Any home theater enthusiasts...

[James A.]

Excellent. I figured there'd be some some nuts out there.

I am in the process of building a new house and my lovely wife has allowed me to include a dedicated theater. I am planning on two rows of 3 Berkline's and a 92-110" screen. I am using a Harman Kardon AVR7200 to power the 7.1 Aperion Audio system (great value on speakers, BTW).

Specifically, I am undecided on the projector. I know I want to go DLP, but there are a lot to choose from out there. Any input, fellas and gals?

James A.

BTW those B&W's rock, so I am told.

[jtm1631]

James A. -

There is a great web site avsforum.com which has discussion groups on all HT related topics. I am sure you can spend a lot of time reading about all the DLP projectors on that site. I have an RPTV so I have not really spent that much time reading up on the projectors.

You should also check out the HD forums to see what high definition programming is available in your area. In Chicago we have CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS and WGN (a WB station) which all have some of their schedule in HD. Through DirecTV I also have ESPN-HD, Discovery HD, HDnet Movies, HDnet, HBO and Showtime.

Personally I think the HD is best suited for sports programming. Baseball and Hockey seem to be widely available on various channels. This fall, Fox has announced they will be showing up to 6 games per week from their NFL schedule in HD. This is a huge announcement and should do wonders for HD sales. If you are a football fan you can also get one game per week from CBS in HD, the Sunday night game on ESPN in HD and also Monday Night Football in HD.

JT

[tommy]

Originally Posted by Manitou

Watching Deadwood in HD and listening to that foul language through Klipsch's is something I look forward to every Sunday evening. Cheryl and I can't wait for June and the start of Six Feet Under.

The Dark side of you is really starting to show!!!!! Im scared now!!!


Morbid Lover

[tommy]

Originally Posted by James A.

Excellent. I figured there'd be some some nuts out there.

I am in the process of building a new house and my lovely wife has allowed me to include a dedicated theater. I am planning on two rows of 3 Berkline's and a 92-110" screen. I am using a Harman Kardon AVR7200 to power the 7.1 Aperion Audio system (great value on speakers, BTW).

Specifically, I am undecided on the projector. I know I want to go DLP, but there are a lot to choose from out there. Any input, fellas and gals?

James A.

BTW those B&W's rock, so I am told.

Sounds nice....In our last house we built my wife Donna gave me one room in the house for myself...yeah right. but i did get the room off of the game room to do what I wanted....2 choices.....1) home theater 2) drum room...the choice was pretty easy..DRUM room....so I built my home theater in the living room....WE had a 13" recess in the living room so I had a cabinet maker come in and flush mount the 65" build a custom book case around the rest of it it was 14' long and 8' high... i had all the B&W LCR600s3's fluch mounted as well as the subs... then on the left I had all the gear flushed in and on the right I had him build me 6 drawers that were DVD depth and pulled all the way out..It holds about 400 dvd with the rail of the case facing up so you can see the title....Our ceilings our 19 feet tall and the room is wide open all glass on the back side...I mounted the DM602's up at about 9' facing the sweet spot...the dont look bad at all up there even for a rather large speaker....I also went on a Sunday and pre wired all the routes myself as well as the outdoor speakers...out there I have Infinity's nice clean sound for the cenote...all in all looked very clean....I have A friend with a dedicated room and he has the B&W801's front and center....GREYHAWLK silver screen 110" he built the room himself and it will blow your mind Hell his speaker cables are $2000.00 each for his LCR its crazy.... But I would put my system up with anything in the $10,000.00 range....I have since lost all interest in Home THeater as I have gotten a little more older....I do enjoy a movie here and there but dont watch alot of TV anymore....

[James A.]

Tommy,

Your set upo sounds great. I might be able to get some good ideas from it. Can you post some photos?

James A.

[James A.]

JT,

I am an active lurker on the AVS forum. I've done a bunch of research on DLPs there, but sometimes the info you get there is almost TOO much. I thought I might get a more kinda "gut" response here.

AVS is a terrific resource...I'd encourage anyone who is not familiar with it to check it out.

James A.

[james]

I have a Philco 19"

[jtm1631]

Originally Posted by James A.

JT,

I am an active lurker on the AVS forum. I've done a bunch of research on DLPs there, but sometimes the info you get there is almost TOO much. I thought I might get a more kinda "gut" response here.

James A.

I agree with the information overload. It is alot like the digital camera thread where the more research the harder it becomes to make a decision. As we call it in the finance business, paralysis by analysis. The way I now approach HT equipment is I do some initial research and then decide the price range I want and hit the stores. If I like the unit sound or picture and I know it is a quality product, I will usually go for it. Every unit is going to have pros and cons, it is just a matter of whether you can live with the cons of the unit and are happy with the end product.

JT

[mckinzie]

Originally Posted by james

I have a Philco 19"

Sweet.

James I have old 25" Curtis Mathis in the garage that's been in the family
for over 30 years and it still works.
" It's PRICELESS"

[MikeW]

I am adding on a living room and master bed to my house right now. I was unable to decide which side of my living room was going to get the entertainment center, so I ended up setting up both sides for it. I ran extra electrical circuits to both sides. I ran a 1" conduit from one side to the other of the living room for the rear speakers. Ran 3/4" conduit from each up into an accessible part of the attic so I could run RG6 coax, Cat5e, and telephone cable to each side, ran a string in them as well in case I want to pull something else later.

On with my setup. Got all of this about 3 years ago. (2) Norh Prism 6.9 black and (1) Norh Prism 4.1 for a center speaker. Cheapo Boston Acoustics for the rear, will replace with Norh when my room is complete. Outlaw 1050 AV system. Another online only store. http://www.outlawaudio.com. 36" Toshiba - good enough for me. Panasonic DVD, can't remember model, I have a casette tape deck. The best piece is the cheap turntable I picked up Good Guys, a demo unit. The salesman had no clue when I asked for preAmp for the Turn table. The turntable sounds and behaves a lot better then my Girard did 30 years ago.

I'm finding I listen to music a lot more than I watch TV. The Norh speakers do an incredible job of reproduction without killing your pocket.

[James A.]

Mike,

Smart move witht the Cat5. The powers that be say it is the next (temporary?) wave of the future. I am running a Audio ReQuest (James, think big iPod) distributed audio system in the new house and the Cat5 is required to run from the hub to each of the rooms. It should allow for upgrades in the future. It's also cool as it allows full song listing, album cover art, etc. to be dispalyed in each room, if we want.

James A.

[tommy]

Originally Posted by james

I have a Philco 19"

.

Awe James....you actualy have the biggest screen of all of us...You have a daily picture of Playa and that beats any High Def program on TV and your programming always changes and is in true Hi DEF..... I would trade you in a second....

[MikeW]

Originally Posted by James A.

Mike,

Smart move witht the Cat5. The powers that be say it is the next (temporary?) wave of the future. I am running a Audio ReQuest (James, think big iPod) distributed audio system in the new house and the Cat5 is required to run from the hub to each of the rooms. It should allow for upgrades in the future. It's also cool as it allows full song listing, album cover art, etc. to be dispalyed in each room, if we want.

James A.

Never seen it before. Nice. I work at home and I'm glancing over at my old boom box with the Rolling Stones playing right now in my office. Thinking something like Audio Request would be a hell of a lot nicer. What's a little more $$$, kids starting college, I guess a few more years of Community College won't hurt.

[streckman]

Fellas,

Since I am the Store Manager of a beautiful Circuit City and specialize in Big Screen TV's and Audio I'd like to lend my expertise and experience. A few mistakes and hints that a ton of people I come into contact with everyday makeand my suggestions:

1. Distance from TV determines the correct size. If your only sitting 6 feet away then don't bother with a 50"+ set. Rule of thumb is as follows"

4-6" - Get a 34" HD tube - I recommend the Sony kv34xbr910 - Super Set
6-8" - Go with LCD projection/Direct View LCD or Plasma in the 42" size
8-10" - Any of the above in 50" size
10-18" - 60" plus in the above as well

Stay away from CRT projection, we sell a ton and the price is right, but unless your going to be smack dab in front of the set you'll lose too much brightness and the pictures fades as you move off to the sides.

2. Don't forget to take into consideration your rooms ambiant light.

3. Don't skimp on cables, dvd player (make sure it's progressive scan with component or DVI cables), and A/V receiver and speakers. Also, make sure to use a voltage regulator if you are concerned about lighting strikes or surges and also use some kind of "Clean filtered power"

4. Your picture will only be as good as your weakest link, again this coulb be cables, dvd player, power, etc.

5. If you can afford the cash, put our a/v system together component by component. There's a ton out there to choose from. Circuit City carries some decent stuff, but if you want really high end you need to expect to spend a few thousand dollars minimum.

6. Save yourself the aggravation of hooking all that stuff up yourself and get in professionaly installed. CC can do a full 5.1, in wall system, with all the trimming for $699. Our competitors will charge you $999 to $1200.

For those interested in HD programming, check out www.titantv.com or www.terk.com, both great sites for checking out what you can get in your market for local over the air HD.

I'll try to get pics of my system up soon, I just need to figure out how to find the format for loading them. I guess I need to talk to my computer experts.

Yours in PDC and Home Theatre

Streckman

[denisea]

Originally Posted by streckman

1. Distance from TV determines the correct size. If your only sitting 6 feet away then don't bother with a 50"+ set. Rule of thumb is as follows"

4-6" - Get a 34" HD tube - I recommend the Sony kv34xbr910 - Super Set
6-8" - Go with LCD projection/Direct View LCD or Plasma in the 42" size
8-10" - Any of the above in 50" size
10-18" - 60" plus in the above as well

Inches? Or did you mean feet? I can't imagine being that close to any TV set --- Mom always said "don't sit so close to the TV you'll ruin your eyes."