Blipvert wrote:

On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 15:30:47 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:


If you're adamant about the $500 figure, the acronym to remember is "HTIB"
or "Home Theater In A Box".



That was something I neglected to mention in my first post... avoiding
HTIB was a high priority- I wanted to give them something that they
could transform into a very nice system down the road- which is why I
started off with the Onkyo A/V receiver. I shun all HTIBs as, believe
it or not, the weakness usually lies in the a/v receiver bundled with
the package, even though the speakers are usually quite bad as well.
They're really not much more than boom boxes with separates, and
they're the bane of the Best Buy/Circuit City market right now.

Then you'll have to get a nice used setup like the ones I posted from
Audiogon and get a new receiver. I'd also look at Sony, HK, and Denon's
lower priced models. IIRC, you can get a decent surround amplifier on sale
for about $200. All it needs is 5 channels and DTS.

$600-$700 would be possible. $500 is HTIB only. Sorry.