Best Home Theater System Under $1000

Welcome to our “best of” series. This is where we attempt to spend your money. No, seriously, we attempt to take your hard-earned money and spend it where we’d want to get the best home theater system possible. Here are the basic guidelines, however… First, we don’t focus on displays. That’s a suggestion we make at the end. And, honestly, most people either already have a flat panel TV or projector, or they’re going to pick up the one that jumps out at them at the local store or sale rack. Our focus is on audio and surround sound. Getting you the best home theater system for under $1000 that can put you in the middle of the action and blow your socks off–that’s the goal. Whether we hit it or not, well, you’ll have to let us know

The Best Home Theater System Begins With an AV Receiver

Normally, you’d think I’d start with speakers, but a solid AV receiver will serve as the central hub in any system. We’re going to shoot for a very simplistic HDMI-based system and, as such, won’t be requiring upconversion or any of those other features which often drive up the price of an AV receiver. We also won’t be looking to worry about a second Zone. If you want that, you can always upgrade (now or later) but that will put you into an entirely different price bracket if you’re buying speakers.

For this price point, we’re going to recommend the $249.95 Yamaha RX-V377 AV Receiver which features, among other things:

• HDMI 2.0 compatibility
• 5 x 70 W per channel
• 4 HDMI inputs, 1 output with 4K Ultra HD pass-through
• Front panel USB input for iPod, iPhone or iPad
• Color on-screen display (OSD) for easy setup

Good Alternates: Denon AVR-S500BT ($249 includes Bluetooth), Harman Kardon AVR 1510 ($299)

Surround Speaker System

There’s very little that can top a good set of speakers. If the AV receiver is the brains of the home theater system, the speaker system is its soul. In a $1000 home theater you have to make some concessions, but the majority of your money should definitely go here, and we’ve allocated most of our funds on this part of our recommendation.

For this system, we think the $599 Jamo A 200 HCS 5 5.1 Speaker System is a great value performer. It’s a complete system with a full five speakers and a subwoofer. What we like about this system is the fact that it sounds great, but also meets the common need (at this price point) to be an aesthetic product that can blend in with almost any decor. The small satellite speakers are just 8.5″ tall x 3.5″ wide and are only 2″ deep, allowing them to mount nearly flush to the front of even the thinnest flat panel TVs when placed on a wall.

Good Alternates: JBL Cinema 610 ($399.95), Klipsch HD Theater 600 ($499), EMP Cinema 5 ($699)

Blu-ray Player

For the Blu-ray player we simply recommend something that has decent network features so you can browse Netflix and other streaming online movie services. It’s hard to beat the $145 LG BP730, which comes with just about every streaming media service known to mankind, including Netflix, VUDU, YouTube, MLB, Crackle, CinemaNow, and Hulu Plus. It also can access numerous streaming music services like Rhapsody, Pandora, vTuner and more. (It lacks Spotify, but nobody’s perfect.)

We also like that this player has a front panel display. This is handy for when you insert a disc and want to skip tracks without having to boot up your television to see the track listing on the screen. Many of the less-expensive players don’t have displays that show you any relevant information and you’re stuck guessing which track you’re on.

Good Alternates: Toshiba BDX6400 ($169), Yamaha BD-S473 ($199)

Subwoofer

Fortunately for you, the subwoofer is included in the system above, but if you wanted to upgrade to a standalone model, there are tons of powered subwoofers in varying price points.

Totaling It All Up

When you add it all up, the total comes to just $994. That’s a little under our goal, but we wanted to leave you a few dollars to buy an HDMI cable. Any other miscellaneous items (like bulk speaker cables) that you might need to help you get up and running should be fairly negligible as well. Here’s what the best home theater system under $1000 looks like when you add it all up:

Getting the best home theater system seems impossible—and that’s because it IS. The only thing you can really do is get the best home theater system for your budget. That’s what we’ll attempt to help you with. If your budget is under $1000 for an AV receiver, speakers, subwoofer, and a Blu-ray player, then it’s going to be very hard to beat this home theater package we’ve put together. If you end up buying this, or even part of it, please drop us a line and let us know by leaving a comment on this page or on Facebook.

[top-seller category_id=’20’ product_count=’4′ title=’Other Top-Selling Home Theater Packages’]