Home Theater recommendations?

[Astroman]

Does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap home theater audio package,don't want to spend anymore than $300 and its only going into a small room.

[blink138]

andrew without putting too fine a point on it, it probably wont make any difference for $300
is that money to be spread over all components? ie amp speakers etc.?
if so i would forget about surround sound and look for a pure two channel stereo setup such as a secondhand japanese stereo amp and a pair of small british bookshelf speakers such as kef, mordaunt short or celestions
these can be picked up so cheaply now and the sound would beat the living daylights out of a $300 equivalent new surround sound in my opinion
pat

[Larryp]

I bought a Yamaha sound bar system on Ebay from a dealer in Victoria for $799.00, and it is brilliant!
The sub is built into the amplifier/receiver and the sound bar has 3 speakers so you get 3.1 sound. Great for a small room and everything fits on your entertainment unit.
More than you want to pay, but worth every cent.

[acropolite]

Andrew, my suggestion would be to keep an eye on ebay for a second Hand Yamaha RX-V home theatre receiver. They usually sell on ebay for a small fraction of their original price at auction. Yamaha make very good home theatre amps, they are feature rich, well made and have excellent DSP's
There's an RX-V 457 on eBay (search for Yamaha RX-V) with only 2 bids atm, the highest bid is $5.50 with 2 days to go. I'd be surprised if it fetches much over $100. There's another at a buy it now price of just $80.
It's worth researching a bit before buying, some have later and better decoding options as well as HDMi inputs etc.

That would leave you with a couple of hundred to find some better quality second hand speakers as Andrew suggested.

If you get main fronts of decent quality then little else matters, if the fronts have decent bass response then you can do without a subwoofer, the centre can be simulated, only the surround rears are really necessary for nice effects.
The surround speakers are basically just for effect and the difference between high quality and low isn't that noticeable, I originally had a set of cheap DSE boxes as rears ($80 the pair), I really couldn't hear any significant difference when I replaced the rear surrounds with B&W 602,s which cost 10x the price.

[tlgerdes]

The Yamaha RX-V series are a great midrange amp. I teamed the 557 with a set of Yamaha NX-S speakers (6:1 set) I picked on clearance from DSE for $150

[Larryp]

Hi Andrew
I checked on Ebay and the company selling the Yamaha YHT-S401 soundbar system is K.G. Electronics-price is $699.00-free delivery. Suggest you check it out since you say you have a small room. It takes up no extra space and performs magnificently.

[Astroman]

Thanks guys for the input, will go looking around on ebay etc... gave me a few more choices to look at :)