Small room-does it pay to go surround sound 5.1?

We do most of our tv watching in our bedroom using the TV’s built in speakers.
Since our DVD player has a buit-in decoder, I was wondering if it would be worth it to go 5.1.

We don’t really turn the volume up and I’m not really interested in the earth shaking subwoofer sound. I’m more interested in the increased perception of left-right/front back.

Do the decoders that are built into the DVD players do a decent enough job? Are there any low cost sets of speakers decent enough to do the job?

You might want to double check the DVD built-in decoder. Mine has this, so I bought a set of 5 speakers and subwoofer, but on plugging it all in, I found that it still needs a surround sound amp to work. The cheapest amps I could find that’d do the job were upwards of NT$11K. Which was more than I was willing to spend, so I’m just running the sub-woofer plus 2 speakers. Sound quality is great though - there’s a little bit of L/R perception noticeable, but not front/back.

[quote=“Taiwan_Student”]We do most of our tv watching in our bedroom using the TV’s built in speakers.
Since our DVD player has a buit-in decoder, I was wondering if it would be worth it to go 5.1.

We don’t really turn the volume up and I’m not really interested in the earth shaking subwoofer sound. I’m more interested in the increased perception of left-right/front back.

Do the decoders that are built into the DVD players do a decent enough job? Are there any low cost sets of speakers decent enough to do the job?[/quote]

I just hook up my computer to a normal stereo integrated amp and its great for music, movies and stuff. No front and back perception however and I can’t work up a layout for back speakers…

I have a 5.1 surround sound set-up on the computer in my bedroom. I enjoy it because it adds more fullness to music, I like the extra surround effects when watching DVD’s, and as a gamer, enjoy the extra immersion that 5.1 gives. I don’t often crank it up to feel the bass, but even at low volumes a little bass adds more fullness.

If you want a solution on the cheap, check out some computer/multi-media 5.1 speakers. My modest Altec Lansing speakers were only NT$6000. Apparently Klipsch makes a kick-ass 5.1 setup for probably a little more than $10,000.