[ideogon]

I have a 12' x 17' living room that needs speakers--mostly for TV and movies, and occasional video games and music. I would like to avoid running wires through the room, but I am concerned with sound quality.

Can you suggest a relatively simple speaker setup? Is a 2.1 setup sufficient for this room size? I was interested in a sound bar until my research so far indicates that they aren't very good. My budget is flexible, although I would prefer to spend significantly less than $500, but I don't really know where the price points are.

 

[Spareribs]

Personally, I would just stick with just a set of floor speakers for 2 channel stereo. Maybe you can tastefully add a sub woofer for slightly more ambience but it’s not really necessary if your speakers are pretty good.

For fun maybe you can alternate back and forth with a good tube amp and a good solid state amp. Sometimes depending on which tube amp you use, the audio will be more 3D sounding. I remember there was a movie scene where someone was banging on a door and I could feel the vibration of the wooden door in the movie scene.