Cheap Home Theater Systems

A home theater system is this decade's equivalent to the last decade's stereo sound system. Unfortunately, as much as the last decade's stereo cost, they are barely a fraction of the cost of a home theater system.

Yet, fret not, there are choices and there are choices. First, you have to strip down what a home theater system should really be. Are you looking for a full theater setup, complete with stage, leveled seating and arctic-type air-conditioning or do you want something you can plop down in front of after a hard day's work? Second, figure out a budget. Believe it or not, you don't have to lose both arms and half a leg to get a setup that would satisfy you.

The best place to start, well, actually the cheapest place to start is to look at your current audio setup. If you're currently using the built in speaker of your TV, you are the very basics. If you've got your stereo plugged into the audio out of your TV, that is so much better. If you already have an amplifier where your TV's audio is connected along with a myriad other connections such as from your DVD player and your ten year old Boom Box, you're at the best place to start.

The lowest setup you can start with is a 3.0 setup. What is this 3.0 setup, you ask. Well, 3.0 means you have two speakers for the left and right and a single speaker as a surround speaker. This are a lot of products out there that cover this setup and they have price ranges that start very low.

A 3.0 setup is not that much better, though. Okay, it can blow your minds away when you watch the latest action movie but, not very far.

To balance both performance and budget, aim for at least a 5.1 setup. This is going to cost you but your friends won't be laughing when they walk-in to your entertainment center.

Sound systems like these are offered by a lot of big name audio equipment manufacturers and they are not cheap for a reason. They deliver. The sounds are crisp and clear, the subwoofers feels like a hurricane when the base play begins and their speakers have astonishingly small form factors. The better to hide your speaker so that you can better simulate a natural experience.

Now on to the video. As much as possible, it's better to get a wide screen display. If you've got the money, invest on a HDTV. Also, a Plasma TV is one of the hottest products around. They're as flat as a big picture frame and can actually be hung on the wall like one. They're also expensive. There are also traditional picture tube displays you can get with large screens. However, the larger the screen becomes, the more you can discern the scan lines. You can also get a projector display but it can be a bit impractical as it needs both a projector and a projector screen and, those projector lamps are not cheap.

All in all, what this really says is that an home theater system is not going to come cheap. However, there's a surprisingly versatile and relatively cheap alternative: a PC.

While PC's started out as glorified typewriters, functioning as word processors and the like, the advent of computer gaming put the PC ahead in terms of entertainment technology. Way ahead.

While the rest of the world was still being mesmerized by digital surround systems, PC gamers were already playing games where they were running away from monsters they could actually HEAR breathing behind them. While the rest of the world was discovering digital displays, the average computer gamer's rig was already handling tasks more complex than that.

When you buy a PC, you already have an entertainment station ready to go. What's more, you can play games on it and get drowned on the sense surround. The average PC already offers a video out that you can connect to your TV. A little more investment and you have HDTV capability. The sound card on the average PC also offers customization that can simulate an audio surround system ranging from a stereo setup to a 5.1 or even 6.1 setup. Plus, it already comes with a DVD player and a great controller which is the mouse and the keyboard.

So there, if you want a cheap home system, you can go buy any of the low to mid range products available but, be warned that you may not be getting what you are expecting. To be sure you get the sense surround experience, target at least a 5.1 setup. Of course, it's a more expensive setup but that's the price you pay for quality. Or is it? It turns out that a cheap way out for you to take so that you won't have to spend so much for a home theater system is your average PC.