Quest for a home theater

As I wrote previously about my Sharp SH12U, the volume level is just not sufficient, and I expect that on a hot summer day the air-conditioner will likely make it very difficult for me to hear anything coming out of the television. This is especially true for QAM cable channels. Analog ones are a little louder.

A simple solution to this problem would be a home theater. Simple, but not inexpensive! And I am just not the kind of guy who needs authentic reproduction of audio in scenes "where stuff blows up." I just need something with a little more power than what my Sharp has to offer. I realize that this creates some incompatible expectations on my part. Nevertheless I will list the points that are important for me:

- under $150
- small form factor/footprint
- wireless speakers. Yes, I don't like wires. Can you blame me?
- if there is a DVD player it better be capable of upconverting to 1080i

I am still looking for this perfect combination, but because I will probably not find it, my top contender at this point is:

RCA RTD215

Official specs:

ENERGY STAR® qualified – This model consumes less than one watt in standby mode and meets the standards of the ENERGY STAR Program for energy efficiency
DVD/CD Home Theatre System – A complete package to experience DVD movies in surround sound
200 Watts Total System Power – 32 Watts x 5 with a 40 Watt Subwoofer
USB Input – Connect most mp3 players, thumbdrives and digital cameras through the front USB jack and enjoy your music or photos through the home theatre system
Multi-Format Playback – Plays DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, mp3, WMA®, VCD, SVCD and JPEG
Digital AM/FM Tuner – Tunes AM/FM stations with maximum accuracy and minimum drift
Dolby Digital® – Up to 5.1 channels with full, wide band frequency response. Five main channels are discrete & have 20Hz-20kHz frequency response
Display Type – VFD

What's missing?

I checked the manual to get some additional info.

- No HDMI, only component. Well, that's not so bad, I guess.
- No upconversion. But at least there is a progressive scan mode.
- No wireless. I'm afraid this is the feature I want the most, but it is also more expensive.

What's not necessary, but present?

The USB connection. Well, maybe that's useful, but believe it or not you can actually rip music of CDs to save it on USB devices. In my opinion this is entirely unnecessary. I'd rather see upconversion to 1080i. No such luck.

The good news is, however, that RCA apparently makes decent home theaters. Maybe one day they will have the right one for me?