Allow me to make an idiot of myself

Looking into getting a Home theater system. My main thing is making sure it has digital audio to better utilize my Xbox 360. I know that a digital output on the amplifier is represented by some kind of square hole or whatever in the back of it, anyway what are the key words I should be looking for to make sure that\'s what Im getting. Or should we even have this discussion, is digital surround sound pretty much standard now? Here\'s what Im looking at, tell me if I\'ll be able to play my 360 in digital goodness.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4956285



p.s. No flaming please...

the square hole is optical in (my preferred audio carrier).  You can also get audio over Coax digitally, just check what the 360 supports.

Virtually any home theatre systems these days are going to support digital audio input, although I\'m not familiar with the systems generally available in that price range.  In any event if that "1 audio input" is an optical in, then it will work fine for what you want.  Keep in mind package system speakers and micro-speakers like that will never sound as good as full size speakers you put together yourself, but I can\'t really see you getting a system for under 300 like that.

[Paul2]

If I were you, I would rather wait till there is an audio receiver that have Dolby True HD and DTS HD-MA built in processor to listen to audio in uncompressed quality.  Not to mention this receiver should have HDMI input, and output for TV if necessary.  Don\'t forget firewire connections and optical/coaxial inputs too.  Yamaha, Onkyo, Denon, and Pioneer are great audio/video receivers to recommend.  Of course, as of right now, they don\'t have Dolby True-HD or DTS HD MA lossless audio processor built in.  So wait till like next year or something to get one of those receivers if you can hold off that long.  Oh, if you are really into sound, getting speakers that can produce most of full range frequency sound is a must.  There are quite some brand name speakers makers to recommend like JBL, Klipsch, Energy, and Paradigm which make really good and accurate speakers out there.

of course, this is only if you are really an audio enthusiast and are planning on using this sort of receiver for future Blu Ray player like PlayStation 3 that have HDMI v1.3 that support Dolby True HD and DTS HD MA.

Judging from the link you posted, in my opinion, I think panasonic makes some good inexpensive speakers and audio processors.  But aren\'t as much a pro when it comes to other brand i mentioned above.  Judging from the price tag and the speaker and sub.  I think you will get decent sound, but expect the full range frequency to not be as smooth and higher distortion compare to more expensive stuffs.  Of course, it won\'t have dolby true hd or dts-hd ma  processor built in, and it can\'t accept 24 bits, 96 kHz, surround channels via the optical or coaxial connection either...

But for playing xbox360 games and sound quality is not really your thing.  Then that budget hometheater system should do.

One of the best bang for buck speakers that many audio enthusiasts know well is a brand by the name of PARADIGM. Look into there performance series speakers, you would be hard pressed to find another speaker that sounds as good as it for the price.

Paul2 talks too much.  Optical audio in will give you great sound.  Don\'t spend too much on a fancy brand cable.  And try to get several optical in jacks on the receiver because you\'ll definitely want one for your dvd player, one for your gaming console, and then maybe a stereo system (although I\'m not savvy enough to know if stereos systems have their own optical sounds or if everyone just uses the dvd player to play cds...hmmm)  Oh yeah, and if you have digital cable and want digital sound.

and just kiddin\', Paul.  

[Paul2]

eh, i am just giving my thoughts since i am an audio and video enthusiast.

the optical and coaxial digital audio connections won\'t support multichannel high resolution audio in either uncompressed or support lossless compression audio codecs like Dolby True-HD and DTS HD-MA simply because they lack copy protections and sufficient bandwidth to carry it.

The benefit of lossless compression is that it can save bandwidth by as much as 2 to 3 times, and later retrieve to the original uncompressed quality 100% either by the audio/video player or by the audio receiver\'s decoder...

But beside that, optical and coaxial audio connections does support stereo PCM in 16 bits only, and lossy dolby digital and dts...

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

ah digital Audio, nothing like turning a pure sine wave into a shit heap, then outputting another shit heap...