Sound bar / Home cinema kit

Briggo

Looking to improve the 2yr old Samsung LCD sound via a sound bar/home cinema kit in the form of a 2.1 set up. Can't be 5 or 7.1 due to the wiring.

Budget in the region of 300 smackers.

Not too fussed about being overly bassy, just good clear sound and if possible a good surround sound effect but preferably Dolby HD & DTS HD compliant. Connectivity isn't an issue, i.e. I don't require multiple HDMI connections.

Also looking at Blu ray & speaker packages as might sell the PS3, never use it for what it's ment to be used. Is it worth getting a proper blu ray player over the PS3?

nicklouse

Yes there are players outthere that blow the PS3 out of the ground. And they dont cost much.

Most Blu ray players can now decode the DTS HD and Dolby TRU HD and pass it through to the amp.

I would look at a all in one set up.

Briggo

Quite a few sound bars I've looked at arn't Dolby/DTS HD compatible it seems, namely the Samsung sound bar / 2.1 speaker kits however those with a Blu Ray player (i.e. home cinema kit) are compatible.

When you say a Bluray player will blow the PS3 away, do you mean in terms of quality or usability such as loading up the PS3 can get annoying.

jairaj

The only reasoning behind the lack of Dolby HD is that, sound bars are usually bought by people who prefer convenience over absolute sound quality so manufactures probably think most customers are not really interested in it.

allthegearnoidea

i looked at the soundbars for our telly, liked the idea of it, but most seem for use with wall mounted telly's, i went for a small stereo in the end for the purpose of better sound, have a Panasonic one, is part of a full system, (Scdt310) has an optical input which is handy as the telly Only has optical out!! - a million and one inputs, one output!!
but as a nice little system with just the 2 speakers it sounds great, Not bassy but not bad!! it has a dvd player on it too which works the surround side of it if you connect the rest the speakers, the speakers are quite nice to look at too which always helps!! :-D
this is the full system (ours is just the units and front speakers )
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Panasonic-SA- ... 1c2a68d8cc

Jimx26

I have the onkyo HTX22 hdx, cracking bit of kit and comes as a 2.1 that can be upgraded to 5.1.