[Closed] Reccomend a surround sound system for new big flat telly

I have an LG system, a few years old now & still going strong, although (a) I couldn't tell you what model and (b) you probably can't get it now anyway

If I was shopping for a new one it would be (a) bluray and (b) 5.1, which might make finding a decent one a little bit harder, as I don't think many of the widely available ones are 5.1* - so I'd have a look on www.avforums.com & see what they recommend

* I could be wrong, of course 😉 and I am.

have a look at www.richersounds.co.uk

Denon or Onkyo amp, KEF surround speakers and Cube sub. Amp around £4-500. Not sure the price of the speakers, a mate has the Denon/KEF setup, and it's superb.

our new Samsung telly only outputs stereo through the TOSLINK, so regardless of the audio fed to the telly over the HDMI cable, the surroud sound system we have dosent work properly. Looking at ways of sending the audio direct from the source XBMC PC to the surround system, but it seems like a massive oversight 🙁

What sources are you using to input to the TV? As far as I know the TV will only output stereo so you will need a blu-ray and sky HD to give the surround signal to the surround system. For better recommendations an idea of budget and room size will help as this will dictate the type of system (whether full size speakers or satellites and a sub).

our new Samsung telly only outputs stereo through the TOSLINK

That's pretty much standard I think. Last-gen digital outputs don't have the bandwidth to carry modern "HD" audio, so you'd need some form of conversion circuitry in the TV in order to downmix from (say) Dolby TrueHD to Dolby Digital, which would add to the price of the TV.

When I did mine I looked at the surround system all-in-1's and then went for a separate amp, sub and speaker setup. - The main reason was that the all-in-1's didn't have enough inputs to include my gaming console.
But whatever you do, don't under-estimate the sound benefits of good speaker wire nor the look of installing the cables into the walls/floors and having jackplug sockets for speakers.

What other sources will you require - BluRay/DVD/Consoles/SkyHD?

Do you have neighbours - flat/house etc?

What's the WAF - Wife Acceptance Factor?

What's the budget?

Try Yamaha in preference to Denon - with Denon there always seems to be something missing that means you need to upgrade to the next level up - stupid things like audio delay missing from non-budget DVD players.

Kef or B&W (or Spendor) are probably a decent bet for speakers, but go for somewhere that can demo the system and then give you a cooling off period if the system soounds completely different at home (room makes a big difference).

Therefore avoid Richer Sounds unless they give you a cooling off period. Whereas they used to be a source of cheap bargains the are not so much nowadays.

Avoid Bose.

get a [b]'sound bar'[/b] not true 5:1 or whatever it is these days but the father in law got one for £300 and it does the same job, has an ipod dock built in, very nice bit of kit

Jamo a102 speaker system with onkyo something or other receiver. Speakers sounded as good (to me) as the Kef equiv and for a fraction of the price, they are also a bit more discrete to look at (again IMHO)
Amp sounds good, but the missing feature is if you pass-thru HDMI it doesn't send any audio to the tv which makes setup that bit more tricky. It's the entry level unit and I understand the next one up addresses this

our new Samsung telly only outputs stereo through the TOSLINK, so regardless of the audio fed to the telly over the HDMI cable, the surroud sound system we have dosent work properly. Looking at ways of sending the audio direct from the source XBMC PC to the surround system, but it seems like a massive oversight

I don't think you can pass-thru surround sound with any TV. Doesn't matter whether you feed the source into the TV with HDMI or SPDIF. Not sure if its for copyright reasons? All audio has to go direct to the amp if you want surround sound, so get one with lots of inputs.

I got a Sony "HT K250" from ebay with the stands, sounds great and its got 3 or 4 inputs but i only use on as its plugged into a Media PC.

its quite old now but sounds great, impressed with the "fake" 5.1 effect too.

Yamaha amp and Kef eggs here. Highly recommended for SQ and VFM. Take time to set it all up properly and a decent surround system will be far more involving than a loud telly ever could.

+n for Yamaha. I love mine (I auditioned every amp in the building at Richer Sounds when I bought it circa 2000 and it annihilated everything else by a country mile) and will replace it with another Yamaha at some point.

Anyone want to buy an RX-V595? (-:

A mate bought a Bose 5:1 system for about two hundred and fifty pounds off Ebay. Sounds the absolute dogs in his flat (smallish front room), better than his Musical Fidelity/Heybrook Heystack system even (was too much for the size of the room really).

Ver small unobtrusive speaker units, and a sub-woofer that sits under the sofa. I never would have thught such a tiny system could make so much fantastic sound!

Depends entirely on budget but I would avoid all in one solutions they won't be great quality and will be compromised on flexibilty.

If your budget stretches buy a cheapish (£400) Yamaha surround amp. Then think about what kind of speakers you want based on the size of the room.

There are plenty of bargains to be had on Ebay for 2nd hand speakers if you know what to look for. £500 will get you five good speakers if you are patient. Usual suspects would be Kef / B&W / Mission / Acoustic Energy

+1 for the Kef speakers. I've got a Cambridge Audio Azur 540 AV receiver powering a set of Kef iQ5 floorstanders next to the telly and some cheapish Mordant-Short bookshelf speakers for the rear surround. Probably cost about £600 all in, during one of the Richer Sounds bargain bucket days, and it's phenomenal. I really can't fault it, no need for centre or sub, and I have quite a lot of livingroom to fill (high ceilings, rather than massive floorspace)

B&W M-1 speakers are my choice... Compact and flexible. They are available singly and can be used on all five channels with any suitable sub. The REL Quake is an excellent sub which has more grunt and better build than many more expensive units!

You NEED a decent sub in your life, bass is the best part of a movie 🙂

I have Keff Ci400 eggs up front with a Q6c & Ci160.2QS ceiling speakers for the rear, but the absolute best bit is the REL stadium sub-woofer, mental just mental, not cheap but did I mention it's mental?

The whole system is very wife friendly so money was never mentioned

http://store.sevenoakssoundandvision.co.uk/products/productdetail/Yamaha+YSP-4100+Digital+Sound+Projector/part_number=YSP-4100/1765.0.4.3.45962.2116.58685.0.0?pp=8&
with free sub nice ans to all those cables