polarbearit

I was after a small hifi for the bedroom, and also a DVD player - so one of these all in one 5.1 DVD home cinema setups... Nothing too dear (max of ~£280, though less is better!) and would like decent volume (and DTS) as my bedroom is 18'

Any recommendations?

Oh and one other thing - It must have a display as I don't want to have to put the TV on to listen to CD's!

Cheers

Jon

paulr

Not sure if you'll get much for less than £280.

polarbearit

There seem to be loads - Richer Sounds have a Sony one at £250. The cheap makes seem to start at ~£140

But for the money it looks like I can get something from most manufacturers. Not looking for anything too flash (this isn't main system) - just something for the occasional film in the bedroom.

hades

I'd go with the Sony. The Sony DAVS550 (about £400 from Richer Sounds) has apparantly won a couple of awards. In the latest mag I have, the DAVS400 was £280 or £300 for multi-region. I have seen one of the Sony's in action, and it was pretty impressive for the money.

Whatever you get, you'd be able to get better if you spent more, and a separates system will generally sound nicer than an integrated unit (whilst costing more). However, at your price-range, and for total convenience, IMHO the Sony is the way to go.

bigsinky

m8 u get what u pay for. all i can say is i have been down the all in one route and while it was convienient, cheap it also lacked sheer dynamics. having purchased an all in one i went to a mates house who had separtates and was totally blown away. now i do not have the muts nuts system but it is now a separates system that has been built up gradually over the last couple of years. spent most money on an amp and eventually plumped for the the sony 940. i think richersounds is doin it quite cheap now. speakers where my next upgrade and i went for b+w but again i could only afford fronts and the centre nearly bankrupted me but it is a case of "feel the quality". waiting to gather enough shekels together now for the b+w subwoofer but that will be a while yet. another piece of advice i would give you is don't scrimp on interconnects or speaker wire. on one of the av forums that i use regularly one guy equated using crap speaker wire like serving a vintage red wine in a platic cup. you can view my system at here. if i can help ya in any other way give me a shout.

cheers

big sinky

IWatkins

Big list of Sony All-In-Ones here. Quite a few systems within your budget. I can vouch for these people, bought from the lots of times, no problems.

Of course, you know that none of them will sound as good as your main system. But a bit of advice would be to make sure you still have a lot of control over levels to each speaker. The all-in-one we had in the bedroom made way too much bass, even with the volume low of an evening

Cheers

Ian

[Edited by IWatkins - 2/25/2003 11:15:46 PM]

polarbearit

Well I did the rounds today and picked one up...

Not a sony (the DAVS 400 didn't feel like a sony and the sound wasn't that good - the 550 was much better but out of budget)

I narrowed it down to the Pioneer S303 and Panasonic (?)DCDT100S... Both offered excellent sound and were £299 and £349 respectively in John Lewis though the Panasonic was ~£300 online (as was the pioneer) - in the end I went for the Pioneer as I could get one there and then and get the free extended warranty from John Lewis.

Popeye P1

Make sure the DVD plays VCD and CD-R so you get play all those dodgy Movies from Bangkok.

bigsinky

@popeye P1

just get a motorised dish m8 then u can have it beamed in 24hrs a day.

Ahh well so many channels, so little time

cheers

big sinky

[Edited by bigsinky - 2/26/2003 10:46:30 PM]

jbryant

Go back to John Lewis and get them to price match if you havn't already. If the online store has a 'shop front presence' you may well get 50 smackers back!

Joolz