1) What are your home theater system components, including manufacturers and finishes / colors?
Amp/Receiver: NAD 763, charcoal colored
Speakers: LR speakers are 25 year old JBL bookshelf cheapo's bought in a big box store, bad brown wood veneer peeling off the sides. Center and surrounds are made by Sony and also purchased "open box" discount from a big box store about 25 years ago. They are black with no wood grain at all.
Sub(s): 12 year old Energy 15" sub permanently borrowed from a neighbor, black wood veneer
Sources: Tivo Series 2, home-built HTPC (soon), DVD
AV furniture: Pottery Barn Rhys TV stand, black
Other: Panasonic 50" plasma
2) What would you change in your home theater system? Everything! Seriously. It's all outdated, except maybe the sub, or substandard for my room, and bought on the cheap. Biggest needs are the Receiver and Speakers.
3) What would you upgrade 1st in your home theater system? Speakers, hands down. We are about to start remodeling the living room and need new speakers that fit the room, can either be mounted or put on stands, and sound great.
4) When you chose your speaker system, how important was it that the subwoofer finish color matched the rest of your system? Scale: 1–10 (1= Didn’t matter at all, 10 = Had to match finish color). Please explain.
My current setup was not purchased together, so nothing matches and it looks like crap. The sub is a black wood grain, and the LR bookshelf speakers are medium-brown sitting on top of homemade stands that are dark brown. The center and surrounds are plain black and old.
However, when I remodel (a process starting soon), it's extremely important ("9") that all all the speakers match each other and come from the same company. This way they sound tonally alike and look well together. My wife insists on this, and I agree. It would be great if they closely match the furniture, but there are other wood tones in our room that may look just as good to match the speakers with. So matching is extremely important, but since the rest of the system is going out the door the options are open.