WalMart Home Theater system for $40

[owlfan12000]

You know you really have to be impressed with WalMart sometimes. I was in the store tonight and saw this system with 5.1 speakers, AM/FM tuner and a DVD player. If you think about that they have to make the system, package it, ship it from China, transport it to the store, pay some kid to put it on the shelf, etc. and still make a profit. I figure it's got to have the sound quality of a tin can and string but I doubt if I could ship the box cross country for that price.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Ah, the wonders of economies of scale!

Regards,
Wayne

[bob1029]

Thats impressive when you really think about it... Id like to go buy one just for laughs... It may surprise me.

[no. 5]

I'd like to see a bench test...

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Dunno about a $40 one, but I have heard a few $100-200 systems, and they honestly didn’t sound half-bad, at least for movies. Led me to adapt the axiom, “Any surround sound is better than no surround sound!”

Regards,
Wayne

[SteveCallas]

There were some HTIB systems a few years back with speakers that actually resembled real bookshelf speakers - as in having a seperate tweeter and a midwoofer that was at least 3.5" - and I agree, for movies only, they aren't as bad as some make them out to be. The only brand that still sells systems like that is Onkyo, it seems everything else nowadays is tiny satellites with very small...cough...full range drivers My old RCA system from college for example did the job and it did the job quite well - my current system is head and shoulders better than it in all performance related aspects, but like you say Wayne, it still was much, MUCH better than just tv speakers. I've never had the privilege to hear one of the tiny satellite systems though.

[F1 fan]

My ten year old daughter has one of these $ 90chinese specials in her room with a 13" tv.She loves it.

[eugovector]

Wayne A. Pflughaupt wrote:

Dunno about a $40 one, but I have heard a few $100-200 systems, and they honestly didn’t sound half-bad, at least for movies. Led me to adapt the axiom, “Any surround sound is better than no surround sound!”

Regards,
Wayne

Gotta disagree with you on that one. I'd rather have a good 2.1 or even a good 2.0 system versus a mediocre 5.1.

[nova]

I agree with Steve, there were some pretty decent HTiB, not many, but a couple. I have one of those now. I actually helped my Dad pick out this system and inherited it when he passed. It was chosen to go in his den which was not very big, maybe 10'x12'. A Kenwood HTB-504 with an MSRP of $499 included a VR-507 (100 wpc, DD, PLII, DTS etc.), an SW-35 (8" 100 watt sub), and 5 KS-505HT speakers that are fairly impressive (my wife actually perfers this system to my RBH MC-414C, MC-4C, TS-10AP, and Sony STR-DE995 system) go figure The speakers are really pretty good, D'Appolitto with 2 - 4" paper cone drivers and a 1" poly dome tweeter and the sub is way impressive,...for what it is .
We also added a CT-405 dual cassette deck and a CD423M 200 disk changer, not a bad set-up for $800.

SteveCallas wrote:

There were some HTIB systems a few years back with speakers that actually resembled real bookshelf speakers - as in having a seperate tweeter and a midwoofer that was at least 3.5" -

[bluefoxav]

I was doing a calibration for a customer and he had one of these. they only have RCA inputs and when you run the speaker test on them, it kinda runs like a 3.1 system with some bleed over to other speakers on some channels. They hype up the sound to someone who doesn't know any better. If you watch a movie that has 5.1 you can tell theres no separation. So to say the least this test and my recomendations showed the guy he needed something better.