i am buying my husband some surround sound stuff for christams year, but have a very small budget. what is the first thing i should buy? we have no surround sound equipment yet so what can i buy to start without having to buy the entire system.
thanx

This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,

You don't say what kind of budget you are working with or if you have any audio equipment at all. You can purchase a home theater in a box, which contains all of the electronics and speakers to get started. These have gotten very affordable, usually starting at less than $600.00. If you would like to buy a single component of a little greater quality then I would suggest starting with a surround receiver. This could be used with your existing speakers, if you have any, then in the future you can add and upgrade the speakers as the budget allows. If you do not currently own any speakers then you will be needing those with the new receiver to be able to do any listening at all. If you decide to go with the new receiver, be certain to buy one that is capable of decoding the most popular surround modes, which are Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS.