I've been putting together my second HT/Audio system piece by piece over a period of 6 years. I have a very tight budget and so any money I spend cannot be spent carelessly. After making rush to buy "mistakes" with my first HT, I vowed never to let that happen again. Being that as it is, I've since felt like I needed to be absolutely sure not to buy something that I would end up not liking, not even one little part of it. I despise the feeling of buyers remorse, and I had to come up with a plan to best avoid it. So here is what I did.
In order to satisfy my immediate need for something I justified buying some very, very "bang for your buck" type products that I knew would get the job done, but would obviously not be what I ultimately wanted to have long-term. I felt it was a good way to get going until I could save up for what I would really enjoy owning for years and years to come. The plan was to replace each component one by one, with my ultimate, and long researched choices. Since I planned this going in, there was the psychological advantagage of knowing my HT was going to get better and better over time. With that in mind, I took great pride in actually spending as little as was reasonable with the intitial components, yet get the most that I could, and have decent sound with some flexibility. After contemplating afew other ideas I felt this plan of action was the best path to enjoying music/movies, avoiding buyers remorse, and have something to look forward to all at the same time.
To get up and going I initially bought 6 Fidek speakers and an MCM center channel speaker from
www.mcmelectronics.com about 4 years ago for a 7.1 setup. The Fideks were closeouts for about 60 dollars each shipped, not bad for full size towers. Then, I bought the parts express 10" titanic mkII subwoofer for around $350 on sale. Later I got a tv stand and an audio rack from Wal-mart for 80 dollars apiece. I used an old 19" zenith TV for the first 3 years that cost me nothing. I found a lower end JVC HT receiver and used all the cheap wires and zipcords I had available. I chose the JVC because it is one of the few low end receivers that has as many a/v inputs in price class. I later used ebay to find a cd player, and 2-channel amp. I bought the Pioneer 563A-s DVD player to handle all my movies, DVD-a, and SACDs. (I'm still having a hard time replacing this item). So as you can tell it was a real bargain setup.
Once the cheap system was in place. The real work began. I spent a tremendous amount of time saving, studying, and auditioning the permanent replacement components. I researched speakers, preamps, amps, receivers, interconnects, speaker wire, stands, mounts, HDTVs, even furniture. Some components for as much as four solid years. I also spent time carefully planning the placement of my room decor taking note of where reflections would occur, and what I could do to best correct for them.
My budget friendly components continually motivated me to find their replacements. One by one I've been doing just that, then selling the temporary items to add to my savings. This approach was something that I had to do out of cost necessity, but after having done it, I began taking a similar approach to my replacement components as well. In keeping with greatly improving my exisitng HT, I began hunting for large performance jumps, with minimal cost jumps across similar components. Every item needed to perform exceding well in the specific way in which it would most often be used, work well in my particular room, and have a price tag that contradicted its abilities.
Here were some of the specific approaches I used:
* I was very conscious of not paying for technology that I wouldn't use or could do with out, like auto calibration, and the latest DSP modes.
* I was also cautious of companies that were obviously spending loads on advertising.
* I took mental note of product weight and paid close attention to build quality.
* I typically passed on speakers that had more than a 2 or 2 1/2 way design. The reason being that designing speakers is essentially the process of creating as few compromises as possible. From the little I know about DIY, the more drivers you have in your design the more compromises you have to deal with in getting a good even on and off axis response.
* I focused on getting quality highs thru mid bass response from my main and surround speakers. Thus, allowing whatever subwoofers I ended up buying to do what they do best, and fill in the bottom end.
* I felt strongly about having my center and mains have matching drivers for the best matching across channels. I ended up matching the surrounds as well since I enjoy multi-channel music.
* I found companies that seem to share my philosophies. You'll know by the way they design and market their products. I'm keen to the more minimalistic approach.
* If one subwoofer had good extension, but was light on output, I'd price two good extension units and compare it with the price of higher output models.
While I know everyone will have their own way of looking at things, the buy the inexpensive basics then replace them approach is flexible enough to be used by just about anyone. I hope this, will at the very least, spawn a few ideas.
