the room, left to right. If you are way off to the side, the center is a big help but that's where you sit the guests and they often never notice. heh heh.
Other option.
Get into surround sound and subwoofer style bass right off the bat. An entry level HTIB is not a bad thing for someone who can't afford a top of the line sounding system right off the bat. I usually explain to people why bigger is better but having even a low end surround sound system is a lot more fun than having none at all.
JUST MAKE SURE IT IS A KIT THAT LETS YOU UPGRADE LATER!. A 5.1 suround sound speaker only set, might be the ticket. That way you can buy a receiver that will be more likely to let you upgrade everything else in the future. OR go for a complete HTIB solution that actually includes a separate receiver of a half decent quality. That way, it's still an easy to buy package but the speakers can easily be upgraded later. I have read some nice things about the Denon and Onkyo HTIB kits. Both have nice entry level receivers and some decent speakers (for the 'satellite' category.) Both should be around the 500 - 600 dollar mark, I think. The Onkyo system might not include a player, can't remember, but a good player is dirt cheap these days.
Gets you started with lots of room to grow, when you get there, and you will!
Final comment, or lack thereof. I didn't get into the room shape at all but I'm betting that you and your wife can figure out an unobtrusive place to fit those surrounds. Especially since I am quit sure a suround speaker bar will never work properly in that layout.
Last edited by Murph; 03/25/08 05:35 PM.
