I want surround sound, what buy?

Quid

To make something clear from the start, I'm not much of an audiophile. I've worked with setting up speakers before but my hearing's kind of shoddy as is, so I don't care too much about subtle differences in sound.

That said, I still really like the experience of surround sound. And, conveniently, our basement has come prewired for it. There's mountings and cables for a sound bar above our TV along with two speakers in the front and two speakers in the back corners of the room. I'm having trouble parsing what kind of system I need for this.

What I'd like, if anyone could help, are recommendations for anything that'd fit that setup. Preferably under a thousand bucks. Otherwise I need to figure out what to do with all these cables running through my wall.

Djeet

You said sound bar, but if you have the wiring you indicated I'd suggest a center channel speaker instead as part of a 5.1 (or greater) system. That ".1" is the subwoofer which is a larger powered component; and your wiring sounds like it's for a 5.1 system. Your other speakers would be powered by your receiver which is something I assume you already have. Do you have a receiver? A decent one is going to cost a couple bills, but you can still get a 5.1 speaker system to your needs under $1K including the receiver.

Edit: I would make sure to get full range speakers for your center and front left and front right (ideally all around) and not tiny single drivers.

Quid

OH

That makes waaaayyyy more sense now.

fightinfilipino

Newegg has a deal on this 5.1 Energy Take Classic set which is pretty sweet for what you get: https://slickdeals.net/f/10557796-energy-take-classic-5-1-home-theater-system-162-ac

you will need an AV receiver with this though.

Shadowfire

I have an older version of this speaker set that sounds really nice. No sub included, but I found I didn't need one in an apartment. A larger room you'll want to add a sub to. As above, you'd need a receiver. A decent Yamaha would be fine, Denon if you want to spend a bit more.

KPC

You need one of these: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-budget-surround-sound-speaker-system/

And one of these: http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-receiver/

And cables, most likely from Monoprice.

Tofystedeth

This thread is also relevant to my interests as these days just about any movie that comes out on BluRay doesn't have a stereo option so dialogue is almost impossible to hear.

aioua

Tofystedeth wrote: »

This thread is also relevant to my interests as these days just about any movie that comes out on BluRay doesn't have a stereo option so dialogue is almost impossible to hear.

this is only rarely fixed by having a full sound system with a center channel

it's the movie companies being too cheap to re-mix the sound for home sound systems

so it still has the dynamic range of the theater with the louds being the right loud in a giant room but way too loud for your living room

so you turn it down to not blast your ears

and now the quiet things (like dialogue) are all whispers

it infuriates me

Donovan Puppyfucker

It's a little ugly, but the Sony Muteki surround system will blow your fucking face off if you turn it up. You should be able to find them going cheap on Craigslist or eBay or whatever.

HappylilElf

How decent/affordable are wireless surround sound systems these days?

EclecticGroove

Aioua wrote: »

Tofystedeth wrote: »

This thread is also relevant to my interests as these days just about any movie that comes out on BluRay doesn't have a stereo option so dialogue is almost impossible to hear.

this is only rarely fixed by having a full sound system with a center channel

it's the movie companies being too cheap to re-mix the sound for home sound systems

so it still has the dynamic range of the theater with the louds being the right loud in a giant room but way too loud for your living room

so you turn it down to not blast your ears

and now the quiet things (like dialogue) are all whispers

it infuriates me

This kills me too. It's such a pain to have to bump up the volume for dialog scenes and then sudden jump into an action scene that is REALLY loud.

Tofystedeth

Aioua wrote: »

Tofystedeth wrote: »

This thread is also relevant to my interests as these days just about any movie that comes out on BluRay doesn't have a stereo option so dialogue is almost impossible to hear.

this is only rarely fixed by having a full sound system with a center channel

it's the movie companies being too cheap to re-mix the sound for home sound systems

so it still has the dynamic range of the theater with the louds being the right loud in a giant room but way too loud for your living room

so you turn it down to not blast your ears

and now the quiet things (like dialogue) are all whispers

it infuriates me

Oh really? It seemed to be only a problem when watching on physical media as streamed content works fine. Do the streaming providers require them to or something? I know back when i first started running into this problem ( admittedly like 8 years ago) the same DVD played on a system with even a minimal more than stereo setup resulted in audible dialog.

Burtletoy

Tofystedeth wrote: »

Aioua wrote: »

Tofystedeth wrote: »

This thread is also relevant to my interests as these days just about any movie that comes out on BluRay doesn't have a stereo option so dialogue is almost impossible to hear.

this is only rarely fixed by having a full sound system with a center channel

it's the movie companies being too cheap to re-mix the sound for home sound systems

so it still has the dynamic range of the theater with the louds being the right loud in a giant room but way too loud for your living room

so you turn it down to not blast your ears

and now the quiet things (like dialogue) are all whispers

it infuriates me

Oh really? It seemed to be only a problem when watching on physical media as streamed content works fine. Do the streaming providers require them to or something? I know back when i first started running into this problem ( admittedly like 8 years ago) the same DVD played on a system with even a minimal more than stereo setup resulted in audible dialog.

I'm not sure, but I would guess most streaming isn't in a surround sound format.

aioua

I would assume streaming services are doing some tweaking/compression to the audio since they have to transcode it into whatever format they're using in the first place.

And there's someone actually on the line to hear people complain if the audio sucks.

At the very least they have some pull with the movie companies since they're paying $$$ to get the streaming rights and can probably ask them for better quality files if they suck.

Cauld

I haven't had 5.1 in a long time, but we would always up the volume on the center channel speaker, since that's where a lot of the dialog comes from.

Shadowfire

HappylilElf wrote: »

How decent/affordable are wireless surround sound systems these days?

The only one I've ever liked is Sonos, and for a complete set (soundbar, sub, and two rear channels) you're looking at nearly two grand.