What's a Good, Cheap Home Theater Audio Setup?

Check out Onkyo, Polk Audio or Samsung home theather systems at your favorite electronics store, they may have something in your budget that will suit your taste.

Go to the home theater showroom and try them out yourself. Put them through the rigors of your viewing/listening habit/pleasure. You can even bring in your favorite bluray/dvd movie to make sure that you get what you’re looking for.

JVC and JBL are also worth looking at.

Polk.
They’re all over cheap economy.

You can’t go wrong with Bose Acoustimass 6 it is one of the best systems for the price usually if you also buy the Amp you’ll get an additional $100 off !! Or you might try Boston Acoustic ,,,,Great sound but the Sub Woofer looks like a upside down trash can !
Polk Audio is a good brand but some of them have a F* up weird set-up,,,,where the front speaker are hooked up in tandem with the sub-woofer !???

Personally, I’ve had good luck with my old Phillips home theater. It was under $200, has 5.1 with plug-in speakers (no bare wire-ends in spring-clamps! And they’re color-coded too :) ), and the USB port on the front allows for other fun stuff to happen.

@dweekly

Onkyo in my opinion.

@jerv I’d figured U would build your own!
*By the way everyone that was my bro with all the 411 on home THX!

@Pretty_Lilly If I actually wanted to rattle the building, I would. However, there are times when off-the-shelf is good enough. That, and I am getting a little lazy in my old age ;)

Home audio equipment goes on sale frequently, and when on sale, is up to 50–70% off normal prices. Unless you absolutely must buy right now, it’s worth figuring out what you like AND watching for “deals” online.

I generally like Paradigm, PSB, and other inexpensive speaker-focused companies for speakers; a 5.1 set, or a 5.0 set with separate (optional, potentially unmatched) subwoofer would be where I’d put $150–350. Paradigm Cinema 90 is a pretty good option.

For receiver, an audio-video receiver would be much more convenient than an audio only amp (“integrated amplifier”, or separate pre-amp and power amp; these are more common for audiophile stereo systems than for home theater). Good models include Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon, Pioneer; something in the $250–450 price range is optimal. You want 1080p video switching on HDMI, to allow the PS3 and thus BluRay to display in HDMI on an LCD/Plasma TV with HDMI input, presumably.

You can get an iPod dock for most AVRs, including Onkyo and Denon.

For Pandora playback, I’d go with a Squeezebox, or with a home theater PC (which you may already have). Sonos is the high end option; an Apple Airport Express with airtunes + airfoil would be the low-end option, if you’re a Mac person especially.

Absolutely avoid overpaying on cables; check out monoprice for HDMI cables if you need them.

Assuming you need a TV, 46” LCD 1080p sets are $500–700 on sale for CCFL from last year, or $700–1000 for LED-backlit LCD from now. I’m not sure if that was part of your needs.

I have a simple phillips surround sound stereo system. It was a present, but I can’t imagine it was more than 300 bucks. Works great for me!

I forgot to mention that mine came with an iPod dock as well.