Welcome, and some initial ideas
ey Guys
I am planning to set up a home theater system for myself. Am totally new to this and the array of brands/models/features are driving me nuts ! Would greatly appreciate some advice about the components to buy. Heres a set of features/requirements that I am looking at:
1) My room size is about
12X12 though this can change as I dont have a dedicated room.
2) Use is for
movies as well as music.
3) Reciever should have
HDMI switching, cross conversion and upconversion.
4) High res, multichannel PCM over HDMI support
5) Onboard DolbyTru HD and DTS HD decoders
I was thinking of a
(6) Pioneer VSX 819H K or Onkyo SRX507 reciever with
(7) Polk RM705 or Polk RM 6750 speakers. Which combination would you recommend? Are there any other equivalent combinations that I should look for?
Being my first setup, dont really want to burn a hole in my pocket
Want to buy only an AVR and speakers and want to be in the range of
(8) $500-600.
Prolifix,
Welcome to the forum.
Her are some thoughts on your plan, specific to the bolded entries above:
1)
Avoid a square (i.e.12x12) room if you can. It will be easier to achieve sonic bliss in a rectangular room, because square rooms have the most problems with standing waves.
2) "Movies as well as music" plus your ~$500 budget, lends me to suggest:
Start ONLY with a capable 5.1 or 7.1 receiver and two capable bookshelf speakers. This will allow you to buy better quality now, build to an eventual 5.1 system down the road (7.1 is not practical in a 12 x 12 room, but the extra amps on a 7.1 receiver are very useful). Have the option to use the bookshelf speakers you buy now as surrounds in the future, when you buy "better" mains to go up front.
3a) "
HDMI switching" - absolutely.
3b) By "
Cross Conversion" I assume you mean video "
transcoding" which is taking a composite (1 wire), S-video, or component (3 wire) video signal and pushing it to HDMI.
Not really important, since it sounds like you are starting from scratch. It is only really needed if you already own legacy (non-HDMI) components. It will already come with many modern receivers.
3c)
Upconversion, kind of the same story.
Most DVD or Blu-ray players do this adequately these days.
So you do not really need it in the receiver. That said, it will also already come with many modern receivers.
4) Ensure the receiver supports "
HDMI 1.3" or above (most will).
5) "DolbyTru HD and DTS HD decoders" - yes, absolutely.
6)
"Pio and Onkyo" are good companies with loyal followings.
I also suggest you read up on
Denon and Yamaha offerings.
Given your room, also having an included automatic EQ system like; Audessy, MFACC, or YPAO is highly recommended.
7) Not really a fan of Polk speakers, especially at their low end. Suggest you look into SVS, Def Tech, PSB, Axiom, or many others you can read about on these pages before buying the Polks.
8) $500-600 will be a tight budget to get both a decent receiver (probably $300-500 ish) and two decent bookshelf speakers (probalby $200-400 a pair)
PM forum member "ISiberian", who I believe has some good words on Behringer 2030p speakers, these are less than $150 a pair!
One vendor for 2030p is:
http://www.music123.com/Behringer-TRUTH-B2030P-Passive-Monitor-Pair-600602-i1152844.Music123
Good luck and "Have fun storm'n the Castle boys"
XEagleDriver
