humble home theatre


Hi Goners!

Always many willing to assist the vinyl newbie but it's my lack of all knowledge of home theatre that needs your help!

My wife and i would like to purchase two plasma or lcd/led t.v.'s with a player/processor and two band tuner [my home is wired for each room] and we feel that a 3.1 system with active sub will be more then enough in the living room and just a full range pr. speakers and like equipment for the bedroom...

Can anyone suggest what brands to look at and what brands work well together/ Perhaps one company makes an "all in one" piece?

Lastly, we would like the profile of both speakers and electronics to be small and slender.
Our budget for the two rooms including interconnects,speaker wires is 15 to 18k.

Thanks,
128x128azjake

Showing 1 response by meiwan

For the TV's, I like LED simply because it uses 1/5 the power of plasma. I own an 820 series Sharp and like it a lot.

On the audio side, tough to find a 2 band tuner built in these days. If you can live with FM only, a good all-in-one unit is the now discontinued Linn Classik (FM, CD, amp). The newer Naim Uniqute an Uniti (spelling?) are interesting also. Both have a tuner, CD, music server and amp in one tidy little unit.

Otherwise you are looking at an integrated amp and separate tuner for each room. I'd avoid HT receivers generally, as they tend to be big and don't sound that great in comparison, plus you will be paying for a lot of stuff you don't need.

For speakers, you will likely have to go with satellites and a small sub, as Vicdamone suggests, because you will likely be running a relatively low powered amp. Lots of speaker choices, but it will largely depend on what receiver/amp you end up with.

If you go the Linn/Naim route, some speaker suggestions would be Linn Majik 109s or small Spendor or ProAc or Harbeth models.