Home Theater help

[Steuzy]

I'm looking to start building a home theater system for myself. Currently I don't have a huge amount of money to start (somewhere around $500). However, I'm looking to begin building a system of reasonable quality as opposed to getting a whole system for that much. Should I start with a reciever and two speakers? Should I spend all of the money on a reciever and hold off on speakers? Any help would be most appreciated.

[boomer9911]

I believe in speaker quality first, what gives you the sound? Then I would look at components, A\V Receiver first(its capablilites and your demands of it), DVD player(do you want SACD, DVD Audio, mp3 playback etc), all depends on what you need, not so much as WANT, we all want BIG, BAD & UGLY, and of course budget.

Eventually down the road look at upgrading to better cables, speaker and interconnect, and yes I believe cables DO make a difference...even power conditioners/surge protectors..

It took me several years to put mine together, and still upgrading, you can ALWAYS upgrade your system later on

Good Luck and welcome to the Klipsch board.

[meuge]

Yes, I think you should start with a receiver, and a pair of speakers first (maybe a subwoofer too), and then add more speakers later.

However, $500 is pushing it a little bit. I would recommend starting with a Panasonic XR-50 receiver ($229) and a pair of RB-25 bookshelf speakers ($300-325 after discount at an authorized dealer). For a good DVD/CD player, just use the search function of the board to search for 'cheap CD player' on the 2-ch board. There is a very nice one for around $50-70.

Your second purchase should be a subwoofer. I would recommend a $99 Dayton from partsexpress.com -> it's decent enough to be felt and heard, but cheap enough to throw away later. Eventually I'd say an RW-12 would be a good purchase, with RW-10 being not so far behind.

On the other hand, if you can add to your budget somewhat, you can grab a pair of floorstanding speakers which will be ok without a subwoofer (25-series or higher). If you're within reasonable driving distance of NY area, let me know, because I might have a set of RF-3IIs (precursors to RF-35s) for sale in truly mint condition (not a scratch, not a scuff, not even a fingerprint).

/Edited/

Eeeep - I see that you're in Florida... So unless you wanted to drive up and pick up the RF-3s, that offer won't do you any good, heh.

[dougdrake]

Best speaker bang for the buck will be used, and likely from the Klipsch lineup from 10-15 years ago. For $200-300, you'll find some speakers that will blow away anything new at that price point (KG4, POSSIBLY Forte's if you wait and keep your eyes open). They are old school in appearance, but the sound will be sweet.