Please excuse the really daft question, but as you'll soon be able to tell I don't really have that much of a clue about AV stuff

Recently I've invested in a 40" Samsung HDTV but the sound quality isn't anywhere near what I thought that it would be, so I want to get some surround sound speakers to spruce it up a bit. With hind-site I should have invested in a system with the surround sound included, but hey-ho

I've had a look around, and found quite a lot of 'systems' that I like the look of.

The thing is though, 90% of them include a DVD player/recorder or such like. I don't want one of these as I've got my PS3 to do all that kinda stuff.

Am I correct in thinking that if I want surround sound I don't necessarily need the DVD player, just a set of 5.1 surround sound speakers and an amp?

Basically what I'm asking is "Can I just go into a shop, buy a surround sound system (without the DVD player etc), plug it into the back of my tele and away I go?"

I've seen these (nice and cheep) from Richer Sounds

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...id=YAMA-NSP110

Will these work ??

Thanks

Those are Yamaha speakers - not an amp.

You need an amp to actually run the speakers. If your TV supports DD5.1 or DPL output then they might do - but it probably doesn't. Most TVs support (at most) either surround sound speakers (in which case two of the six speakers you are looking at will do), or have stereo out which you connect to an amp with stereo in, and let the amp distribute the sound to the speakers.

What you would normally do is have an amp that has its six speaker output connected to those six speakers.

You then connect the output from your TV, your DVD player, your Sky box, your VCR, your games console etc to the inputs on the amp. Your TV is not capable of outputting a DD5.1 or DTS surround sound - only your Playstation is capable of doing that - so you need an amp that can accept an optical input from your Playstation.

You've already said it is over the top, but don't fall into the trap of buying a home cinema system, which is really just a DVD player with its own speakers, and is absolute crap at accepting input from other pieces of kit.

you are on the right track with the speakers but you need to connect them to an amp/reciever like this

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...=SONY-STRDE400

£180 is still a good value for money system and will blow the socks off an all-in-one dvd/home cinema system.

Your Sky+ has an optical digital output which sends all 6 channels from Sky to the amp in one cable - the amp decodes the signal and distributes it to the appropriate speaker.

Most sky movies are now in DD5.1.
The PS3 pesumable has a digital output also so that you can enjoy DVDs with full surround sound.

I'm guessing that for 99% of your TV you will be watching via Sky - as in our house it's only whsn dual recording for later viewing we resort to out Freeview tuner. The TV can also be connected to the amp for these few occasions - you will need a left/right phono cable connected from the TV out socket to the amp analog aux input.

Good luck

Scorp

Yep pretty much concur with what has been said, but it could be a little clearer.

You can get A/V Amps or Receivers (Receivers also have a radio, either FM or digital).

It is best to get one of these that has several HDMI inputs and an HDMI output.

The Amp or Receiver is used to switch between the various source devices - you know - DVD player, PS3 and whatever else you might have (you don't have to use HDMI, or have the TV on all the time)

You connect the the TV to the Output HDMI socket and all the devices into the respectively labelled HDMI inputs. You don't need to worry about sound then, as HDMI supports both sound and vision.

Connect a set of speakers (best to let your dealer match the speakers with the amp, if you're unsure) to the speaker output posts and that's pretty much it.

You select the input device on the Amp and the HDMI channel on the TV/Monitor.

You can also add other devices, such as tape decks, record players, cd players, etc to other inputs, either digitally (coax or optical) or via the old standard red/white stereo leads.

If you add some video devices, like a VHS recorder, you might need to have to use something other than HDMI. In which case you can connect the audio leads to the Amp and the Scart lead to one on the TV. Or you can connect the S-Video lead to the Amp and a second S-Video lead to the TV. Remember that if you want to play one of these devices, you will need to select the same type of video input on the TV as well.

Very few (expensive) amps/receivers can actually take, say, an S-Video signal and convert it to digital (or YPBPR). None that I know of will take a SCART connection directly - but you can get converters or hybrid cables. It always was a bit of a quagmire - HDMI standardisation is helping to clear this up and make it easier.

The thing about matching speakers with amps is that all amps are a little bit different in the way power is delivered to the speaker posts. If the amp has a large output - say 100 watts per channel (RMS), then you can get away with great sounding, but rather inefficient speakers. If the amp has a low power output, then you might need efficient speakers, and deciding which is which is a little bit of a black art - easy to acquire, but ultimately tedious to recall.

The terms "efficient" and "inefficient" are not really indicative of the sound quality. Except that badly matched amp and speakers for a given environment might be either too loud or too quiet. If they're too small and efficient for a high powered amp, they might make a great big pop and never work again!

Hope that's not too baffling. Read it bit by bit if you need to.