Surround Sound System for PS3 Use...

[RacingManiac]

So since the release of GT5 I've been playing it on my PC monitor and using the stereo speaker with that. Mainly because my G25 setup lives there. But having a HDTV sitting neglected is not something I want to do, so I've ordered a Obutto setup so I can play it on TV in 16:9 instead of the slightly squished 16:10 on my monitor. With that though I moved my attention to sound. I've watched BD movie on my PS3 on TV before just off the speakers on TV, while there is nothing terribly wrong about that, I just feel I am missing a huge part of the feature set of these modern media. So I've decided to buy a 5.1 set for TV, for GT5 use and regular game/movie watching. I was going to go the computer speaker route and get a 5.1 system from Logitech, until I found out that their cheaper model does not do true 5.1 sound on anything but a PC. And their 5.1 capable set(I believe the Z5500, with optical jack) is over $300. For that kind of money many of the "Home Theater in a Box" setup is cheaper and supports HDMI connection. Since my PS3 is my main Bluray/DVD player I wanted to avoid one that is a DVD/BluRay player setup. So the Sony HTS-S370 caught my attention. At $250 its not that expensive, has 3 HDMI in a 1 HDMI out and a set of 5.1 speakers. Seems to be the best option. But is there anything I'd be missing vs the Z5500, or vise versa? Anyone can comment on either one of these system(or others?)

 

[Tornado]

Go used. You can get high quality dedicated A/V recievers for well under the $250 price that that Sony is, and all you would have to do is pick up some speakers (and high-quality speakers can be found cheap in pretty much every pawn shop in the country). As a rule, treat sub-$250 home audio (ie., recievers, HTIBs and the like) as garbage.

And lest you be swayed by that Sony, you should be aware of a particularly nasty thing about entry-level components with HDMI (doesn't matter whether they are recievers, HTIB setups or what): They usually don't support HDMI audio, meaning 9 times out of 10 you need to run coax or optical into the reciever anyways. The HDMI inputs are video only (or at the very most, HDMI video with 2-channel PCM), making the reciever nothing more than a glorified input switcher. The HDMI is just there to fool people into thinking the quality is better than it is, when in fact it is usually worse than the non-HDMI components that preceded the HDMI ones (as a textbook example, see the Onkyo TX-SR500 series). I'm speaking generally, so that Sony may be different, but I would be surprised if it was.


Still, even if that Sony doesn't suffer from the drawbacks typically associated with entry-level audio equipment, a used reciever would still be a better bet.





Edit: Disregard the stuff above. Apparently, the Sony is a medium-level, $350+ system that is currently slashed down to the $200 mark rather than an actual $200 system like I thought it was, so the quality of it should be pretty good; and it does support a gamut of HDMI audio so long as you set your PS3 up correctly.

 

[RacingManiac]

I saw a deal for the set for ~$180 and I went for it over last weekend and it just showed up today. Setup was relatively painfree and the auto calibration worked quite well. Runnin L-PCM 5.1 from PS3 to it then the TV. Since my TV is also a Bravia set the BraviaSync works awesome, one remote can control that and the TV. Also works with my cable box in HDMI. My only issue now is that my PC that I occasionally use to watch movie, though it has optical out with the RealTek on board sound, does not do 5.1 it seems over optical. Sucks, but can't have everything I guess...