Which Home Cinema for £5,000? (65" Samsung LED + Sonos?)

[Andy M]

I’m looking to convert a disused room in our basement into a home cinema.

Thankfully the room is quite small at 4.3 x 2.7m but has relatively low head-height so I’ve chosen not to go the projector route.

The cinema will solely be used for watching movies (via BluRay, AppleTV, Netflix and Amazon etc) and Sky TV. It’s unlikely to be used for Playstation games etc, but may be used to listen to music (paired up to an Amazon Echo Dot and Spotify).

I gave myself a £5,000 budget and have already purchased a 65" Samsung UE65KS8000 Smart 4k Ultra HD HDR LED TV together with a Sonos Sub, Play Bar and 2 x Play:1 speakers, however I’ve now read the Sonos gear may not always offer the 5.1 surround sound it advertises. From an Amazon review:

“If you're like me and want surround sound from all your devices, you have a problem. The playbars only means of connection is an optical cable from the playbar to your tv. This means the TV has to pass the signal to your other devices (consoles/set top boxes etc) so if your TV doesn't pass 5.1 surround over optical (which my TV and most others don't) then you get stereo...damn. So to work around this I plugged the optical cable directly into my games console...voila! Surround sound from the console. However, this now means switching the one cable between devices.”

I believe the Samsung UE65KS8000 does pass Dolby Digital 5.1 over optical, but I now question if I could get better value for money with a dedicated wired home cinema (5.1) setup?

We’re currently having some renovation works carried out so having the electricians install wires and/or ceiling speakers would be relatively simple.

If I were to return the Sonos system I’d have around £1,300 to play with. I'm not against returning the TV if there is a better option available.

Can anybody recommend a decent surround sound system which will be compatible with the Samsung tv?

And separately, is there a BluRay player I should be looking at?

Any advice would be appreciated.

[PixelpeepS3]

depends how far you want to go (like all things) last time i checked they were up to 7.2 surround - including ceiling speakers for overhead action.

for around £1k you could get a fairly good spec AV amp (yamaha/pioneer/denon/Onkyo) and some mid range (price, not frequency lol) speakers.

IMO Sonos stuff is great for music and a must have, for music, but not ready for a true AV experience. you could also connect the new AV amp to the sonos line in and still distribute if required.

In short, i would have both (keep the 2x play:1's and pair them as stereo for just music) but lose the sonos sub and soundbar in favor of the more dedicated and focused kit for the movies.

[FurtiveFreddy]

I've just done what you're doing. Got the 55" LG B6 UHD TV first then took a look at 5.1 audio options I could use both for home cinema but also to play music through on the odd occasion I'd want to.

Didn't want lots of big boxes and large speakers, so that narrowed down the choice for me, but you may not be bothered about that aspect.

I've gone for:

Samsung UBDK8500XU UHD Blu Ray player (a bargain at the moment, so don't bother with standard Blu-Ray)
Marantz NR1607 AV Amp (handles all the high end inputs plus it can stream Spotify and other music services or just pull content from my NAS)
B&W M-1 Speakers x 5 (nicely matched and as they're two-ways they should be suitable for non 5.1 material at lower volumes and without the sub)
REL T-Zero Sub Woofer (not too big but adequate performance for my room)
That lot should comes to about £1500 at RRP but you'll get it all below £1300 if you shop around.

HTH

[russy01]

I have nothing else to add, other than dont use the Sonos for the surround sound. Ive got 6 around my house now and its great for off the cuff music - but it wont touch a proper system for movies. I had a cheap system in my old dedicated room (£250 amp, 7.1 with Wharfedale Diamond Speakers) and it sounded a bit naff for Music but awesome for the movies.

Having both would be good if you could...

[OldSkoolRS]

Just for info; we're up to 7.1.4 now (ignoring Millionaire priced products). That gives 7 speakers for the 'base' layer (front LCR, side surrounds and surround backs), plus up to 4 ceiling speakers. While you might not be interested in putting all those extra speakers in, what it does mean is that there are deals on older amps that 'only' do 7.1 (which you can still use for 5.1 if that's all you feel you need).

IMHO a proper 5.1 system with separate speakers will blow away any soundbar type solution (not sure whether Sono counts as a soundbar, but if it doesn't have separate surround speakers then my same opinion applies). I'd have a look at packages offered by places like Richer Sounds as once you've bought the 65" TV there isn't going to be loads left over for the amp and speakers. I'd recommend fewer, but better quality speakers rather than trying to go for 7.1.4 on a budget; I reckon a decent 5.1 would give a better overall experience than a mediocre 7.1.4 set up.

I'm mid build on my room at the moment and at one point I only had the LCR and one sub wired up, yet this sounded really good because they're decent speakers. Most of the film content comes from the LCR and sub, so consider focusing on those and perhaps just some really cheap surround speakers (or used if you look on the UK based AVForum's classifieds section).

I'd still say to get a projector though, if you have a TV elsewhere for day to day...it's not'home cinema' otherwise; just loud telly.