Home audio & video forum: Need Home Theater suggestions

YOu don't say what you are willing to spend for your enjoyment. Media centers have started to come down in price and would certainly offer many of the things you are asking about.

won't buy an especially good theatre system..

i just set out to buy a home theater system this week and i ended up spending over 3000 dollars (not including a TV)

in the end i expect to spend around 6000 dollars on the whole system.

..i got a set of 5 Aperion Speakers, the Denon 3805 reciever, and the Pioneer DV-588A dvd player..

you'd probably do best getting a cheap media center pc with monitor, speakers, tuner, and dvd burner included with your budget

Gee, thanks...FOR NOTHING!

I guess I wasn't very clear...I wasn't talking about the TV. I just meant the stereo amp/tuner/receiver, plus the DVD/CD player. From other messages, it sounds like $1,000 is not realistic, so let's say $2,000. I'm not enough of an enthusist to need to spend more than that; my uneducated hear frankly won't hear much difference!

What I'm really interested in is knowing how I can play my mp3's on the system w/out burning them to CD's.

Getting a system that already has all the components included will give you the best value.

The Onkyo HT-S780 (http://reviews.cnet.com/Onkyo_HT_S780_black/4505-6740_7-31481416.html?tag=pop) is a very popular 7.1 channel system that has all the speakers and the reciever included. This system has incredible bang for the buck.

In order to play mp3s you could use an mp3 player (such as the iPod..) that has all your music in its HD. For the iPod you could get the dock accessory with it in order to get a line-out connection that you can then use as an input for your reciever. Just so you know, mp3s are only two channel, so only two speakers will be used unless you change the settings on the reciever to use mixing effects to create a virtual multi-channel sound. (it generally delays signals to the other speakers and adds some reverb).

Since you aren't particular about the sound of the speakers, you could also save a lot of money by just getting some good PC speakers. For 2.1 sound the Logitech z-2300 has gotten fantastic ratings (http://reviews.cnet.com/Logitech_Z_2300/4505-3179_7-30993080.html) and i actually own the speakers. 5.1 (surround) : http://reviews.cnet.com/Logitech_Z_5500_Digital/4505-3179_7-31115626.html.

I would recommend that you just get a dvd player instead of a burner. A burner isnt necessary unless you plan to record television broadcasts onto dvd.. (are you?)

Using this setup will bring the cost to around $500 not including the TV. This is the only way you could get away with a $1000 budget. 1000 dollars is a fine number if you aren't much of an enthusiast as you have said.

good luck