HTPC Home Theatre

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samops03

Gawd
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Oct 18, 2007
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Hello folks, im building a HTPC for a friend and he asked me to put together a home audio system for him as well. The budget for the speakers and receiver is $1200

Here are some things to consider.
- He does not want huge floor standing speakers.. he will be hanging them on the wall.
- I need a recommendation for a sound card to use with this receiver. It will have a blu-ray player and we need it to work properly. No gaming just excellent 5.1 for movies and music.

He would like to purchase the audio & video equipment first, and then i will build the HTPC

he sent me a link to this speaker set from klipsh
http://www.klipsch.com/products/details/quintet-iii.aspx

and was thinking about this reciever: ONKYO TX-SR606

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
 
The Klipsch Quintet stuff are glorified PC speakers. It's better to get 'real' speakers, bookshelves or such. Klipsch especially are marked up pretty well, so I stay away from them (but I don't mind the 'Klipsch Sound' that much).

The Onkyo 606 will do fine. The Yamaha RXV-663 is also good, depending on which you can get cheaper at the time.

For sound cards, check the sound forum. If you want BD playback then you're actually looking at video cards that can pass out audio over HDMI, like (I think) some of the ATI 3000 series. For analog out, perhaps look at one of the HT Omega cards, but again, the sound subform has gone over this and your answer is likely there.

I don't know for sure what you would do re: wall-hanging, quality audio... the two are somewhat exclusionary unless the word 'maggie' is in there somewhere :D.

Is this for a dorm or a home setup? If it's to be a high performance setup, for $800 I'd suggest thinking of going with 2.1 to start, and adding the other 3 channels later. If it's for a dorm, then yeah, go nuts with the PC speaker stuff, since there isn't a lot of room to be had nor do you want to haul around a whole system.
 
wildfire99 said:
The Klipsch Quintet stuff are glorified PC speakers. It's better to get 'real' speakers, bookshelves or such. Klipsch especially are marked up pretty well, so I stay away from them (but I don't mind the 'Klipsch Sound' that much).

The Onkyo 606 will do fine. The Yamaha RXV-663 is also good, depending on which you can get cheaper at the time.

For sound cards, check the sound forum. If you want BD playback then you're actually looking at video cards that can pass out audio over HDMI, like (I think) some of the ATI 3000 series. For analog out, perhaps look at one of the HT Omega cards, but again, the sound subform has gone over this and your answer is likely there.

I don't know for sure what you would do re: wall-hanging, quality audio... the two are somewhat exclusionary unless the word 'maggie' is in there somewhere :D.

Is this for a dorm or a home setup? If it's to be a high performance setup, for $800 I'd suggest thinking of going with 2.1 to start, and adding the other 3 channels later. If it's for a dorm, then yeah, go nuts with the PC speaker stuff, since there isn't a lot of room to be had nor do you want to haul around a whole system.
Click to expand...

Well this will be for his living room, and i already tried to convince him to go with "real" speakers.. His appt is not that big and he wants to save space. I was just wondering if there were good quality speakers of that size... they dont have to be tiny but have to be wall mountable.

..As for the HTPC, i was planning on getting a 4850 and go DVI -> HDMI to the tv
and getting an audio card to go optical to the reciever, which is why i ask, whats the best sound card to get for htpc for blu-ray?
 
You won't really get quality speakers of that size due to physics. It' s impossible for a driver that small (2-3") using modern construction technologies to really have the control and excursion to replicate the results you would have from say, a well-controlled 5-7" driver. What compounds the problem is that when you get down to that level, manufacturers give up and usually use cheap, undamped plastic cases which add their own noise to the mix.

My previous favorite el-cheapo HTIB (sort of) was the "Audiosource AST 5.1GRP" (google it). They were small, wall-hanging speakers (or they came with feet) with a sub. At their original price of $599, they sucked, but for $169 on the 'bay they are a pretty good bargain. The whole set weighs probably 100lbs so shipping is expensive, but worth it. See if you can find one of those sets. No receiver, but you get everything else with it.

Onkyo's cheap HTIB sets I'm pretty sure come with wall mounting capability, but then you're messing with their output by having them so close to a wall, and they will stick out a lot. Same for the small Polk speakers, I think

For optical out, just use the motherboard's built-in audio. Digital is digital (from a bitstream source, anyway). If the video card can pass audio via HDMI, that's even better, and what you will need for high-def audio via Blu-Ray. Both methods bypass the need for a sound card, since the box is just passing along the encoded audio (or audio that has never left the digital realm) to the receiver to convert to analog.
 
I'd still suggest the Audiosource package over the Daytons if one could be found, though the Dayton sub is probably going to be more impressive. I could never bring myself to get even a sample set of the Dayton minis because they just look so uninteresting (spec-wise -- their low-end house-brand drivers are kind of blah also). The Audiosource as well is designed for wall-mount, and is pretty much the sleeper deal in the HTIB arena IMO.

I loved my Pio 1014, but unless you can get the 1018 for $350, what would be the primary factor to get one over an Onkyo 606 or a Yamaha 663 (both of which keep going on sale at many places). The 1014's EQ never worked right for me, so I don't really consider that a feature. The 663 came with a mic so I suppose it has EQ as well, but I never bothered to check it.
 
Hmm, Onkyo makes OK stuff, but I find their audio is a little to "bright" and harsh for me. Yamaha has a more warm, rich sound IMO.

Denon also has some nice stuff.

I tend to stay away from Harmon Kardon, their quality has really degraded over the last few years.

Pioneer Elite stuff is pretty good as well, but certainly costs more.
 
For $1000 that's probably a horrible value. For $400, probably not bad, but with 3.5" drivers it's closer to PC speakers than home theater oriented speakers. The sub looks beefy, though unless it's ported I question the rated frequency response range.
 
Ok, lets get some things out of the way here.

First off, you're in the wrong forum. You need to be at AVS Forum. They are very helpful people, and will have no trouble building you a system that will really sound great for what you have to spend. These are people that really have a passion for home theater, alot of people (no offense here, i admit to this before) here will try and tell you the top of the line Logitech or Klipsch 5.1 PC system sounds amazing... Little do they know....

Anyway, post over there, you can't go wrong, even with that budget.

Also, no matter what anyone tells you, if all you are doing is 5.1 DD and DTS, completely forget about a separate soundcard. Just make sure the mobo you get has S/PDIF out, in either optical our coaxial. Buying a $200 fancy soundcard and using the optical out on it is a complete waste. Why sound cards are so expensive is the DAC, and you would be bypassing it and using the MUCH better DAC on you're receiver.
 
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