Posted by def456 on 08/20/07 04:12

I've decided that my TV's sound isn't good enough anymore to watch DVD
movies, so I'm shopping for a home theater audio system. I already have a
couple of TVs and DVD players, so really only need the audio receiver and
speaker system (if I understand correctly). It will be low-end, probably
under $100, maybe under $50 from Walmart, Kmart, or Sears. Yes they offer
some systems under $50 without a DVD player, presumably just the audio
receiver and speakers. You can google and look at them, so no need for me to
detail them here.

What I need is advice from those who have tried some of these low-end home
theater systems. I'm mainly looking for intelligible speech with the Dolby
5.1 channels which most DVD movies provide. I just can't understand what
people are saying though my TV's two small stereo speakers, and I've tried
all permutations of settings of the TV and DVD player, as well as several
different DVD players. The rendition of Dolby 5.1 into mono or stereo for my
TV just doesn't work very well.

I really don't care about the surround sound effect, nor the music so much,
and would probably be happy just to stack all 5-6 speakers on top of each
other, or maybe enclose them in a single box. I do however need to have
quality good enough to understand what the actors are saying! It's speech
recognition that's at the top of my list of priorities here. I have a fairly
small room for this application, about 15x20', so don't need much wattage
output. Also I'm not interested in disturbing the neighbors... :)

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