Pros & Cons of HTIB?

[Sussudio]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to buy a home theater to match my Sammy LCD. I'm not a huge audiophile and have no problem going the customization route (which I'm guessing can lead to a more powerful system), but I'd prefer not to spend more that 600 or 700.

Are there any major pros or cons I should be aware of before buying a HTIB? I'm a newbie when it comes to buying sound equipment so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[yellowblanket]

pro: cheap

con? where should i start?
how about everything


all jokes aside, even if you're not an audiophile, it's smarter to go a non HTIB, unless you live in a tiny apartment.

you could just start small, like a sr605 and 2 decent towers for now and then built it up later

[JJ]

Originally Posted by yellowblanket

pro: cheap

con? where should i start?
how about everything


all jokes aside, even if you're not an audiophile, it's smarter to go a non HTIB, unless you live in a tiny apartment.

you could just start small, like a sr605 and 2 decent towers for now and then built it up later

Blanky's got it. Best start with your receiver, your left and rights - your subwoofer and your center, then your surrounds.

$600 can get you a great Onkyo 606 and a pair of great Polk Monitor 50 front towers...then you can build from there for the future!

[Sussudio]

Ok, I will look into those, thanks for your help. A lot of HTIBs i tried out in store looked like they came with crummy speakers anyways.

[Beta Man]

if you're have a T.V., and Blu-ray player.... and nothing else....

I'd start with an AVR and three front speakers.....

spend your entire budget on speakers after listening to a lot of different ones........ and then enjoy that for awhile before adding more.....

[zweet77]

Originally Posted by DoYouBlu

Ok, I will look into those, thanks for your help. A lot of HTIBs i tried out in store looked like they came with crummy speakers anyways.

Biggest con for htib is you don't get hd sound with most of them heck you are lucky to find one that uses digital optical.And yeah the speakers are usually worthless unless you go with just speaker packages no receiver.

[Driver_King]

Receivers are sometimes okay. Speakers, they normally are no good and leave much to be desired. Same with the questionable speaker wire they give you.

[Sussudio]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

Receivers are sometimes okay. Speakers, they normally are no good and leave much to be desired. Same with the questionable speaker wire they give you.

yeh, even if i went with a HTIB the first thing to be replaced would be the speaker wire...then again it looks like i'm not going to go with a HTIB so that doesn't matter

[ixlegitballinxl]

the word htib should be censored out here :X

people usually get a htib due to low price, then 2 weeks later, you wish you had the cash back to spend on a better system

[PanasonicPlasmaMan]

When I was deciding to buy I also had a $500-600 limit and wanted to get a Sony htss 2300 for $500 because it did the hd codecs and was nice and sleek. I soon realized for $600 you can get yourself an Onkyo 606 ($340)
and a polk rm6750 ($200). I was getting a 7.1 system and getting speakers that use to be $600 now clearanced for same price as a HTIB. And of course monoprice.com for all your cables

So to answer your question: the only pro would be price, but as you can see its not even that much less.

Cons: alot

Although if you go with the Polk package you might want to upgrade your center down the road because its not that great... I got the Polk CS1 for $70 on Amazon and its a huge difference.

but for $600-700 you can get a nice system.. And I would avoid going with an HTIB