home theaters in a box

[mhuntoon]

Now that I've got my Dad all hooked up with a nice home theater system, my brother wants me to help him. The difference here is that his budget is much lower than my Dad's, so rather than piecing together a great system, he wants to go with a home theater in a box setup. He's given me three models to choose from (why these three, I'm not sure). He says he can get them locally. As I mentioned in my earlier thread about Dad's setup, I have no idea why my family members assume I know more than they do about this stuff, so I'm turning to the experts here. I've already looked each model up on epinions.com to search out known problems, but even though they all showed up, there were no reviews for any of them.

I've compiled this list as hyperlinks for anyone not familiar with them. This way, if you're willing to help out, you don't have to do much work. I'm at a loss as to what much of the specs mean. I do know that ideally we'd be looking for a dvi output as the one thing he does have is an excellent tv with dvi input. I'm pretty sure that's why he's on such a budget right now. I told him to hold off until he could afford to do it correctly, but he wants something now and doesn't mind selling it later and buying something better when he can afford it. I'm just shaking my head as I'm typing this.

Anyhow, here's the list:

Pioneer HTP-441DVR
Sony HT-4800DP
Panasonic SC-HT670

At least they're all name brands. Who knows, maybe one of these is actually a pretty nice system. I know that they are ranked in order of price (highest to lowest), but I'm not sure what the exact prices were. I'm not sure if he found one or all of these at Wal-Mart (great source for high end home theater equipment ), but I could only find the Pioneer there. The others were found on their manufacturer's websites.

Thanks for any help you can give me here!

 

[annunaki]

What is the maximum amount of money he is willing to spend? Does he already have a dvd player? How large is his room?

At the store I manage, if the customer already has a dvd player (decent one), I will usually recommend the DCM cinema 1 package ( http://www.dcmspeakers.com/products/cabinet/cinema1.htm ), and the Denon AVR-484 receiver ( http://www.usa.denon.com/catalog/products.asp?l=2&c=13 just scroll down to bottom of page for details.) for people on a budget. Retail price $599.90 The speaker system has a 10 year warranty on the speakers (2 years on the sub). And, it is actually decent sounding with music. Unlike most of it's peers in that price range it comes with a real powered 8" sub.. The receiver is 5.1 (DD, DTS, DPLII) with a 3 year warranty. If he doen't have a decent dvd player, you could add one for about $150-$200 and come in at the same price as the Pioneer system, and blow it away. To do that (come in at the same price as the Pioneer) just swap the Denon receiver for the Kenwood VR-806 6.1 receiver (DD-EX, DTS-ES, DPLIIx) at $249.99 retail.
( http://www.kenwoodusa.com/product/product.jsp?productTypeId=55&sortBy=price&pageId=2&productId=2601 )

If he "had" to have one of the three my vote would go towards the Pioneer.

 

[mhuntoon]

Yes, he's got a DVD player but he was planning to put it in his bedroom when adding the home theater for his den. I agree with your philosophy of building a better system, but he seems more inclined to buy it locally and there aren't many places for him to shop where he lives. He is completely against buying anything online - still shaking my head.

As for your recommendation of the Pioneer, is it because the DVD player is also a burner, because of the wireless rear speakers, or because the system itself is better than the other two? I've never listened to any of these so I have no clue as to the quality of sound. All 3 being progressive scan DVDs, I'm assuming the picture quality will be good even if he has to go with component hookups instead of the dvi.

I know the rule of thumb is that just because a system is good for movies doesn't necessarily mean it will produce good sounding music, but he is looking to use this mainly for movies (probably 95% movie use vs. 5% music use).

Thanks for your help.

 

[annunaki]

My reasoning was that the speakers appeared to be the largest of the bunch. Larger speakers with "box" systems tend to yield a little better music performance. The better a system can reproduce music the better it will do with movies. It also appears to have an actual receiver rather than an "all in one" job. Reliability goe up considerably with separate components (DVD, receiver, ect). Has your brother ventured out to the local electronics/stereo shop? Does he think Best Buy, Circuit and Walmart are the only places to look for gear? If he is looking locally have him check around the shops with better gear. Better does not always mean more expensive. Progressive scan without some type of chip like or similar to DCDi (from faroudja) typically suffer from the "chroma bug". Players without this type of progressive scan chip are typically found in "box" systems, and or are real inexpensive. Typically less than $300. If he has a nice television (High Definition) he should at least do himself the justice of buying a good dvd player.

 

[Unregistered]

Many thousand+ dollar dvd players exhibit the chroma bug. Higher price does not always mean better video quality. Decent dvd players start around $200 and go up from there.

 

[annunaki]

I never stated that just because the price was higher, the chroma bug would not be experienced. You seemed to have missed the part about the DCDI progressive scan chips from Faroudja in my previous post (which seem, so far, to be chroma free). The $300 price point is where I have seen DCDI enabled units start at authorized retailers. I may have missed some?