I am thinking of treating myself to a Bose V30 surround sound system as I like the sound and styling it offers. However at £2,300 am aware there is lot's more I can get for my money. I have been unable to find any reviews of the V30 and wondered if anyone out there has one what they think of it or if you have suggestions of what to buy as a good alternative. I want great sound and small speakers!!

Here's some advice.

If you are thinking of spending 2.5k on a home cinema system, do not take advice solely from people on Digital Spy, the home of £80 Argos system enthusiasts. Go to AV forums to talk to people who use the big stuff.

I will say this though...please forget about the Bose. It's massively overpriced lifestyle rubbish.

If I were you, and I speak as a professional film & TV sound engineer, look at Onkyo amplifiers, a PS3 and some KEF, B&W or Tannoy speaker systems. They will still be discreet, but will be GOOD.

I own a Bose so called lifestyle hi fi system ,on of those self contained units that looks like a giant radio alarm clock .Luckily I got it for "free" with the purchase of a car. I can assure you it is average for the price, it retails for about £300 and sounds no better than the £100 mini system in my son's bedroom .I am now so wary of bose as being high priced tat .£2300 should buy you a system that will blow bose out of the water on my experience I'll never touch bose for a major purchase.

The V30 has limitations when connecting external devices to it, especially if they use the optical inputs.

There was an owner in the HD forums that was having trouble using Sky HD with the V30, the system doesn't allow audio from the optical input when HDMI is used, the HDMI overrides all optical inputs. They are having to buy a optical > coaxial converter to be able to get DD5.1 from the HD box, not what you would expect from a system of this price. Beware....

Personally speaking you could get a much better system for your £2,300.

For lifestyle speakers have a look at Anthony Gallo.

The site has full price list and press reviews. You will of course need to demo the product personally.

http://www.anthonygallo.co.uk/gallo-...s/speakers.php

For the AV receiver I'd recommend Denon, Harmon Kardon, Onkyo.

Harmon Kardon

Denon

Onkyo

With Bose you pay a big premium for the asthetics and their marketing department's budget. Take a look for reviews in the home cinema mags, you won't find many as Bose are reluctant to provide their products for comparison tests. They know they can't compete on either sound quality or price, so don't want to be embarrassed.

If you have a circa £2.5k budget available I would suggest you would be better off looking at Onkyo, Denon or Yamaha for the basis of a surround system with (as suggested by a previous poster) KEF, B&W or Tannoy speakers. And if styling is high on your tick list, the aforementioned speaker manufacturers have some great looking offerings in their respective ranges.