I did get a bit confused yesterday afternoon -- had a reply "in progress" for a while, then after I posted it found that the thread had continued in the interim. At first I thought that it had moved off in a completely different direction (the consult with the guy at Rutledge, ...). After I replied again, I realized that the situation hadn't really changed any and my 3:06 post was actually still on topic. Let's see if I can untangle my reasoning a bit before I dash off to a pre-bid meeting.

If the decision were Bose AM6 or Onkyo SKS-HT500, I'd recommend the Onkyo in a heartbeat -- half the money, and a fundamentally better design approach (1" tweeters and either 4" or 5-1/4" woofers in the satellites plus a powered sub with an 8" cone is simply a more traditional and better approach to sound reproduction than Bose's 2-1/4" paper cones and their passive bass module). Plus they actually just specs for frequency response, even if I do question the 35kHz upper limit (the human ear generally can't hear above 20kHz, and very few speakers at any price range claim much frequency response above 20-22kHz). You get what you pay for, of course, so it is likely that build quality will be a bit on the cheap side. Going with something like the Rudledge speakers or a better speaker brand like Paradigm or Boston Acoustics will get you better sound, but we also have to keep a few other things in mind. First, with an all-in-one receiver and DVD player like the JVC, we are relying on a fairly entry-level front end to drive these things. This does make a difference. In all likelihood pairing the JVC up with something like Paradigm Reference or B&W speakers would leave the speakers limited by the receiver. With the budget you currently have available, you are left with two options, as you have already figured out. (1) Go with the Onkyo right now, with will likely give about the best bang for your buck for surround sound right now, or (2) go with a pair of better speakers now and deny yourself surround sound for a while until you can budget money for more speakers. If you have any old speakers lying around, you could press them into service as surrounds and live without a center and sub for a while. The center can be approximated by the two better front speakers you would buy (it's often referred to as a "phantom" center, and some people even prefer this arrangement). The lack of a sub would mean the lowest couple of octaves would be left out of your movies. If you don't have any speakers around now that could be used for surround, the question really boils down to whether or not you want to wait to enjoy surround and whether or not you think you'll be in a position to ever go back and buy more speakers. If you bought the JVC in order to enjoy watching movies in surround sound, you may (understandably) not want to end up with just two speakers, no matter how good they are. Charlie summed it up pretty well yesterday:



The Onkyo's are probably the least expensive surround speaker package (short of buying one of the 5.1 computer speaker packages) that you will likely find. You could hang onto the box(es), and if you decided to invest in better gear later you could go to eBay and sell the Onkyos -- and probably recoup a fair percent of your original investment in the process.

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gonk -- Saloon Links | Pre/Pro Comparison Chart | 950 Review

[This message has been edited by gonk (edited March 20, 2003).]