Help on buying a complete Home theater System

A

apollo514

Audiophyte
I need some good guiding on buying everything to complete a home theater system. I'm moving into a new home in just over a month from now. Whatever I presently have, which is old and junk quality, will be donated. Therefore, I ask for experience guidance.

Unfortunately, I don't have an UNlimited budget. I would like to keep it under $6000 including TV (everything).

This system will be placed in the living room, it will be connected to a sound system all over the house (12 ceiling speakers), plus another channel(?) will be connected to the home theater system in the living room. I would like to stream music, movies, and pictures from a shared LaCie (or similar) hard drive or perhaps a PC, I would like to use my ipod or iphone to play music. I found a network receiver online (Marantz SR 7005 AV network receiver) but not sure if what I need is a network receiver, sure sounds like it).

I need the following pieces: Please recommend what I should get at a total around $6000 (preferably less)

1. 65 HDtv, Led, lcd, or plasma. No 3Dtv. I saw a nice Samsung lcd 65" priced under $3000. What is better LED,LCD or Plasma?
2. Five speakers; 2 front, 1 center, 2 rear. I always liked Klipsh because I like clean base when watching movies but i'm very novice don't know if there are better speakers.
3. Subwoofer
4. Amplifier: Although quality and great sound is my priority. I would like something aesthetically nice looking, ex: NAD.. very sharp looking.
5. RF remote control to control everything. 1 click will setup for TV, another click will play ipod....
6. DVD/Blueray player
7. Not sure if I need anything else...

Thank you for your help.

Allan
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
I will say that your distributed audio is a pretty big issue to just throw into the mix.

You have an additional 12 speakers in the house. How many rooms total are these 12 speakers in and how is volume controlled in those rooms?

I'm guessing it is already wired, that the speakers are in place, and that there are volume controls on the walls. Are they impedence matching volume controls?

Are the bare wires hanging out of the wall in your family room, or are they already connected to a wall plate?

iPod controllability is always a question mark to me. Almost everything offers some level of iPod control.

I would recommend a 2-zone surround receiver which has a decent iPod application, which means a lot of the Pioneer, Denon, Yamaha, and Onkyo products with an Ethernet port on them, will allow for the app control of those receivers.

Then you will need a controllable source itself. I would probably just go with something like an AppleTV if you are already linking your world to iTunes. Otherwise, I've found almost nothing in the way of media servers which have a solid control interface.

You may want to consider a Sonos, but I'm not sure this is ideal for your situation.

I would think an AppleTV with a iTunes server hard drive, may give you your audio collection nicely for distributed audio.

Plasma is the best video quality you can get and Panasonic has the best displays currently available at 65". 3D is a feature of their best display, but it doesn't change that their best display is the best 2D display on the market as well. So, with or without 3D, it is the display itself that you want to focus on the quality of, not the 'It has 3D, I don't want that' side of things.

So, a surround receiver, a SEPARATE amplifier for the distributed audio, and speakers of your personal choosing. Considering $1,000 or so for the receiver, and $2,000 for a cheaper 65" display or $3,500 for the nice one, that's over half your budget, and then you still have the speakers, subwoofer, distributed audio amplifier, remote, etc.

For a Blu-ray player, I would just get a Panasonic for about $150 or so and be done with it. Their stuff is solid.
 
Pyrrho

Pyrrho

Audioholic Ninja
It is quite difficult to advise you, as we do not know how important the picture is versus the sound. If a good picture will do, but you want great sound, then you want to get a relatively inexpensive TV, and put most of your money in your speakers. If good sound will do, but you want a great picture, then put most of your money in your TV. Or you can do some sort of compromise, in which neither will be the best you can afford.

For speakers, you really need to go out into the world and listen to as many different speakers, and as many types of speakers (e.g., ribbons, domes, horns, whatever) as you can stand to audition, that are in your price range. There is no such thing as a perfect speaker, so it is always a question of which virtues you require and which vices you can tolerate.

Right now, the "LED" TVs that are sold are LCD TVs with LED backlighting (instead of fluorescent). LED backlighting is better, but you should go to a store and see if you think it is worth the extra cost.

You are wanting a pretty large TV, so you might want to also consider a front projection system, as it can be had at the same sort of price you are considering, and then the screen might be able to be very large indeed. This would only be a good option in a room in which you can control the light very well, as the room needs to be dark when using a front projector. But it can look more like a real theater than anything else.

This brings to mind something else: Generally, in a dark room, plasma looks better, but in a room with a lot of light, an LCD is often a better choice. There are other things that are different about them as well, as plasma is better for its viewing angle than LCD.

You might want to read up on all the virtues and vices of each, as there is no such thing as a perfect TV.

You should keep in mind, however, that you will buying a particular TV, not one that is necessarily generally representative of its type. It does not matter what the average of the type is like; what matters is what the particular TV you buy is like.

I very much agree with BMXTRIX about the Panasonic BD player. A cheap one from them will do very well, both with BDs and DVDs. I would not recommend wasting money on a higher end BD player, as that would mean you would have less money for a TV or speakers or....

For a subwoofer, you cannot go wrong with an SVS, though there are some other brands that are also good. How high up the line you want to go will depend upon how deep you want the bass, how loud you want the bass, the size of your room, and how much of your budget you want to go to the subwoofer.

If the speakers you select are an easy load, I would recommend going with the cheapest receiver that has all of the features you need that is made by a reputable company (e.g., Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, Pioneer, etc.). What more money gets you in a receiver is more features and a more powerful amplifier section, not better sound generally. Plus, given the fact that they like to come out with new processors that people feel the need to get, you may end up replacing this sooner than other parts of your system, though it is impossible to know for sure.

As BMXTRIX says, you will want a separate amplifier for the distributed audio, and in order for someone to help you much on that, you would need to answer a bunch of questions, like those already asked by BMXTRIX. If you can place the amplifier in a place where it is out of the way, you can look to a professional amplifier for something relatively inexpensive. Typically (but not always), professional amplifiers have cooling fans, some of which are noisy, but if the amplifier is located out of the way where you cannot hear the fan, then that is not a problem.

Don't waste money on expensive wires. You should read this:

http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm

You can get wires from places like monoprice and partsexpress. HDMI cables can be had very cheap online, and no matter how cheap I have gone, I have never had a problem with an HDMI cable, and I have some that are less than $5 for 6'. If you need a long HDMI cable, then you need to concern yourself with its quality:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests

But with a short one:

At lengths less than 4 meters you can just about use silly string (OK, not really) and get HDMI to pass at any current resolution.​

http://www.audioholics.com/education/cables/long-hdmi-cable-bench-tests/evaluation-conclusion
 
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