You can, of course, build you own surround sound system for more than a few thousand, but that is a radically different price range, which I don’t think is really relevant to this conversation
It doesn’t have to be expensive at all. You can get a 5.1 setup with a decent amp, floor-standing fronts, bookshelf surrounds, a center and a subwoofer for as little as €3000, and that will blow any sound bar in the same price range out of the water. Add a nice 77” OLED, pick last year’s model for a good deal and you can have a home theater setup that will be good enough for 99,9% of people for less than €5k.
(I certainly don’t have that kind of money to spend on a speaker that I’m only using when watching movies).
Why do you think I would use it only for movies? I have never even heard the speakers in my TV because disabling them was the first thing I did after unboxing. I use my 5.1.4 set all the time. Why wouldn’t you?
I think it is borderline poor-shaming (or really just not-rich-shaming) to say that movies can only have audible dialogue at $10,000 surround sound systems. Before that, 2.0 or 2.1 will almost always be a better investment.
No one says you need to spend that amount of money, it can be much, much cheaper. €3k can get you a pretty nice set, but you can build a passable one for half that.
You misunderstand me. My principal point is that any 2.0/2.1 (i.e., stereo) setup will always be better than the surround sound system of equal price.
That axiom only starts changing when talking about exceedingly expensive setups (e.g., spending 10k on a custom Elac or KEF system). Until then, a stereo system will have better value 99% of the time.
As for my comment on spending money on speakers I would only use for movies: surround sound only has a real advantage for movies, for other activities stereo speakers of the same price will undisputedly be better. I would hate to spend 3k on a surround system, when I’ll use my 3k stereo system for most of my listening anyway (this is an example).
But I see that we have very different values (and likely different budgets) when it comes to audio.
3000€ is still a hell of a lot of money. Most people I know don’t have a TV that’s more than 500€ and no sound system at all or maybe a 200€ soundbar. I don’t know anyone whose TV + sound system is above 3000€ combined and the one guy who hits that mark is a movie lover.
If multi thousand euro setups would be the norm, I don’t think we would be having the conversation about bad-for-home-video audio as much. Most people aren’t in the position to spend that much cash on their TV, though.
That said, you can get a decent used 5.1 audio setup for well under 100€, that can totally cope with most of the dynamic range and deliver a good audio experience. But most people don’t know and don’t care about that. They just want whatever movie they’re watching to sound good enough on their TVs.
It doesn’t have to be expensive at all. You can get a 5.1 setup with a decent amp, floor-standing fronts, bookshelf surrounds, a center and a subwoofer for as little as €3000, and that will blow any sound bar in the same price range out of the water. Add a nice 77” OLED, pick last year’s model for a good deal and you can have a home theater setup that will be good enough for 99,9% of people for less than €5k.
Why do you think I would use it only for movies? I have never even heard the speakers in my TV because disabling them was the first thing I did after unboxing. I use my 5.1.4 set all the time. Why wouldn’t you?
No one says you need to spend that amount of money, it can be much, much cheaper. €3k can get you a pretty nice set, but you can build a passable one for half that.
You misunderstand me. My principal point is that any 2.0/2.1 (i.e., stereo) setup will always be better than the surround sound system of equal price.
That axiom only starts changing when talking about exceedingly expensive setups (e.g., spending 10k on a custom Elac or KEF system). Until then, a stereo system will have better value 99% of the time.
As for my comment on spending money on speakers I would only use for movies: surround sound only has a real advantage for movies, for other activities stereo speakers of the same price will undisputedly be better. I would hate to spend 3k on a surround system, when I’ll use my 3k stereo system for most of my listening anyway (this is an example).
But I see that we have very different values (and likely different budgets) when it comes to audio.
3000€ is still a hell of a lot of money. Most people I know don’t have a TV that’s more than 500€ and no sound system at all or maybe a 200€ soundbar. I don’t know anyone whose TV + sound system is above 3000€ combined and the one guy who hits that mark is a movie lover.
If multi thousand euro setups would be the norm, I don’t think we would be having the conversation about bad-for-home-video audio as much. Most people aren’t in the position to spend that much cash on their TV, though.
That said, you can get a decent used 5.1 audio setup for well under 100€, that can totally cope with most of the dynamic range and deliver a good audio experience. But most people don’t know and don’t care about that. They just want whatever movie they’re watching to sound good enough on their TVs.