HT Help for a Noob

[cassysdaddy]

I am new to this whole hype called home theater as well. I thought HT was a giant box big screen tv with some even bigger floor speakers. After this site, I was sooooo wrong. I mean, I never knew what a center channel was used for until I did some researching. Unfortunately, I have purchased most of my components prior to this site. I have read review after review and I am feeling even more lost. I also know opinion seems to be the most important. I have made most of my purchases based on price. I didn't have a whopping amount of cash to start out with and it has taken me 2 years to aquire a half decent set up. I have received some responses on upgrading my receiver and DVD player and I haven't decided if I need the receiver upgrade. I do, however want a better dvd player such as the Oppo OPDV971H. I have heard many good things about this. I guess my main question is - Is what I have ok?
Also, I can't seem to hear words very well, but everything else sounds great. I want the words to be heard over everything else, so when watching a movie I am not rattled and fumbling for the remote to turn it down during an action sequence. I have since replaced my crappy center channel to a
JBL EC25 and it has much improved.

-If I run an amp to the center channel will it improve the loudness of the voices?

Here's what I have blindly put together over the last year or so :

Kenwood VR-507
SW 35HT sub
JBL E80’s
JBL EC25
Klipsch SS.5’s
Mitsubishi WD62527 62
Z2 Reference Ultimate speaker cable for L, R JBL E80’s
Monster MP Pro 2000
Monster component cables
Generic dvd player
Sony Cd player (CDP series bought in 2002, unknown model #)

The system sounds great in my living room and I guess that's all that matters right? I would like to utilize the HD in my tv through a HD DVD player. I love the discovery HD channel. I would like my movies to look like that. Let me know your input....

 

[jcPanny]

HT upgrades

Start a new thread next time for a new question or topic.

It sounds like you have put together a pretty good entry level HT. You are enjoying the surround sound and that is what maters. Concerning the center channel, make sure you use the receiver setup to adjust the (volume) levels and distance for each speaker. To use an outboard amp, you would need pre-amp (RCA) outputs on the receiver, which your receiver probably doesn't have.

It sounds like you are ready for a video upgrade. If you purchase an HD-DVD player, you can also use it to upconvert regular DVDs to the 720p resolution of your HDTV. This will make your DVDs closer to the quality of the satelite HD channels, and HD-DVDs will probably look better than satellite HD.
If you want to hold off on HD-DVD until prices go down and the format war settles, an Oppo DVD player for $150-200 would be a good video upgrade. I have the DV-970HD and would recommend it.

Just don't waste any more money on overpriced monster cables, check out monoprice.com.

 

[apatel25314]

you look like you are putting up a good setup there, do you have any gaming systems, that would make it cheaper to get hd dvd or bluray.