Hey, Chris. Welcome to Audioholics. I live in Wheaton. I have bought some things from ABT but never had reason to use their installation services. Theoutlet price you quoted is not out of the park for the Chicago metro area. I'm a tradesman myself, and to have an electrician insatll that outlet would be that much or more......hopefully there won't be any drywall repair.
I have the previous year's Panny Plasma (42") and love it. The PQ is just fine on all fronts in my humble opinion. The menus are very easy to work.........I don't think you will be disappointed.
I kind of agree with the above poster........do some research here on audioholics and read up on your options for Home Theatre Surround sound. Are you on a strict budget? While that Panasonic home theatre in a box (htib) may seem like the easiest way to go, which it probably is, I would def think about buying a receiver and some decent speakers. They have the Yamaha RXV363BK for under $200, and that is a fine fine machine that is better than the whole htib you are considering. Frankly, the idea behind the whole home theatre in a box is that you can set it up yourself, at home pretty easily. If you can hook up a computer, you can hook up the htib. For $450 install, that seems like a waste to me. If you are going to have professional installers out, a home theatre in a box is kind of, um, silly. Do your homework. Tell your sales guy you want a real receiver. Give him a budget and see what he can do. You are spending a lot of cash. Get it right and you will be amazed at what movies look and sound like on your new rig.
So, in closing. The Panny Plasma is great. The outlet is cool, too. The HTIB is kind of lame, but would work if you are dead set on it. If you are open to going a bit further down the rabbit hole, you could enhance this experience by leaps and bounds compared to the htib and make those installers work for that $450. David
