my buddy just bought a panasonic 50" DLP tv, and is now looking to buy an audio system. im pushing hard to get him away from cheapass dvd/receiever package garbage....

so hes wanting to spend $750-1000

what do you guys recommend? what are the top brands? what should he be looking for? the tv has hdmi and im wondering if its worth it over component.

anyone have anything used?

did i leave anything out?

Glen

 

oh and how about a couple opinions on the tv purchase...

 

Receivers, harmon kardon, Onkyo, Yamaha are some main high end stuff, Kenwood Soverign *sp* seems not to bad. As for for component the RGB seems to be the best thus far, not I am not 100% on what HDMI is though? As for the Tv purchase sometimes top name brand "toshiba" for example doesn't mean the best, I saw a Samsung Tantus 46" HDTV and it's quality kicked the Toshiba's butt, the warranty was better granted that could mean bads things as well but either way it's covered for 3 years instead of the 1 or 2 by the other company.

 

I used to have a Marantz preamp and a Rotel amp driving my Totem Forests and one day my friend popped in with some NAD stuff. The C370 integrated amp and the C541i CD player. Well...it blew the doors off of the other equipment. My speakers never sounded better...I was impressed enough that I walked in to the same store he bought them from and just said "pull up the file for so-and-so from last week, change his name to my name and gimmee gimmee gimmee!"
I guess what I'm trying to say is I STRONGLY suggest your buddy checks out NAD for a surround receiver. I think he could probably get a really nice one for around $700-1000.

 

HDMI is a new interface that was just launched at product shows this year. It is a cable that carries all the signals in one cable. It saves on all the wires and you can daisy chain all the components together. Not all companies/products support it yet but it is definately on its way. For me personally I think about it as it will be the future but not neccassary. I am not sure about the quality for video but audio is excellent I have read.

here is a link with a little info you may be able to find more info on the site

http://www.infocomm.org/index.cfm?ob...AB6FF25A70F6C5

 

Great TV.

Is $700-1000 the total budget for recevier, speakers and DVD player?

If so you will have a hard time finding much of anything.

For a low budget system (around $1000) I recomend:
Panasonic SA(rest of the model # unknown)reciever
$200-$250 at FS
Athena MICRA 6 speakers and subwoofer set
$600-$700 at FS
Panasonic DVD player.
$100-$200 at FS.

If he has more money availible look at a better reciever (Denon 1604, Marantz SR5400).

 

Hitachi sells great tv's my older sister has one, both my parents at home and my sister and her husband also have a Sony Receiver (two different models) no complains. My parents run JBL Speakers 5.1 And my sister's running Sony and Paradigm (no sub for them yet, tehy're in a town house with a neighborhood full of young young children and expecting mothers so that's debatable)

 

Hard to beat this $1000 system from Audioshop in Ottawa (price includes shipping to most Canadian cities):

http://audioshop.on.ca/systemsrxv350orbit.htm

Dave

[ December 01, 2004, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: DavidY ]

 

Is he handy, is he good with wood? If he is, then some of the most affordable, best sounding speakers are ones you build yourself. Like the Spires kit from Creativesound.ca You can get 5 channels for 549 plus tax shipped. Wait and get a sub later or build your own. You have to build the cabinets, but imo its worth it, if you know what your doing. As for the amp, with only 1000 bucks I would find an entry level Marantz, Denon, Hk, Yamaha or another HIGH CURRENT receiver. A good dvd player can be had for $150, alot of them use much of the same technology, if you want to play the cdr's, dvd -,+ R's Rw's Jpegs...etc.... Just my 2 cents if I was starting from scratch.

 

I second Nad. I have a NAD cd player for my home stereo system, its an amazing peice.