Home theater on a budget: Where to scrimp and where to spend

In these tight times, everyone is interested in saving a little bit of cash where they can, even when putting together a home-theater system. As an example, one of our readers recently wrote to ask "If you are putting together a home theater system on a fixed budget, where can you get away with scrimping a bit and where does it pay to put performance first?"

Different experts have different takes, but the HDTV is the most important part of home theater for most typical users, and that's the component where a few extra dollars spent can mean a world of difference. The good news is that even on a budget, it's possible to find HDTVs that do a good to great job in delivering a high-quality image. Where cost is a concern, skip the bells and whistles and look for an HDTV that delivers deep blacks, good color performance and solid signal processing. See our reports on LCD TVs and plasma TVs for some suggestions.

Many say that the audio is just as important as the video in a home theater, and we agree. However, it is possible to put together a decent sounding audio solution at a relatively low cost, especially if the system isn't pulling double duty as your primary source for music enjoyment. If your budget allows for it, our reports on home-theater receivers and home-theater speakers include some modestly priced options that will please all but the most finicky of audiophiles. If costs need to be kept on an even tighter rein, consider an all-in-one home-theater system -- often called a home-theater-in-a-box. Yes, some HTIB systems are truly awful, but there are also many modestly priced home-theater systems that sound pretty good -- certainly much better than anything you'll hear from even the best HDTV's speakers.

If your new system will include a disc player, we think the time is finally right to move to Blu-ray. Prices of good-quality entry-level Blu-ray Disc players have finally fallen to below $150, and some can occasionally be found for $100 or less. More expensive Blu-ray Disc players add some spiffy features, but they don't play back Blu-ray Discs any better -- and many budget Blu-ray Disc players do a great job with regular DVDs as well.

DVD players remain an option of course, and there are some high-end models that deliver pristine picture quality -- at a price. For the budget buyer, we suggest staying simple. Even a basic non-upconverting player can be an acceptable choice as many HDTVs do a pretty good job of upscaling DVD resolutions to near HD quality in their own right. In fact, many HDTVs outperform all but the best upconverting DVD players in that regard.