5.1 Digital Surround Sound?

Question

I'm completely new to the digital sound system world. I would like to know how to I gauge each sound system in order to tell which one is better at producing loud, clean, precise sound that has little distortion.

Also, How do I gauge the power of the overall system and each individual speakers power.

Answer 1

What you want it dependent on the size of your room, but if money is no object, anything over 1000 watts for a 5.1 system is good.  The higher the wattage, the better the sound.  You want something with dolby digital 5.1 decoding so you can get true surround.  

I recommend sony, or bose (if you don't mind paying 3 grand)

Answer 2

Avoid (Blows) Bose, poor midrange sound.

Answer 3

first off need to know what kind of room your working with and what your budget is. the available tech on the market is so vast that those two items have to be narrowed down to answer this question acurately. to know which sound system is best for your is going to come down to your needs from the system. what will this system be powering, how many components, what type of display, are there any game consoles, do you want 5.7 or 7.1. is this going to be a dedicated system or will it be controlling multiple rooms?

as far as gauging the sound system, you are going to have to listen to them, demo them in your own home, and see which one sounds best to you and suits your needs.

p.s. stay away from sony

Answer 4

Generally, actually listening to the systems is going to tell you what kind of sound you are going to get. Wattage isn't everything as there are many different ways to rate the wattage of a system.

"Home theater in a box" type systems will easily be rated at over 1,000 total watts, but their sound could be infinitely worse than a dedicated audio receiver with "only" 600 watts.

If you are familiar with older sound systems, not much has changed in terms of how systems are rated. A system with a low total harmonic distortion, high wattage, and 8 ohm speakers with high sensitivity are going to generally give you good sound. Again, I would listen to them because the numbers aren't everything. It would be like purchasing a car and only buying based on the horse-power. Sure it might tell you how fast the car might be able to go, but what about if the car is noisy or the seats are uncomfortable. Not everything can be summed up with a quantitative measure.

Again generally, I would actually stay away from Bose or Sony unless you are limited on space. Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon and the other dedicated audio brands are going to give you better sound than the larger multi-dimensional companies.