Help picking home theater equipment?

Question

I am going to purchase a home theater in the next month but i have no idea what brands are any good can somebody recommended some good solid systems. Like what type of receiver and speakers to buy. I need to be able to play music with it, plug it into my HD TV, watch DVDs, and listen to the radio. Im looking to spend about 1500 bucks on the system.

Answer 1

For speakers systems, you need a 5.1 system, which means you need 3 front speakers (left, center and right) left surround and right surround plus a subwoofer. I recommend Monitor Audio, PSB, Paradigm, Infinity, JBL, Definitive Technology and others. I will attach speaker recommendations from Home Theater Magazine. Choose any of the brands it recommends and they usually have a smaller or lower priced line that will fit your budget.

I would not recommend Bose. Please read this article on Bose speakers:

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

http://www.hometheatermag.com/buyersguid...

Monitor Audio review:

http://www.monitoraudiousa.com/product.p...

Infinity Speaker systems:

http://hometheatermag.com/compactspeaker...

For receiver: get an Onkyo, Denon, Yamaha or Marantz. Onkyo tends to be the cheapest of this group, but sometimes you can get the rest of the brands on sale. You can buy a receiver from any Circuit City or Best Buy in SF.

The speakers on the other hand, you need to work on checking out Hifi stores in SF. There wont be discounts on those but speakers are tremendouly important. You can check out PSB at

http://www.audiovisionsf.com/?page=louds... in SF, they sell those speakers for $169 to $199 each.

Infinity and JBL you can buy online and regular electronic stores.

I do not recommend Bose speakers, please read this article:

http://www.intellexual.net/bose.html

Answer 2

You have plenty of options, just don't waste your money on Bose.  Skepticb gave a nice rundown - I'd add that you can do a lot better by spending the majority of your money on the front three speakers.  Speakers are subjective so listen to as many as you can.  Small speakers (like Bose) just won't cut it for music.

Answer 3

Oh wow!

Here's what i TOTALLY RECOMMEND (especially for around $1500)

These BOSE speakers sound AWESOME!!! They really do sound like you're in a movie theater!!

http://www.bose.com/controller?event=VIE...

And I recommend this Yamaha receiver. And if you plan to get XM for it, it's XM ready and it has a spot for your iPod. And YES you can plug in your DVD player, HDTV, PS3, etc.

http://www.yamaha.com/yec/products/produ...