Best sound in a home theater

And the answer is - it depends! On several things, the most significant used being what this is for and how fussy your ears are. Some of us are happy with basic earbuds, some of us have thousands of dollars worth of stuff that, to our ears, make the sound "better" or, in my case, "cleaner" and closer to the original.

Although all of the elements in the sound chain are important, two digital ones are key and are early in the process.

1) The source quality. CD-quality recordings will be more accurate to the original that MP3 files. There are higher-fidelity digital sources, but truly well-made recordings are few and far between. Your control here is choosing high-definition sources and well-made material.

2) The digital to analog conversion. This is the heart, IMHO, of the process of playing a digital source. People spend huge amounts of money on these devices and then swap "op-amps" listening for the ones that sound best.

I think you have two main choices here. Buy a high-quality home theater receiver (listen to several in stores) that takes digital input. In this case, the computer will send data to the receiver, which will convert it to sound and then amplify it (third key step) for the speakers (fourth). I'd use one of the TOSlink formats for this, optical or co-ax.

The second is conversion in your PC. Many motherboards nowadays come with onboard sound that is pretty good. Running this to good amplified speakers will satisfy most people. I personally run in only stereo and use an Asus Xonar Essence STX card to drive headphones or amplified speakers.


It's very much a matter of taste, what you are going to use it for (movies vs. baroque music vs. death metal), how fussy your ears are, and how much time and money you are happy to invest in the process.

Neither 5.1 or 7.1 is "better." For playing music, unless it was recorded in 5 or 7 channels the spatialization is done by guesswork and may or may not improve or damage the sound. For games, if the channels are present they will probably encode information that's useful to tell you where enemies are.

better than pc speakers. check.
again... budget?????????

you need to also list your room size and what size speakers you would prefer.

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a htpc could do everything you listed and more, depending on what hardware you stuff into it and what services you have. the cable card would need to be compatible with your provider and you might want to be running xmbc (kodi) or another such service on your computer as it makes media tasks easier.

also, since you want to be gaming you should make sure that the hardware is capable of that. if you want i can take a look at your build and give you suggestions if you havent built it yet. or just link me to the post if you have one on that subject.

technically there is a way to connect an additional source to the pc (a soundcard with spdif input) however those are fairly rare and it would require you pc to be on to have sound (wasting power). if you want multi-sources a receiver is the best option. and, i'm not sure if its a surround input or if its 2.0 only. so while possible, i would say to avoid using that as an option if you can.

perhaps you can get some ideas from looking at my own setup? click "build" in my signature to see.

well, technically you can plug almost anything in however that doesnt mean they will work. here is why: speakers require amplification and a soundcard is not capable of providing sufficient power to drive anything more than speakers with a few watts of output. computer speakers have an amplifier built into the subwoofer so they are called "powered" speakers since they plug into the wall outlet and provide their own source of power for driving the speakers. most hifi speakers are "unpowered" meaning that they need an amplifier to drive them. now, you "could" plug in speakers directly to your soundcard if you had an amplifier between the speakers and the soundcard, however since you want 5.1 or more i know for a fact that those amps run high in price which makes them not very budget friendly. the only other option would be using multiple smaller amps however that adds up to alot of small boxes with individual volume knobs! a receiver, while perhaps not as good as an amplifier in the same price category definitely serves the purpose very well by being the do-it-all control box for your system. you can control the volume on all the speakers, swap between sources, change audio modes, etcetera.

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as i said in my last post... if you want something "better" than pc speakers, but do not want to spend a huge amount of money then the energy take classic 5.1 set (goes on sale for $300-$350 at times) paired up with a receiver such as the sony str-dh740 (goes on sale for about $200 at times) would get you a pretty decent system for $500-ish

now, you might want to go with an onkyo, pioneer or yamaha receiver instead of sony, and that is fine. as long as it can handle 50-80w per channel then it will work with those speakers.

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apparently the monoprice 9774 are almost the same thing as the energy speakers but $150 less but with less warranty and without the name. so if you want bottom of the barrel pricing for something half decent then ($250) paired up with a lower end receiver such as the pioneer vsx-522-k ($150) so you could get off the hook for $400 and still have a decent system.

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then there is always the option for getting seperate speakers (not matched kits).

this is how most speakers are sold and will give you the greatest freedom of choice.

there are many different speakers to pick from depending on budget and your physical location in the world.

as i said in my last post... if you want something "better" than pc speakers, but do not want to spend a huge amount of money then the energy take classic 5.1 set (goes on sale for $300-$350 at times) paired up with a receiver such as the sony str-dh740 (goes on sale for about $200 at times) would get you a pretty decent system for $500-ish

now, you might want to go with an onkyo, pioneer or yamaha receiver instead of sony, and that is fine. as long as it can handle 50-80w per channel then it will work with those speakers.

Click to expand...

I have almost this exact setup, and for the price, it sounds amazing. The only difference is a $80 Polk Audio sub instead of the Energy Take sub.
The 5.0 Energy Take was $150, I think. add $80 for the PA sub.
Add $300 for the receiver (Onkyo, Pioneer, etc), and it's just over $500.

Easily fills a 18' x 30' room.

Under $500 or so, receiver brand is more feature set rater than 'sound'. Onkyo, Yamaha, Pioneer....all good.
Speakers? That is actually a very personal decision. As stated, I love my Energy Take + Polk Audio sub. But every room and every ear is different.

i do find it hard to believe that harmon kardon (offshoot of JBL i believe, or own jbl cant remember) is the only brand you have access to. but yeah, they are generally good.
http/www.harmankardon.com/estore/hk/us/products/AVR-1710/AVR%201710_HK_US?skuId=AVR%201710_HK_US&searchMode=regularProductOnly&sCatId=cat370041
that one has analog audio in, which is the best way to connect your PC (i think)
Something about speakers, generally, for music, Bigger speakers sound better, or at least the front left and right speakers. For movies you can get away with smaller "sattellite" speaker packages and a sub, music can sound a little thin on them though. Pick your receiver first then we can get down to speakers.

A receiver is an amplifier + AM/FM radio functions.

AVR = Audio/Video receiver. It does all the normal audio functions, plus it can pass video (generally HDMI) out to a TV.

to add, you want something that can decode dolby digital/dts sound, which most devices marketed as "home theatre or AVR receivers will do. But do check the specs.

so about 32 x 22ft for those of us still on the imperial measurement system... or a fair sized living room.

generally for such a large space bookshelf speakers or larger are recommended to fill the space with sound. satelites (the energy 5.1 are satelites) may not always be loud enough for some people in larger rooms but will work if need be and if you are on a tight budget.

generally the receiver should cost about 25% to %30 of your budget. while the receiver is certainly important, speakers are a bit more so on a tight budget. when talking about base models of receiver brand is most important for reliability but you also need to note how many watts per channel at what ohm level it can output. when you start comparing features with features prices tend to be a bit higher end.

yes, you can upgrade speakers later on... provided you have a receiver with enough power for better or larger speakers in the future. something which can do 100w @ 8ohm should handle most speakers on the market nowdays.

for karaoke the mic would need to be on the pc. the only difference is that instead of your pc broadcasting the sound through your soundcard it would do so via hdmi to your home theater. your onboard soundcard will only be used for the mic.

you may want to think over your idea of 7.1 in the future a second time. there is alot of content for 5.1 (which makes it a good idea) however much less for 7.1 and even less for 9.1 which make them questionable expenses. i would personally say that a better 5.1 is a better choice then an average 7.1 system.

i have no idea what is available in your country and what costs would be... bolivia is a new one for me so have no info on where to buy or what is marketed there... you would need to provide info on that.

not all home theater in a box (htib) sets are complete trash, just many of them. there are certainly some which sound reasonably good for the cost and do allow connecting surround sound hdmi choices. you only need to be very careful about them and what you get. build quality is going to be worse and you would be getting a dvd/br player which you dont need though which you dont want/need so there are certainly good reasons to avoid them.

if you click on specifications you will see the numbers.

the avr700 likely will not work as it only has 75w @6ohm.

the avr2650 is the same price as the avr1510 and has 95w @8ohms while the avr1510 has only 75w @8ohm

ohms measure the resistance of speakers. if you want an in depth explanation you can read http/www.prestonelectronics.com/audio/Impedance.htm but basically since the speakers you were interested in are 8ohm and rated for 100w you need to get a receiver rated for 8ohm and with a fair bit of power. 75w will work but the 95w will be better for future proofing if you wanted to get bigger speakers later on.


i would say the 2650 if you can get it... otherwise the 1510 looks like it would work.

that part has me a bit baffled as well.

its quite common for avr's to support different impedance speakers (ohm) but they are typically rated at different power output (watts) for those impedences.

such as 150w@2ohm, 130w@6ohm, 90w@8ohm or similar (or 100/75/50... and other similar progressions).

i find it odd that they list 75w for both 6ohm and 8ohm.

the 2650 however clearly states its 8ohm output.

it makes things more difficult when companies do not list all of their specs...

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down to the point....

would they work? technically yes, even the avr700 likely supports 8ohm and will power speakers.. likely at around 50w output. however, it will not get as loud as a unit with a better amp (but likely loud enough if just powering satelite size speakers) and since it has low output it may not support larger speakers very well in the future. since you wanted to upgrade in the future and since it may be a bit underpowered this is why i was questioning those choices and pushing the 2650 instead. if the costs on that site are to be believed the 2650=1510 in terms of cost