Home cinema - where to buy?

[MattF]

If you go to a proper hifi place they can set up the gear for you in the shop for you to hear it to your budget... If they are not prepared to do that walk away.

I'd agree with that completely. Also the best option as you get to see/hear what they are like together.

Nad

to name a few are very good makes but do some home work first go and pick up a magazine like what hifi

Unless things have changed, or I happened to repair a few of their errant models, Nad seem to be another B&O. All name, not much substance. Basic and sound good, but by god was the build quality poor.

[Apache]

Unless things have changed, or I happened to repair a few of their errant models, Nad seem to be another B&O. All name, not much substance. Basic and sound good, but by god was the build quality poor.

They'd like you to believe that all the money went on the electronics rather than the casework...

I used to work for A&R (before they became ARCAM) many years ago and had access to some very esoteric stuff in their listening rooms. Best build quality generally came from the VERY expensive Brit stuff, along with best sound quality.

Generally, you get what you pay for, but there are the odd exceptions to the rule.

[MattF]

Generally, you get what you pay for, but there are the odd exceptions to the rule.

It goes to show what they can get away with when they put a nice looking cabinet on something, doesn't it. Or hype the brand up so that everyone thinks they're getting the nads.

[dirtydog]

I used to work in a hi-fi centre which was also a B&O branch.
B&O looks nice but is really just Phillips mechanicals and sounds average.
NAD I think are excellent especially thier amps, I run a NAD amp at home with Mission speakers and it sounds great. Decent NAD and Mission stuff seemed to almost always sound good together.
I like Bose (we were dealers for them too) but the twin setups always sounded too bright for my liking, single cube systems were best.
Like Apache says the nice Brit stuff tends to be very good but go and have a listen because certain products will have different sounds anyway.

[MattF]

I used to work in a hi-fi centre which was also a B&O branch.
B&O looks nice but is really just Phillips mechanicals and sounds average.

Even worse than that now. Last time I worked on a B&O, it was Thomson kit. At least when they used Pye/Philips it was fairly easy to repair, (apart from the usual Philips caveats). Thomson kit is an absolute b@stard to work on, though.