When you’re trying to figure out how much money to spend on your home theater, several factors come into play. Your first decision is about how much you want your theater to do. Are you planning to have a 60-inch LCD TV with a Blu-ray player, or did you have something more modest in mind?
Any basic home theater setup as a TV (or projector), a DVD player, and surround sound. If you leave out any one of these items, you’d be hard pressed to call it a home theater.
Display
This is the one single part of your home theater that will have the biggest impact on price. If you already have a TV that you want to use, then adding the rest of the home theater components could cost less than $500. Otherwise, you could pay practically any amount depending on the size of your TV. Of course, the bigger the TV, the higher the price tag. Prices easily range from several hundred to several thousand dollars.
Surround Sound
Getting good sound is critical to having an enjoyable home theater. Unless you score a great deal on eBay, you shouldn’t spend less than $200 here. Depending on the quality and volume you want, prices for surround sound could range up to a thousand dollars or so. However, there are lots of great systems in the neighborhood of $500.
Media Player
The third primary component of a home theater system is your chosen media player. DVD players can now be had for as little as $30 with no significant loss of quality. If you step up to Blu-ray, you can now find many players priced just above $100.
Surge Protector
Although not technically part of your home theater, you shouldn’t be without a good quality surge protector. You can buy plenty of protection for $20 to $40.
So what does this add up to? With your own TV, you could probably be happy at $350. At the high end, you could spend around six grand. However, this doesn’t include any media furniture or improvements to the room where you’ll install this gear.