everywhere i look i find home cinema kits with built in dvd drives.
i want one without a dvd drive, hence i save some money and true to the saying of buying separates gives better sound clarity as i am getting a pioneer dvd player.

does any1 know i can get 1 without a dvd drive???

yes go to richer sounds & buy a av reciever, then soem seperate speakers 7 cabling wire it up & hay presto

better than the cheaply made pasltic box specials you find in currys

Argos do a 5.1 system without the CD, and without a seperate amp. Its made by Acoustic Solutions, the amp is in the Sub Woofer (enough room for 3 inputs on the rear of it) and you get all other 5 speakers (1 larger front and 4 satellite speakers).

At the moment its retailing for a bargain £99 if you are on a budget. My mate bought one, and it does a respectable job, though compared to my stand alone amp and dedicated speakers it obviously doesnt match that quality.

Mark 96.4 - or - Radio Advice UK

what speaker setup do i need, i think its 2 front speakers, 2 back speakers, a centre speaker and a subwoofer.

could any1 tell if this is the right setup???
and what is an active speaker? is it used as a centre speaker??

The subwoofer is optional (hence the .1 in 5.1). Apart from that you are spot on.

The subwoofer is usually ACTIVE or PASSIVE, where Active means it is powered and delivers a much better sound. Passive subs are not really worth the bother.

Mark

You could try this . The Sony HT-K 25 I have on hooked up to a Pioneer DV454 and it sounds great. It has a DTS decoder and Dolby Pro Logic II. The satellite speakers are small and unobtrusive but pack quite a punch. I have the sky digi box and the VCR connected and with the Pro Logic II TV has never sounded so good. The above link is the cheapest I have seen but I have seen it sell at 299.00. It's a great piece of kit.

Cheers, Simon

the speakers do look very small on this sony system.
its retail price is £299.95 at comet, but i carnt understand how all the sound can get through as they are such small speakers???

I will admit that I haven't compared this to a seperates system but after living with it for 3 months now I can tell you that movies on DVD sound spectacular and the speakers may be small but they sure don't sound small

Simon

You musnt forget how the sound works on a 5.1 system. You can get away with realitivly small speakers for the rear channels and front left/right speakers as they only handle treble frequencies, as the Subwoofer handles all the bass, and fills out the sound pretty nicely.

Best thing I can suggest is buy your equipment in Argos or Index or somewhere which has a 16 day returns policy, and try them out. Don't be fooled by small speaker size, technology has come along way.

Mark The Wave

Sorry but I think your are wrong there. 5.1 means five FULL range channels (i guess about 50Hz to 20Kz) and the .1 is for the deep bass and oinly handles frequencies upto around 150Hz

In a perfect world you should have 5 identical full range spaeakers and a sub woofer. Of course in the real world bass is not very directional so the 5 speakers only have to handle treble and mid range and all the bass can be redirected to the sub.

Back to the original question anill2 How much do you want to spend? There is an awful lot to choose from costing from peanuts! to many thousnads of pounds.

I would recommend AV Forums I you want detailed advice.

OKay just checked back on the Dolby website and its 5 channels 20Hz to 20,000Hz and .1 channel 20Hz to 120Hz