Thinking of getting a surround sound system...
 

...But have no idea where to start. Also don't want to break the bank -- so I'm fine with a relatively cheap system (anything's better than ear-blistering mono, isn't it?)

Does anybody have a decent surround sound system they can recommend? Or tips on purchasing one?

For one just because it's open doesn't mean it's broken. By this I mean go to Best Buy and get an open box one. Sometimes people buy one take out a speak and put it all back so they have to sell it at a discounted price. I got mine for 160 with a 4 year replacement place. That's another thing for 60 bucks you can get a 4 year plan*Maybe it's a percentage on these but last time I checked it was a flat rate of 60*

Mine was Yamaha and pretty good, it had an auto shut off to so if it thinks a speakers going to blow it'll shut itself off. I've only had it do that to me twice in the almost year I've had it.

Remember that just because it's Bose doesn't mean it's good, Bose is name brand and so more expensive there's better speaker systems out there for cheaper. Sony is alright, Pioneer is good, Yamaha is good, LG is okay, Phillips is good. The really good ones are these odd off brands you've never heard of strangely enough.

Anyways when shopping at BB for one*If you go* don't let them talk you into getting an Insignia or Dynex, both are the BB garbage house brand and both are jacked up way in price. Also stay away from Samsung they make good TVs but terrible sound systems.

I hope that helps.

I've had a 300watt JVC since 2000 and that baby has never let me down. Sounds as good as a new unit.

Most older systems do, they go for quantity now and not quality. "Get a 7.1 system! 7 speaks and 1 sub! All the speakers suck ass even with thick wiring and the sub is piss poor!" How about give me 5 really good speakers and a sub?

I'd also recommend getting thicker wire for just about all your speakers because the wires they come with are thin as hell and don't draw the best sound out of the speakers.

Also, I'm totally clueless as to how to connect the surround sound to my television set. I've read somewhere that you need a special receiver that seperates the audio and tells each speaker what to produce -- but my friend's got a surround sound system that he just plugs into his TV's headphone jack. Is that true surround?

Eh I've never heard of that method. Every system I've hooked up requires you to connect the audio cables to the receiver, it can also output the video so you can plug like 5 or 6 things into it including HD stuff, which is great cause you can have a DVD player, game systems, VCRs, and all kinds of stuff all hooked up to the receiver instead of the TV itself. All you have to do is hit a button to switch what channel the receiver is on and it'll switch to all the stuff connected to it.

I have an HDTV so I use HD cables that connect to my receiver and hook into the back of my TV, basically the cables are blue, green, and orange/red on both sides. Monster is great, also expensive as all hell, I got these cables for free so yeah. You will need some form of cables to connect the receiver to your TV but your kit will come with them. As for true sound? Well you can get coxal cables for your DVD player, it's like an HD sound cable, their also expensive. I for mine for free from work as well with a huge bag of speaker wire. My reward for wiring about 20 speaker systems by myself in one night.

Wiring speakers is easy as hell. You have red and black, crossing wires is bad so get ones that are color coded or put tape on the end of one side. After that it's a matter of matching up stuff.

Let's say for example you want to connect the left surround speaker, you would look for the label on the receiver that says "Left surround speaker" then hook in your wire. If you got color coded wires or used tape match it up with the red and black on the back of the speaker itself. Most speakers are marked for left and right but in reality it doesn't matter at all and as long as you have one of the two speakers hooked to the surround output your fine. Just make sure when you mount them or whatever their always on the left or right of the TV like you hooked them up.

Be careful not to cross wires, say the tape wire is black and the clean wire is red. Don't put the clean wire in black and the tape wire in red on the speaker or vice versa you can blow your system that way.

This all sounds allot scarier then it is. I had no clue how to do any of this until one night I had to for work and someone showed me, once I got it*Almost instantly* I did 20 systems that night. If your friend is using headphone jacks to plug it into his TV I wouldn't have him help you wire it to your TV but he should be able to help wire your speakers. I recommend you learn cause it makes setting it up in case you move a breeze.

If stuff doesn't work don't worry just play around plugging it into different slots till it does. The best way to learn anything like this is to play with it. I wired a receiver in my room recently to a DVD player, DVD writer/player, and my 360 all the while I have my DVD player hook up through Coxal and HDMI. I also wired in an outside sub that is theater grade*Loud as HELL it'll shake the whole house* so I have duel subs currently*I had nothing better to do with the other sub so why not use both?*

But yeah you got any questions I'll try and help you I know my stuff pretty well. It's more of a visual trade but I can offer some help in words.

Ecto, I'll come to your place and help you set it up. I've been dealing with this sh*t for family for at least 6 years now. I've gone through 4 surround sound systems myself, not including the couple times I've needed to set it all up for my Dad. Either way, it's not difficult, and the only time it ever does get difficult is when you get some kind of insane receiver, like an LG make, or when you need to hook up 4 or 5 different things at a time through different means, optical especially tends to cause a lot of trouble.

Word to that LG is horrid and yeah optical can get iffy as well. There you go Ecto! Hopefully you pick up on it it's a really useful thing to know. Most of the techniques and logic can be applied to car stereos as well.

That's most likely a sound system designed for PCs. Those use standard headphone jacks, so they can work for TVs as well. It won't produce true surround sound without multiple cables, though, since headphone jacks can only carry two audio channels.

I'm looking at setups here in the $100 to $150 range...Do you guys have something like this or higher-end models?

I'm really not looking for the end-all, be-all of surround systems. Something as compact and affordable as this should do, unless you guys are dead set against it. Anything's better than a ten-year-old TV speaker.

If you just want a basic system, any of those would be fine. You're usually going to have problems with audio balance on smaller systems, for instance, I've noticed that the center channel (which is used predominately for voice audio) can tend to be a bit too quiet when compared to the front-side speakers. Most receivers, of course, allow you to fiddle with the volume of each speaker, but quite often you'll have to go all the way up on your center channel, while also lowering your surrounding speakers, leading to a lot of the effects that come from your rear and front-side speakers becoming very weak.

Of course, this also has to do with the quality of your speakers and the wire you're using to connect them. The first system I had was very akin to the ones you're looking at, and I'd often have problems hearing speech over the sound effects, so what I ended up doing was getting a larger center speaker.

There are ways around most of the problems, but like I said, if you're just going for a basic system, and don't care about losing some audio fidelity, you'll be fine with any of those smaller systems. Particularly if you're setting it up in a smaller location, like a bed room.

So where's the best place to find one of these doo-hickeys? Best Buy? Futureshop? Regular old Wal-Mart?