So this discussion came up recently about home theater’s and what various people are doing, I just kinda figured whatever and throw my info out here as well.

First off, here is a link to an RSS feed that has some home theater examples which are pretty sweet:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/eh/rss/C154 via http://www.electronichouse.com/

Photos can be found here: http://cid-491062c199155578.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Home%20Theater

Not the ideal set up in terms of layout but it’s an apartment…

Equipment:
56” Samsung HL-T5689S 1080p – currently $1400 (through a long history I originally paid a lot more)
Denon AVR-3808CI – $1200
Dell XPS w/dual OCUR and a LG HD/BD drive (dvi w/hdcp to hdmi) – believe this can be had for $1200
Dell PowerEdge 2900 with 4TB RAID5 in a closet up stairs – $3000
BostonAcoustics VR3 * 4 (front and rear) – $250/ea
VRC (center) – $250
VRX (sides not in use) – $250
XB6 (sub) – $250
Xbox 360 Elite (plugged in via HDMI), Wii (component), PS3 (HDMI) – retail

All the furniture is the cheap but decent Ikea stuff. Unfortunately because it is an apartment and the layout kind of sucks the rear speakers are way too close to the couch, but using the Audyssey in the Denon helps adjust for that and the surround experience is still pretty good. Oh and the fact I’m totally blocking the fireplace that’ll never be used anyway. The main thing for me was finding something cheap and simple to put all the equipment and TV on. Luckily the TV stand thing has space underneath so the cables are tied nicely under there. The only cable that’s visible is the wireless receiver for the KB and mouse. That new Logitech looks like it might be a good replacement though.

Monoprice.com for all the cabling which cost about $60, and considering that included 100ft of 12 gauge speaker wire, banana plugs, 3 spdif cables, 2 HDMI cables, cable for the sub… that’s pretty sweet. I also had previously bought a lot of CAT5e so the entire apartment is wired now though the cables are run under the baseboards.

There’s a single HDMI cable going from the receiver to TV and the TV is permanently set to that input. Luckily there’s no real overscan issues with the TV and MCE. The Dell w/OCUR is plugged in to the receiver via DVI w/HDCP to HDMI, for audio there’s a SPDIF cable as well as the normal 5.1 analog cabling. This allows me to normally use the digital output and get DD and DTS to the receiver, if I want WMA 5.1 and Uncompressed 5.1 PCM I switch to analog and that’s as simple as pressing the Input button on the Denon remote (it cycles through HDMI and Analog quickly). Now I did have an issue with the ATI 2600 card and the HDCP stuff when I added the receiver into the mix, the picture and audio would just cut out every 30 seconds or so. I switched to a nVidia 8600 and the problems went away (ATI driver issue I guess). There’s nothing too special about the setup though beyond that.

I actually use MCE for everything with no standalone players or devices other than the game consoles. It’s just nice and simple that way. The complexity is added by having ALL media stored on the RAID5 upstairs with everything in a domain. It’s pretty well organized but there’s still not enough room to rip all the DVD’s, though Network Media Sharing and Zune handle all the other media.

The speakers are possibly the best part of the setup since they were a total steal. I bought them from OneCall.com who pretty much is the only online retailer for BA. I had some Bostons way back when but they were stolen so it was kinda nice finally getting some again. I had looked at Magnolia and Definitive. I compared Klipsch, Monitor, Definitive’s, and B&W’s. I actually had no way to hear the Boston since Circuit City sucks like that.

My first choice was the B&W’s the 703’s were just awesome and at some point far in the future I hope to have some B&W’s. Randomly though I noticed OneCall had all the VR stuff for insane prices $249 vs. $629 so I ended up jumping on that. Turns out Boston EOL’d the VR series so they were just clearing inventory. They disappeared for a while but it looks like they’re up for $399 now. But this is a good point I think, you can get an awesome deal if you buy slightly used or EOL’d products, as long as you know the product is quality to begin with and the company making them is decent you can’t really go wrong. If and when I go for some B&W’s I might buy the current model year product just after the updated models are out.

All in all it’s a comfortable setup and the budget really isn’t that bad. I personally feel that however much is spent on the TV should be spent on the audio and however much is spent on the audio should be spent on the receiver and stuff that powers it all. So everything is right about that level. Flaws would be the fact it’s all in an apartment with a crappy layout and not a lot of wiggle room. It sucks I have to block the fireplace but that’s the only option in my case, we’ll see what it’s like when I move this month. The center channel is a little weak but I’ve adjusted that. I’m probably going to get a ButtKicker LFE after I move to still be able to enjoy things a bit. Though I’ve actually turned the sub down all the way I’ve still had noise complaints, the VR3’s go down to 35Hz and at a decent volume on some music can probably bug neighbors. I also can’t even use the VRX speakers at this point since I don’t have walls to mount them to, they are dipole surrounds which create a more theater like experience but even so I probably will use them in a dual surround config not 7.1. I mainly bought them because of their discount and the fact they’re EOL.

Anywho, there’s my quick personal review of my own setup. Hoping that at some point in the future I can do a proper home theater room with seating, acoustically transparent projector screen and so on.

Tags: Home Life, Media