Purchased a Panasonic HD 37inch HD TV back in March and I have been wondering how to go about getting surround sound. I have a Sky HD box.

I have plenty of spare room just to left of the TV and I don't really want lots of wires criss crossing my living room. Ideally I would like to get away with as few speakers as possible so anyone care to either recommend a surround sound system or website or any recommendation it would be appreciated.

Budget up to £300, thanks.

This Sharp HTDV40 (2.1 DVD package system - with HDMI - inc speakers) costs about £200.00
http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...id=SHAR-HTDV40

Is this a good entry system and would I need to purchase anything else with it?

Surround sound means exactly that.

If you want the sound to surround you then you have to use the speakers.

The old fake surround formats where you were able to use less than 6 speakers never worked and were rubbish.

To be honest a 2.1 system is pointless if you want surround sound.

A decent install that you can do yourself will enable you to hide cables and wires under the carpet or around the skirting board.

Take your £300 to Richer Sounds and they will give you 6 speakers and a reasonable amp- DO NOT BE TEMPTED BY ALL IN ONE SYSTEMS WHERE SPEAKERS /AMP ARE ONE CONNECTED UNIT.

If you get some decent speakers from RS they will last you years and that will make it easy to upgrade just the amp next time.

I agree 100%

Thanks for all your advice folks.

So I should not go for an all in one system, go for seperate speakers plus amp. If anyone would care to recommend something from RS for around £300.00 I will give them a shot.

I agree with that pov also. You'll have the choice of a receiver or an preamp/power amp combo.

If you have Sky, Virgin cable or Freesat/view, you won't need the tuner in receivers, so go for the better quality of a pre/power amp (called an "amp" from hereon in).

You don't even need it to be an AV amp, as you should be able to connect your video sources to the TV independantly (with the audio going to the amp). Just make sure that the amp has sufficient audio inputs.

Being careful you should be able to get better value/higher quality. I would still like to see a bit more in your budget, though - say £500 for a truly sparkling setup.

I'll point to to this thread where I talk about the very good (and very cheap) powerful system I have:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...d.php?t=817104

Sorry to bump an old thread, but what do people think of this Sharp product? Very tempted by it, I'm not so fussed about 5.1, just a nice front sound.

anyone got one??

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/pro...8_5935286.html

this amp at £400 is what you are looking for


it has 4 HDMI inputs and 1 output to telly

so everything hooks up to it and 1 HDMI cable goes to telly


last year model the 605 is £300 to £350 BUT only 2 HDMI inputs

get the 606

THIS is what I posted in that very thread and NOW the denon 1909 has overtaken the Onkyo amp and is same price........ according to What Hi Fi mag

http://www.denon.co.uk/site/frames_m...detail&Pid=388