You should establish a budget before going shopping for your home theater system and buy a system that suits both the requirements you wish to have filled and your means with which to pay. The good news is that there are some home theater packages that will suit most budgets; even the tightest and you can always find the one system you like and watch closely to see if it goes on sale.
The point is that there really are all kinds of home theater systems on the market and they vary greatly in price, quality, and scope. Be sure you know exactly what you are getting when your purchase a home theater system, especially if you are buying one of the many home theater in a box kits that are on the market today. You may not be getting everything you believe you are getting and it pays to know what you need in regards to what you currently have.
Common components you will find in a home theater system kit include the following: a receiver, speakers, and a DVD or DVR. Most kits currently on the market do not include televisions and some kits being advertised as home theater kits are merely boxes of speakers. This is why you need to make sure that you read carefully and know exactly what is included in the 'kit' you are paying for.
If you need a new television in order for your home theater to be worth anything to you that might be the starting point for your home theater system upon which you can build later. If you have a decent television that is HD ready then you are prepared to start searching for an excellent HD home theater. If your television isn't HD ready, it would be a waste of money to make the investment in HD equipment at today's inflated prices that will not be of immediate use to you. If HD is important, then you should really begin by purchasing an HD television and not build your home theater until you have that key component in place.
On the other hand, if HD isn't important to you at the moment or you would prefer to wait until lower prices prevail, it is a sound decision to go ahead and purchase a home theater that has the best technology you are capable of utilizing at the moment. You can actually get pretty good deals on what is considered yesterday's technology (which can be just that recent in today's electronics market) and for many that is definitely the way to go when buying a home theater system. You can get the best of yesterday's technology for a fraction of the cost of many lower quality items that are on the market today.
The biggest thing to remember when comparing features is to know what is important to you in a home theater system and buy with that knowledge. It doesn't make sense to make this sort of investment if you are going to find that you cannot live with the limitations of your technology 6 months from now. For this reason, only you can decide what is and isn't an acceptable price for you to pay for your home theater system as well as what level of technology for which you are willing to settle.
