No, a good receiver can deal with the sound and pass through the video from one cable. Now there is a school of thought that says it is always better to run video direct to TV and not passthrough (to minimize interference) but that is not established.
I was more concerned about the size of the components. For example, you can build a good surround system with speakers made by companies you probably haven't heard of. I've got a 7.1 surround setup with the 7 speakers made by HTD.com. They sound fine to me, but more importantly they sound better than speakers that cost more than they do at places like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. The subwoofer is where I didn't skimp - I did get an SVS cylinder. Honestly, if you're like many of us that aren't into several-thousand-dollar speakers, you'll be fine with the upgrade to speakers made by companies such as HDT.com, AV123.com, Hsu Research, or if you want to try something not quite sonically as good, but gets great reviews for their looks and performance, try orbaudio.com. If you have wall plates with gang boxes behind them in the wall for your surround speakers, you can buy a mount where you may have to do no cutting into the drywall to mount the speakers. Orb Audio was started by a guy that worked for Anthony Gallo and his speakers (roundsound.com), but they are priced nowhere near them. For the subwoofer, I wouldn't skimp. For me, the subwoofer, especially in action scenes is what gives you the theater feel. Good subwoofer manufacturers include Hsu Research, Velodyne, SVSound.com. If you can't swing for the price of these, some of the retail Infinity's I hear are pretty good. The good thing about many of these speaker companies above is that they have something like 30-day warranties. HTD is located in a warehouse near Dallas, Tx., so you can actually drive up here, listen to them (they'll let you), and take them home if you like them (provided you have enough room in your vehicle). This is what I did. For the receiver, no receiver gives you more bang-for-the-buck than Onkyo, IMO, but various Onkyos seem to have a higher failure rate than other manufacturers. There are some of their models that supposedly run a lot hotter. I just replaced my Pioneer 1014 (great receiver for its time) with a Denon 2809ci. Don't overspend on your receiver. Anywhere from $400-$600 should be good enough. Yamaha, Pioneer, and some Onkyos are good in this range. What size is your room this will be in? You can get away from giant towers in the fronts and use bookshelf speakers instead. I'm just worried about your kids knocking things over or even worse, on themselves. I'll let others talk about BluRay - I still don't think the bang-for-the-buck is there for me to buy one (unless the PS3 starts coming out with a lot of games I'd want to play... hehe).
I've never heard wireless speakers before, but what I've heard about them hasn't been good. You could just go with a 3.1 system, but you wouldn't have surround effects. I don't know how your room is laid out, but maybe you could put surrounds on stands next to the seating area and run the wires under the carpet?
I agree that you shouldn't overspend on anything. However, IMO, the reciever is the heart of your HT. You want to get something that offers enough power for all of your speakers, as well as providing the proper inputs for your components. I personally wouldn't spend the money on a receiver that supports HDMI 1.3 yet, especially since you are just starting out. I would however look for one that does offer HDMI inputs, especially since you do have an older TV which probably only has a single HDMI input, if one at all. As for the HDMI vs. optical audio, on paper HDMI has higher throughput, therefore can handle some of the new codecs supporting lossless audio. However, unless you are an audiophile, I doubt you would be able to hear it anyway. I personally love the Denon line of receivers, my 2 year old AVR-987 has been a beast. Just like any good infrastructure, start in the middle with your receiver and then build out. Whatever you do, do not but the all-in-one HT speaker setups. Check out Klipsch brand speakers, I love the way they sound.
You can get much better systems spending maybe $300-600 more. Those small speakers that are usually included with them are rip-offs in terms of sound - ultimately you can't defeat physics (although you can distort it a bit). This is why Bose is generally puked upon as nothing more than great marketing for average speakers. But if that's what you want, go for it - it could be a great starter set. There's nothing saying your first home theater setup has to be your final or the best you can ever afford. You can always upgrade in a few years. The way I see it is that your receiver will probably be what you upgrade first (maybe within 3-5 years?), but you can use speakers for a long time.
they aren't as good, but here is one that's recommended. http://www.hometheatermag.com/hometheaterinabox/1008panahtib/
The bottom line is do not buy low quality home theater in the box stuff. A system with 3 quality speakers and no sub will sound better than a 5.1 in a box system. The reciever will also have much more future capability. The speakers I linked on eBay are really good.
Your posts are very helpful. I'm doing some reading of the various links and will report back on conclusion. I brought up the whole theater in a box because it's a nonthinking/lazyish solution, if performance is roughly equal. It's clear to me from the comments here that that's not the way to go and not the way I want to go.
the room is decently large - say 18 feet in depth, so there's plenty of distance to mess around with. I think the couch is 12 feet from the tv. I'm concerned about the kids knocking down the speakers (particularlymy 2 yr old boy that apparently thinks he is NFL bound) on themselves. Anything so the speakers will probably need to be mounted on the wall or bookshelf variety.
this looks very doable. I'm somewhat shocked at the low price for the refurished speakers. I'm still reading . . . question for all: I got some bad advice on the placement of rear speaker wire outlets. For some reason, the person that did that for my house placed them in a place that I find odd. How hard is it to move pre_wired wire to another place that's more suitable? I imagine it's a matter of getting into the sheetrock on the ceiling and finding where it ran.
I'm probably skipping the bluRay for now, like you I won't buy unless there's gaming or somehting else along with it. I'm pushing through some of those sites. what say you about the infinity refurbished bookshelf speakers that fmullegun linked to? Appreciate the thoughts a lot.
you are in houston right? you go to modia (home theater store ) and listen to the B&W 300 series its a very high end brand, but these are the budget speakers http://www.modia.com/B-W-DM303-2-Way-Vented-Bookshelf-Speaker-p/dm303.htm here's the review: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_1/b&w-series-300-speakers-1-2002.html
I've heard good things about the Infinity Betas in that they are a great bang-for-the-buck, but I haven't listened to them, so I can't really comment. You may want to head over to avsforum.com and search their forums for posts about them. That forum will overload your noggin' if you stay there too long...
these are also pretty good if you do not like the infinity betas. eBay link I have Infinity Beta 50's all the way around (except for a center channel that I bought before I knew any better) and they are great. Mine were new though the box had never been opened. I have been buying from the Harmon Outlet for about 11 years now and only twice did I get something that looked like a refurb where I could tell it had been even opened. YOu might think about taking a listen to the ones Tinman suggested also. If you feel better about buying them in a store and seeing them first.
To the OP, I would take three things into consideration and recommending a few other things: 1. Make sure you have PLENTY OF INPUT locations on the receiver. You don't want to end up with a seXbox 360, a PS3, a Wii, and a VCR without a connection when you come home with a system that only has a hookup for your TV and DVD player. 2. Look for the high-end connections on your receiver, to consider if you're going to go higher in quality in connections with your current TV or your next TV. I think that if you are planning to stay with the current TV, you don't need HDMI on your receiver. Optical should be good enough, and it shouldn't cost you a fortune. 3. Consides "sound" companies' products like Yamaha, Pioneer, Harman Kardon and others that make better "sound" products than, for example, Sony, Samsung, or Hitachi. They will have better components inside their receivers and will have the best output to their speakers. Do you mind posting the model of your TV and your DVD player? That could help out determining if you have good outputs to take into consideration I second this. I can do OPTICAL from my TV to my surround sound, and that's as high as it will go. I have no HDMI on my sound receiver, but I go from a PS3 and my U-Verse to my TV with HDMI, and output to the receiver with Optical. I was all " " this past weekend when I got a call from a friend whose receiver was as good as mine, but he only had the YELLOW and RED and WHITE RCA connections to make from his TV/DVD/VCR/Uverse to the receiver because he didn't want to spend money on Optical/Component/DigitalCoax for his connections. I recommended spending about $35 at Wal-Mart for some cheap component cables just to improve the image a little. I'm hoping he calls me back...
I have this one and can tell you I'm very happy with it...Easy set up, sounds fantastic and once my reciever in my bedroom dies, I'll be upgrading to higher-end Onkyo model... As for speakers, I've been very happy with my JBL speakers in a box...Just make sure you get a powered subwoofer...I believe their 100 - 150 watts, but I can't remember...Actually, those are my newer ones in my bedroom as I still have my older satellite JBL's in my living room...I think I paid $250 - $400
I'll post the tv and DVD model when I get home. Thanks a bunch. All I know is that it is better than the old inputs that I used to use in college to hook up my nintendo to play Techmo football. Seriously, I know we use the red/green/blue trio of wires to hook up the HD cable box. (Uverse not available in my area yet; too lazy to switch to satellite). I doubt there's a hdmi jack. I'm not sure if there's something in between.
I would wait a month or two before purchasing anything. I have a feeling you will be able to get some insane deals. Don't be afraid to look on audiogon either!
use the optical cable from your bluray player to your receiver for the audio portion. you can pick up Monster brand optical (toslink) cables at frys for $9.99
