Page 1 of looking to buy first home cinema kit

been reading about home cinema on this site for a week or two, still a bit confused, but i want to buy my first setup.

i have tosh420, and about £220-240 to spend. its not much but it is my first go and it is what i can afford and want to spend right now.

i looked in some catalogues to get a feel of what they looked like, they had some sub woofer sets, is that right? but none in my range had dts, something i picked up from this site.

so i went into richer sounds and saw a sherwood av receiver for £119. as far as i understand that is an impotant bit of kit as it decodes the sound from the dvd player? they had a set of 5 technics speakers for £60, not flashy and all look the same. or they had some others, eltax i think for around £90. they were more like the systems i have seen, two floor standing with two smaller rear ones and a centre.

i already have two good speakers from my hifi seperates. so i would like to no is it worth getting the cheaper version to use now, technics, and maybe upgrade at a later date, go for the other set or buy the three speakers seperately to go with the 2 i have.

i need some advice please.

A few words of warning before you start on the AV Amp route.

It`s hard to stop!!!!!!!

I got a Nakamichi AV8 from Richer Sounds for £199, bargain? Not really.

I sounded so good in stereo that I knew I need some more Kef Q15s to match the 2 I already had. Thats £200.

A Q 95 centre speaker was another £120 secondhand.

An Mj Acoustics sub was another £600, ( believe me you just can`t help yourself )

another pair of speaker stands was £70

A rack to put it all on £170

Cables were another £100

If only I had gone out and bought a complete, compact Sony 5.1 system for £3 or 400.

I wouldn`t miss what I`d never had.

I`d have half my front room back.

And i wouldn`t be itching for a 42" plasma screen.

Take it from me the road to hell is paved with cheap AV amplifiers. But it sounds very lovely indeed.

I`m also convinced that richer sounds sell AV amps cheaply so they can cash in on all the other things you need with them. Miles of cable for a start.

that was kinda what i was affraid of. i have had that trouble before when i got my hifi seperates, amp, cd and 2 speakers simple hey! not a bit of it.

but i will get the speakers i can afford and as i say if i need to upgrade at a later date i can. the problem is that when you are starting out you need everything, at least if this av reciever is half decent i wont need to change that, maybe just the speakers in time. i only have a small room so as long as the speakers i have mentioned do the job ill be happy, are they any good do you no?

cheers for that.

Basically there`s two ways to get into this-
Firstly you could buy an all in one solution such as the sony babe which will have all five speakers and a subwoofer to connect to your dvd player.

Or secondly you could go for the separates route which means buying an amp/receiver and five speakers plus a sub.

If you can afford it it`s best to go the separates route as you can upgrade in the future if you want to.

There`s an eltax speaker and sub package on richersounds for £99.95 which should be fine to start with and then you can get an amp/ receiver for £150.00 on there as well.
Bear in mind that you will need to get speaker cable and interconect cable as well as speaker stands and brackets so for £240 this is not going to be easy!

One thing to bear in mind if you plan to use your existing speakers is the hi fi stereo quality of the AV Amp.

If you are going to use your existing speakers with something like the Sherwood. I doubt that it will sound anywhere near as good as what you have now.

Thats why i went for Nakamichi, in terms of AV gizmos it was pretty primitive but as a hi fi stero amp it sounded better than what I had.

That also why i suggest that a decoder/amp and compact 5.1speakers is often a better bet than the full AV receiver route.

As i said before you don`t miss the sound you never had. The neighbours will certainly thank you for it and it will take less space.

The problem for me is that the cat is out of the bag and i`m hooked on tight, earth shaking bass and an overall sound quality to die for.

The best place on the net for advice on this sort of thing is hifijunkies.co.uk. Friendly people and cheap for Mission stuff which is miles better than Eltax imho.

to be honest i would rather get seperates. because the all in one solution that you mention, well i have seen quite a few around the £150 but they didnt have dts. the £99 speakers you mention are the ones i was looking at.the amp i saw was £119, so together is within my range. i can get brakets in time and the room aint too big so i should be ok with a minimal amount of speaker cable.
the only question is, do i get a package of 5 speakers, say that £99 one or use the two i have as rears, and get the other three. would i be able to get three for around £90, decent ones?

thanks.

The Sony Babe at £220 is an all in one package to bolt onto your dvd and gets reasonable reviews.

That said I haven`t bought one as my budget was £500 which got me an AEGO p5 but I`m not sure if the extra money is worth it as I`ll never know just how good the Sony would have been.

I`d endorse what the other guy says about cables and extra costs, made the mistake of telling my wife I`d spent £70 on cables and she immediately went out shopping herself to redress the balance.

Just remembered. Dixons have the digi theatre at £250ish which gets good reviews for the money, again an all in one package with smallish speakers.

Perhaps someone reading this could tell you whether you could hook up your existing speakers to power the front two?

thanks for the advice there.

a bit to think about. point is though, i want to get into home cinema, or whatever the phrase is. i now what i can spend, and as i am the only one at home who will be using the thing i cant justify, and i wouldnt want to, spending more than i can afford, there are other reasponsibilities. but i have had 2 and a bit years now with a dvd, my old one for 2 and the new one for the bit! just hooked to tv via scart.
that was my only concern with the packages in dixons and argos etc, that the speakers didnt look that big, and seeing some similar in the flesh so to speak in richer sounds, they dont instill much confidence.
would the effect you get out of them be a smaller sound, with them being small no matter which ones you get?
i have bought seperates for hifi equipment for a few years now within a budget and you will always get that oh what if i got the next model up type of thing, but i just get what i can and use it, otherwise i would just stick with what i have already and never change.
i just want to get the receiver first then add speakers over the weeks. i have my two that i can use in the short term, but would like some info on sherwood receivers, or just on the brand name, its one i have heard of but dont no anything about.

cheers again.

I have a sherwood amp (the the RD-6106R if you really want to know) that I bought from Richer Sounds just over 2 years ago, and the eltax/gale speaker set again from richers. I am totally happy with the system, it does everything I want it to, DTS sounds great, as does DD, it is a little short on AV inputs ( having only 3 video ins).I have a mate with the Yamaha A1, and it does sound a bit better, but for the money I spent at richers it is wonderfull. I say go for it, pick up a sherwood amp, add whatever speakers you need and try it out. The nice thing about seperates is that you can swap whatever bit you arent happy with, tho the only thing I have changed on my system is the wireing for the rear speakers (I started off cheapskating and using bell wire, mistake, to I swapped that for sum gale cable at about 70p per meter and it now sounds great). And no I dont work for Richer Sounds, just love that store, and have no complaints about my sherwood amp!

Tom