Home Theatre Question

What’s everyone using for surround sound these days, the multi-speaker surround sound systems or the soundbars? Can’t decide what to get?

Any brands better than others?

Going to give you the all time worst answer, it depends.

I like the full speaker setup and finished building mine out last summer. No issues with space and already had the back wall wired for speakers. I think overall this is better than if I would have done a soundbar

That said it took me a few years to squirrel away the cash and wasn’t able to do it all at one time. If I was less patient or had space/wiring limitations I think the soudbars are an excellent way to go.

Lots of good brands out there. Like in fishing Walmart has rods and reels but Thorne Bros has the good stuff with good advice. Check out a dedicated store and listen to some different set ups. Audio Video Dimension on the shore of Medicine Lake helped me out.

As for brands, how much cash do you want to spend? Figure that one out first before you start drooling at cool electronics.

I bought a Denon system earlier this past year. It was a combo reciever+speaker system they had, speakers are all Boston speakers. I’m pretty impressed with it for the money, have to run it fairly ‘loud’ for the TV (so did the 13 year old Sony system it replaced), the few times I’ve been able to let it rumble with music(hard rock stuff) it sounds pretty nice. For the price I would recommend.

I should note I do not have it set up in a surround set up (yet). I’ve got to crawl up in the attic and then make some brackets to hold them (vaulted ceiling and open concept so no back wall to put them on) and haven’t gotten around to it yet. (never got around to it with the old system either)

Just last night I traded in my 12 year old Bose surround sound system for one with the front sound bar. I won’t have it hooked up and running until late next week so I can’t give you a review at this point. With the old system I had wires running all over the place for the speakers. Since the basement is finished I didn’t want to go through all the again so I went with the sound bar.

I had Bose before and bought Bose again. Pretty spendy systems, are they worth it? Most likely not, but not to many things are worth what you pay for them.

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I had Bose before and bought Bose again. Pretty spendy systems, are they worth it?

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No. But the wave radio keeps my wife happy while I am fishing.

My parents had recently bought a Bose surround bar that came with a sub. While it sounded nice and did have some surround effect, it wasn’t a true surround sound and I thought it was way overpriced for what they got with it. I was able to convince them that they will get more bang for their buck by building a system and they wound up returning it. Unless your pressed for space, an actual 5.1 surround system is the way to go. As for brands, its a lot like baitcaster reels, you get what you pay for. See what fits your budget and try to listen to it in person. I personally like Denon recievers and Definitive Technology speakers.

I run a Boston soundbar with wireless remote sub, for my space it works great and the neighbors get to listen to it at times even if they dont want to….I went to the soundbar to eliminate wires running all over the place….

McIntosh and Harmon/Kardon get my vote for brands. I recommend building your own system. Don’t overlook quality stands for the speakers. Them do effect the sound response and quality.

FDR

Thanks for the replies. I pre-wired for a multi-speaker surround so trying to hide wires isn’t a problem. I’m just starting to poke around at a system and it seems a lot of stores have gone to mostly soundbars. I’ve never heard a soundbar in a true home setting so don’t want to buy and be disappointed.

I’ve got an older Yamaha surround system on a different TV and IMO it has great sound and that was about a $600 system 7-8 yrs ago, so I would expect to be spending at least that much if not more for a quality system? What are the Denon’s running?

Trev give me a week or two to get mine set-up. You can come down and we will crack a beer and test drive it.

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Trev give me a week or two to get mine set-up. You can come down and we will crack a beer and test drive it.

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Thanks for the invite but that’s a long drive for “a” beer….look forward to your reviews though.

I bought a LG sound bar with wireless sub. Around $350.00. Prett satisfied. Wife hated all the wires of my old surround sound.
Super simple hookup and sounds good.

Sorry, forgot you were up on Battle Lake. Kind of makes my suggestion on a shop not worth quite so much. If you get down to the cities I can recommend a couple places to listen.

How much are things going for? As much as you can part with No different than buying a rod/reel combo or a boat. Check out http://www.crutchfield.com to get an idea of what things go for.

Here’s an idea. Since you already have a set up you like, can you use some of those components? I kept my system from college for quite a while. Over time I upgraded the components. Maybe a thought for you?

Last summer I finally got the sub added to complete the set up. I chose to do fewer components at one time but get a little higher end each time. The big downside was taking many years as cash always seemed to be needed for something else.

If I recall I caught a sale on my Denon and git it for 400 something

my fav’s are Klipsch on the Yamaha receiver and I have a sound bar with wireless powered subwoofer (Polk) which is really a nice sound bar. It can hook up to the bluetooth on your phones or i pod and play music too. Got the Polk Audio sound bar at Sam’s.