Looking for the best value 7.1 Home Theater System

[lchenjr]

Hi, I am trying to buy a home theater system for my new apartment.

My living room space is about 19feet by 24 feet.

My Budget is around $1,000 to $1,500.

1) Looking for a 7.1 Home Theater experience. 7 speakers, a sub woofer, and a receiver. I don't need to buy everything together.

2) If someone can recommend a good speaker set, and a good reciever from two different companies, I am ok with that.

3) If someone want to recommand that I don't need a 7.1, only need a 5.1, I am all ears.

4) Recently looked at Samsung Speakers, with 7.1 setup, but the setup is with 5 speakers in front and 2 in the rear. Does this setup work? instead of the traditional setup?

5) Should I go wired or Wireless?


Thank you all for your help.

sincerely,

Louie

 

[macewrox]

I'm not too sure about suggestions of products, but I do know that there really isn't that big of a difference between 7.1 and 5.1, other than price. 7.1 should really only be for bragging rights. Also, never do wireless. Wired will always get you better sound.

 

[T8r]

That's not entirely true. For use in a small room or on a budget, you are correct, there will not be an advantage to 7.1. Instead you just make the room seem cluttered with speakers. For large rooms (like an actual in home movie theatre) with a big budget system, then there is an advantage to being able to spread the sound field out over more speakers with a more advanced signal processor.

imho, 7.1 is also an alternative for old school audiophiles who want surround sound for movies, but still prefer to have two powerful studio speakers running in stereo at front of the room for music tracks that were recorded in stereo, whether it was because of the recording technology of the era that the track was produced... or because the artist simply intended it that way. (ask anyone who's into Vinyl) I'm biased towards this approach however... intending to run separate amps for the front channels.

It's an alternative to having a completely separate system for playing music in stereo... and using your 5.1 surround sound for movies, knowing that the two monster speakers up front aren't contributing.

Whether or not that kind of flexibility is important to you is a matter of priorities...room size, and like I said... budget. You can get excellent sound out of 5.1.