What do I need for a minimal setup?

If your only requirements are that it sounds better than the built in speakers and that it be on the cheap, your best bet is to head over to wally world and pick up the cheapest HTIB setup you can find. Without any more detailed info (such as price-point or preferences) that's about the best advice your going to get.

JodiC,

Many people would say you already have a HT system. By definition you do anyway. You’re asking a tough question to answer IMO.

Can you get away with just and amp and speakers?

You have speakers but you’re unhappy with them and certainly my view is you can find a low cost solution for an amp which you would be happy with that would benefit your HT system.

Without budget numbers provided I don't think your going to get to many responses with suggestions here. With no budget it is a pretty tough thing to call - but give us your budget and many will be happy to chime in on their "best bang for the buck" solution on any piece of tech.

My advice is to take a look at some of the forums here on AVS regarding amps and speakers, do some reading and once you narrow the field down to 2 or 3 choices for your amp and new speakers go find them in the "wild" or better yet try to get them to "demo" at home to see if they meet your expectations (it is usually tough to "demo" lower priced electronics though so you may be forced to "buy to try" so ensure that where ever you do purchase has a good return policy for the first few weeks just in case.

Best of luck
Calvin

Get a receiver, 2 speakers and a sub. You can always add more speakers later.

And many more would say he doesn't and that he won't have one with a 26" display. Heck, you need to sit 4' away from a 26" display to get the full benefit of 1080p. And if you're sitting 4' away, you won't be able to get HT sound anyway.

My best advice, use that $1000 to get a bigger TV and utilize it's speakers until you save up another $1000. Then get the audio.

You might want to take a look and see if the Onkyo HT-S5100 suits your needs. Looks like its a pretty good bang for your buck. MSRP of $599.99 and I'm sure with a quick search you can do better than that.

The HT-S5100 is a good choice, but if you want to spend less, there's also the S3100 and S4100. What I have recommended to other in your similar situation is start with the cheapest Onkyo system (S3100) and over time as your start to see limitation, move up from there. Compare that with the built-in speaker, it will blow it away without even trying. And for your tv size, I would just stay with 5.1 for now.