[darkjedimaster]

Hi all, I have a Home Theatre PC which I use for all of my films which are in various formats as well as DVD & Blu-ray. I was wondering what a cheap solution would be to connect the computer to a 5.1 surround sound ?. My computer's onboard sound has the optical connection.

Any advice would be great

Many Thanks

DJM

[chrisjr]

Define cheap.

Do you mean 3 quid or 3 grand?

You can get cheap (and often very nasty) speaker systems for under 50 quid if you really don't care about sound quality. But if you want a decent system which has good sound and the flexibility to cater for any future expansion of your system then you are probably looking at several hundreds of pounds.

If it were my wallet being opened then I would not look at anything lower than this system from Onkyo available at RicherSounds at an unspecified price but I would guess it's £300 give or take

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...ky-hts3405-blk

That is a proper surround sound system with a good spec receiver and pretty decent speakers. And has all the ins and outs you need to connect up any other bits of kit you have (satellite, Freeview, games console etc).

[darkjedimaster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisjr

Define cheap.

Do you mean 3 quid or 3 grand?

You can get cheap (and often very nasty) speaker systems for under 50 quid if you really don't care about sound quality. But if you want a decent system which has good sound and the flexibility to cater for any future expansion of your system then you are probably looking at several hundreds of pounds.

If it were my wallet being opened then I would not look at anything lower than this system from Onkyo available at RicherSounds at an unspecified price but I would guess it's £300 give or take

http://www.richersounds.com/product/...ky-hts3405-blk

That is a proper surround sound system with a good spec receiver and pretty decent speakers. And has all the ins and outs you need to connect up any other bits of kit you have (satellite, Freeview, games console etc).

Looks like I will need to save as only have about £100 so far. Thanks for the information .

[chrisjr]

One of the biggest problems with systems at that end of the market is a lack of connectivity. You can get all in one DVD\Amp systems around that price mark. But i would be surprised if any of them had anything remotely resembling a digital audio input to which you could connect your HTPC.

And you may not want the DVD player section either! The alternative is something like a powered speaker system similar to the sort of thing you might connect to a PC. But there again you might struggle to find one with the right connections and more importantly perhaps the right Dolby and DTS decoders for the soundtracks on the disks you want to play. Unless your HTPC can take care of that itself of course.

[pocatello]

Well the basic rules for sound and speaker design haven't been advanced for a long time, the basics are material quality and size, you need heavy cabinets that do not resonate, decent sized woofers for low end, mid range speakers for midrange, nice 3" at least, and tweeters. You can make speakers smaller, but you give up things. Buy those tiny micro speakers and you don't get much.

Cheap? Look for a used home theatre receiver set? Or simply piece your own together bit by bit, buying a receiver, and adding speakers as you can, you can even start with stereo only if you can only afford two nice bookshelfs or whatever to go with it. You can add the rest later.