Can anyone recommend a compact sub (small as possible, wont be used loud) and some bookshelf speakers? Got a set of Gale fronts/centre atm as a 3.0 but want to expand to 5.1 ideally for my films and games.

On a budget so 2nd hand stuff on ebay etc considered, ideally under £100 for both (I can use the bookshelves as fronts if better than my current ones or rears if worse)

Do you have a amp?

If so, you could look into an unamplified car subwoofer and stash that away. Brad uses one, and it sounds really good. Failing that, JVC and Bose make some really nice subs. I can't find any at the minute, but I don't think older JVC stuff will be much on eBay.

I have that sorted already, I have a Pioneer VSX-1017 already

Bose don't make nice subs... or speakers, or earphones

Tempted to make my own cable out of cat5 as I have a load of the cable already and just need to braid it etc

AVR's usually have an unamplified subwoofer out & 5-11 other channels.


For rear speakers clicky

For a sub something like this would be nice

Cheers Sas, any physically smaller subs? not got much space... that said I might omit it all together and just have a 5.0 setup for a while as bass could annoy my parents a lot lol

If you've got speakers with a rear-facing bass port, how close you position them to the wall will have an effect on how bassy they sounds. There is a limit however as put them too close and things can start to sound woolly.

There are some £20 ones on ebay that are quite small but will just make noise rather than proper bass.
Although it might be better than nothing.