I'm new to the whole HD/Home theater thing. Recently purchased a 50inch Panasonic Plasma and am looking for an affordable home theater rig.

Needs:
Decent sound (used to TV speakers though)
4 small wall speakers (new home is already wired for 2 in the front, 2 in the back)
Will be connecting a BLueRay/PS3 to it.
Watch mostly TV/Movies, minimal gaming
Room is approximately 30feet wide 18fet deep.

Price: less than 700$ for speakers, receiver.

Suggestions? Thanks.

There's a Polk Audio (RM6750) w/ Yamaha receiver (HTR-6130) package currently on sale at F.S. that should fit your bill...

I would have to agree with eljay the package thats mentioned is pretty good.
just remeber that the cables will cost a bit of money to.
do you have an HD Receiver that you are will be hooking upto it to?

if so you are looking at 3 HDMI cables and a couple of Audio Cables to go from the devices to the Receiver.

I'm in the exact same boat as you. Looking to spend around that much to connect to a Panasonic plasma. Initially I looked at HTIB's but decided to go with a separate receiver and speakers.

For speakers I ordered the Polk RM10FS for $349 online at FS - I believe these are a slightly better set than the RM6750 (just from word of mouth, I haven't been able to compare them side by side).

I haven't decided on a receiver yet, but am considering the Sony DG720 and Denon AV688. Both are around $300 but can be found cheaper on sales. Browse the forums for more suggestions on low-mid range receivers for your budget.

Best of luck!

Since the speaker wirers are already in wall (may have to run a short wire for center?) then cabling should be very cheap. PS3 should be via HDMI $5 from mp.com. Cable/Sat box can be HDMI/optical depending on how many reciver HDMI inputs you have. So you might be able to gte by with 2 hdnmi cables 10 + $ depending on length. Do NOT I repeat do NOT buiy cables from FS BB or any other big box store to go with your ststem. Inexpensive mp cables will do exactly the same thing and take a tiny bite out of the 700 budget.

With a $700 budget I would look hard at used speakers.


I would NOT but the FS package shown above. 2 reasons

1. Your room is big like 4000 cubic feet.
2. The RM10FS Polk system is on sale for 349. Even this is probably going to be swallowed by your room but at least its a 100 W sub compared to a 50 W sub which is practically usless. Aslo the RM10FS has bigger speakers than the package. They go deeper and will play louder.

Rmf10fs 349 + HTR-6130B 299 =648 seems like a better deal than the "package.

Truth be told I'd recommend you get one of these sub $299 recivers and maybe a $400 set of surround sound speakers (if you must have small wall speakers) and then start saving for a sub. The sub in those little packages are going to get lost in that big room. Its more than 2x the volume of my HT room and I'm running front towers, big bookshelves for the rears and have a 1300w 15 inch sub on the way. I don't play crazy loud.