Are you ready for this?
I think you are a bit limited by the budget, but I`m sure you can get something together. Seperates will give you better sound quality, and allow you to upgrade at a later date without junking the whole thing.
First of all, do you have a CD player already, or will you use the LG DVD player to play them too? DVD players tend not to be brilliant at playing CDs - well, certainly comapred with a dedicated CD player they`re not, anyway. I`m sure it will be fine, though - I use our Cyberhome DVD player as a CD player in our "baby" system room. Some DVD players do better than others - the Toshiba 220 is one - the Sony ?700 another (and it plays SACDs too) - worth considering as an upgrade later, perhaps?
Right, amplifier. If you listen to the radio, consider getting a receiver (i.e. an amp with tuner built in). The majority of AV amps these days actually seem to be receivers.
Over the past year there has been a slew of new models out, boasting the latest decoding technology - this being Prologic2 plus DD EX and DTS ES. I think these models are going to out of your budget. Don`t worry too much - Prologic2 makes a fine job of making stereo soundtracks (i.e. TV/VCR films) into pseudo 5.1 surround sound, but it`s hardly essential. DD (Dolby Digital) EX and DTS (Digital Theatre Sound) ES have extra rear surround channel(s) - again nice but not the end of the world. What you want is something that features Prologic (they all will), DD 5.1 (the most common modern "proper" surround format"), and DTS (non ES). DTS soundtracks are not available on every DVD, but when available and with reasonable equipment can usually sound a bit better than the 5.1 equivalent.
Richer Sounds really is the best place for cheap deals - they often have the slightly older stock available - you just have to ignore the sales people (unless you get a good one - the Watford store has always been excellent to me!). At that money, I`d say the Pansonic they recommended could be beaten stupid, but let`s not get on to that, as it`s out of your price range. Looking on the website, they cheapest DD/DTS machine is the Pioneer V510 - £110. However, it`s out of stock, and may be hard to find in stores, too. There was a recent thread re this beast - another on line reatailer has it for £130 odd, so have a check of that here http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/forums/thread.asp?Forum=211&Thread=115761&Type=1 - here`s the link to the supplier with it for £130 delivered - http://www.dvdmagic.net/amps/p510.html. Alternatively, I`d recommend the Yamaha RXV520RDS at £170 (again out of stock on the website, but might be worth a look around). I have the older Yammy A5, and it`s great. Persoanlly, I`d avoid any of the Sherwood stuff, as they are renowned for being poor at reproducing music - one of your criteria.
Right, it looks like the Pioneer is going to be the fella for you. Let`s assume you`ve got that for £130, leaving £120 for speakers.
There are bundles of speakers at the £99 mark such as the Eltax Starlight system, which are based around 5 small "satellite" speakers, which only reproduce the higher frequencies, coupled with a subwoofer for the low frequency grunt. At this price range, I`d say these would again not do a great job with music. You might be better off getting some decent front speakers, not bothering with a centre for the time being (the amp should have (can`t say for certain for this model, though, so check before you go down this route) a "phantom centre" mode that feeds the centre channel to the front pair), and getting a cheap pair of surrounds (or using some existing speakers for the time being) until you can afford some good `uns. This way, you`ll get good music reproduction through the front speakers, which will also handle the low stuff well enough until you start hankering after a dedicated subwoofer to frighten the dog with. Have a look at Mission speakers - Richer offer some 702 floorstanders for £99, or they have the stand mountable 700 for £50 - ad the cost of stands to that, though. Empire Direct are apparently doing the Mission M72s for just over £80, which is a bargain. In the Richer Sounds speaker packages section, you`ll find some cheap Sony bundles (rears plus centre for £30!!) which may well keep you going.
Right, so we have:
Pioneer V510 - £130
Mission 700 - £50
Sony SSCD490 - £30
Leaving £40 change. Go to http://www.beyondhifi.net and get yourself a good scart cable - the BTech range is excellent. It WILL make a difference to the picture if you`re still using the cable the DVD player came with. You`ll also need a cable to send the audio from the DVD to the amp for decoding - this will either be a coaxial or optical lead - it looks like your DVD player only has Coaxial - fortunately the Pioneer has coaxial input too, so we`re away! Again, go for the BTech - the Phono RCA Plug to Phono RCA Plug (this IS a coax lead, don`t worry!) in the "Hi-Fi Leads / Optical & Digital Leads / B-Tech Z Range" section will do the job nicely!
You`ll also need some speaker cable. You can spend a LOT on this stuff, but as long as you don`t use that horrid bell wire sold as speaker cable, you should be OK. I actually use mains cable (the twin and earth stuff used for wiring houses) for my surround speakers - at £10 for 50m, it`s very cheap!
However, it`s not very flexible, so being lazy, why not get some from Beyondhifi again - in the "Hi-Fi Leads / Speaker & Subwoofer Cable / TechLink Cable - Professional" section, you`ll see they have some 79 strand stuff ("Professional Speaker Cable 79 Strand") for £10 for 20m, which should be enough.
So, cables look like this:
BTECH Scart lead XV211M5 1.5Mtrs Lead £11.69
BTECH Phono RCA Plug to Phono RCA Plug XCX-1M5 1.5 metre cable £5.88
TechLink Professional Speaker Cable 79 Strand-20 metre pack £11.75
Carriage: £7.41
Total (inc VAT): £36.73
...which leaves you £3.27 change!
How`s that? Hope this helps, rather than confuses. You can obviously pick and choose and the budget will creep up and up, but short of going secondhand, I reckon that`s as good value as you`ll get! If you have an old pair of speakers you could press into duty as surround speakers, then go with the phantom centre idea, and spend a bit more of the fronts - they`ll do you proud for a long time, so it`s worth doing it right! When you have a bit more cash available, you can do no better than a pair of Mission 77DS surround speakers - a bargain at £99 a pair, but beyond your means for the moment.
