Old home cinema system salvage ?

greens123

Novice Member
Joined
Dec 16, 2015
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Age
40
Location
uk
Hello AV gurus,

I dont know a huge amount about home cinema systems and Im hoping someone on here can help me out.

I have an old PHILIPS HTS8000S system, its a 2.1 system. I'm wondering If I can convert it(long shot?) or salvage anything from it to have a 4.1 or a 5.1 system ? It comprises of a dated DVD player unit which connects to a cable hub which connects to the sub with a dedicated cable and two satellite speakers come from the Sub (which I assume contains the amp).

I regularly connect my laptop (which has a bluray drive) to my TV to play films. Is there a way I can connect the philips gear direct to the tv without the DVD player and add in 2 more rear speakers to make 4.1 ?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

J
 
A bit more info and a more defined question derived from the above:
The connection from the hub to the amp/combined sub is a 15 pin D-Sub cable as far as I can see. I want to bypass the hub as it only works when connected to dated DVD player which tells it which input to use. So is there a way to take the Digital Audio from my TV directly to the 15 pin D-sub connection on the amp ? My only worry is that a signal is sent to the amp to come out of standby mode using the 15 pin connector as well as audio through the same cable so a digital out to 15 pin cable may still not turn the amp on ? Does that cable even exist or would I need to create it ?
 
To be honest there is no easy way to do what you want. It will be far easier, cheaper and give a better end result to just start again with a new system. AVR based systems can be bought for around £250 which will give you full 5.1, all the connectivity you would ever need and better sound quality as well. Richer Sounds is a good place to look first.
 
Thanks for the reply. Im sure you are right about starting again. After completely re-furbishing a newly bought house I dont have anything to spare though. The good thing is I have run speaker cable through the ceilings and walls ready for a 5.1 system. Im thinking in the meantime I can turn the philips 2.1 into 4.1 pretty easily, there are 6 pairs of cable running to the two satellite speakers, surely I can take 2 pairs and run them to two small speakers at the rear of the room to a correctly sized set of rear speakers and have 4.1 as an interim until I can afford a proper set up ? I dont think theres a way to bypass the old DVD/AV receiver unit though.
 
Your system is designed for 2.1 and not 4.1 so there is no rear information going to it. So either keep it as it currently is as 2.1 or buy a new system to get 5.1. The 2 pairs of cables to your current speakers is for a reason and can not just be taken to another speaker without understanding why there are 2 pairs of cables.
Messing with this runs the real possibility that you will completely knacker it and have no working system.
 
I could be wrong but I think there is rear info going to the speakers, there are 2x 3" speakers and 1 tweeter in each speaker housing (6 pairs of wiring), the sonowave system uses at least one speaker in each speaker unit to attempt to bounce sound off side the walls to simulate rear sound I think( I dont have a wall at one side of the set up now so this wont work so well). If I can work out which component does that surely I can take the wiring from those components and wire that to 2 rear speakers. I realise this is in no way an ideal thing to do and may not work, but the theory seems to be plausible to me.
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom