Recommend me a 5.1 surround system?

[Barley]

I'm trying to find myself a nice 5.1 home cinema system at the moment, I'm looking at the £100-£200 price mark.

I've got myself a nice DVD player, has 5.1 sound outputs.  Question is, do I need an amp AND speakers, or can I put the speakers straight into the DVD player?

Advice/recommendations welcome

[A Twig]

I imagine it would depend if the speakers are active or passive. Generally better quality is achieved using passives and a specialist amp. However, I deal more with DJ soundsystems, so cant really offer much more help than that!  

[BigFatCat]

If the player's got seperate front/rear/centre and sub output, then it's got an internal decoder. You will get 5.1/DTS from that but you'll get better sound quality with a separate amp/decoder.
Get the speakers now and perhaps drop the amp in later, only one lead to connect the DVD to the amp if it's got a digital output, ours is connected via a single thin optical cable.
We got our stuff from here and it's been fine, little speakers (3x2x2") and a foot cubic sub sound great, I-Robot using the DTS soundtrack was brilliant and when the Martian appears out of the ground in WOTW made a right racket
And it's worth speding a few quid on decent speaker cable, the thin 2-core stuff that comes with normal packages is pants in comparision to slightly more expensive heavier duty lines.

[suicidal_monkey]

If your DVD player has a built in amp you can cope with just speakers initially and decide later if you want to get a separate amp. If your DVD player has merely decoding but no amps then, well, you need a 5.1 amp and might as well get an external decoder as BFC said

Originally posted by BigFatCat@Jan 24 2006, 08:20 AM
And it's worth speding a few quid on decent speaker cable, the thin 2-core stuff that comes with normal packages is pants in comparision to slightly more expensive heavier duty lines.

my 2c on cabling - Although I agree that the thin twin cabling that comes with speakers is often a bit under par, pretty much ANY standard electric cabling with a decent current carrying capacity (the larger the current to be carried, the larger x-sectional area / thicker the cable should be) will be absolutely fine for connecting wire. Don't get ripped off by salesmen in (for example) Richer Sounds

The satellites generally require lower currents than the sub, so if the sub is passive (i.e. you're pushing the big signal all the way down a long cable) then you might want a thicker cable here. Get some good cable, but keep in mind that the standard stuff you might get as an extension lead for a lawnmower will be more than adequate with any home system.

[Gone_Away]

Net net.. you're not going to get much for 200 quid.

My Harmon-kardon amp cost me > 1k.

Agree with the comments on the speaker cable. Spend the extra cash and you can also get something that is nice and flat so it will fit under the carpet easily. The difference in the sound quality is amazing.

Good Luck with your search. It may also be usefull to call around a few local shops and see if they have any used kit for sale. People with too much money are always trading up. You can nab yourself a good bargain once in a while.

NF

[Barley]

My DVD player has 5.1 outputs, which are capable of DTS, so it looks as if I could get away with just some active speakers for now, until I decide to get an amp in the future.

I was looking on Richer Sounds last night, was thinking of just buying a package for easiness, something like this.