So this past weekend was a long one due to the 4th of July. I made good use of my time by helping to set up and calibrate not one, but two different home theaters! I had planned on finishing up a good friend of mines on Friday for about a week, but at the mention of that to another friend of mine he said his wasn't sounding so great. So I scolded him lightly about not mentioning it sooner, and said I would be on my way to fix it. He took care of feeding the wife and I with a brisket that was cooked all day on the grill, AND some steak fajitas!.
Anyway, I show up and dive right in with questions. Whats the problem, how do you set it when watching movies, etc. He has an entry level Denon receiver with 4 HDMI inputs, a PS2 (yes, that is not a typo) for a DVD player, and some Boston sub/satellite speakers. We started off by discovering that everything was hooked up wrong. Long story short he had everything feeding into the TV directly. I fixed that as best I could, by running the composite cable from the PS2 into the receiver, also running an HDMI from the receiver up to HDMI 1 on the TV (was on HDMI 4). I also ran an optical cable that I had brought with from the PS2 into the receiver. So the picture is going to be what it is, but at least we would be getting good DIGITAL sound now as opposed to the L/R RCA's he was using.
After I got everything hooked up properly I dove into the settings on the equipment. Of course this was just as big of a mess as the connections, but not so bad to straighten out. As soon as I changed it to Dolby Digital (or it may have been DTS) from the stereo setting it was in, he was happy! The speaker placement was no good, and would certainly move around a lot since they were just sitting on various things so I was real rough with my distance settings and SPL settings. We did move the center up from the bottom shelf of the TV stand to in front of the TV after him and the wife noticed how the sound didn't seem right. Once we moved it I ran though settings again real quick and everyone was happy.
After that he had a new found love for his stereo, and we had to make a run to get some cables to finish off the system. He streams a lot from a laptop, and I stole that HDMI to go from the receiver to the TV and a replacement was needed. We also needed to run a digital signal from the TV to the receiver for over the air audio. Both the TV and the receiver do not support ARC, so that was the original intent of the optical cable. However the PS2 has an optical out so I used it there instead. The receiver had 1 optical, and luckily one coax digital in, and again luckily the TV had both output so a digital coax from the TV to the receiver took care of that. So after some playing the menus all of the inputs were set properly, named properly, and functioning to the best of their abilities. Next up for him is to mount the speakers on the walls to help position them better and make them more permanent (and look nicer). I also want to move the sub since it is in the worst possible location, and being so small it needs all the help it can get. After we get that accomplished I will calibrate it much more thoroughly, and will get some pictures to show you all. I am also working on him to get a decent Blu Ray player, or at least a legit DVD player!
Round two came Friday, and this was more of a finishing of a install that was mostly all new. His system consist of a 60" Samsung LED TV, EMPTek impression series speakers all around (Towers in the front, the smaller center, and bookshelf's in the rear), with an SVS PB12-NSD sub. He is using a Samsung blu-ray player, Pioneer receiver that is a little older, and is controlling everything with a Harmony 900 RF remote. All of the electronics (receiver, player, satellite box, etc) are located in the basement for a nice clean instal that looks fantastic! We had done the bulk of the instal a couple weeks back so we mostly had to close up the wall were we had run all of the wiring. He was also installing a lot of lighting on the main floor, so after we had put up the drywall and the first coat of mud we worked on the lights while it dried.
Eventually it came time to start calibrating. There was some hang up since the gear was in the basement, but he had another display down there that I was able to swap to quickly so I could use the factory remotes for getting into some of the deeper menus. Once the main "general" settings were done I started on adjusting the video. This was a long drawn out process that left me frustrated, and back to factory settings (mostly). If anybody wants you can see my thread in the display section with all of the details. After that let down I moved onto the audio, which is my favorite part anyway! It was again a pretty rough set up since all of the speakers need to move so he can finish patching and painting. Once it was set though it sounded amazing! This is probably the most complete, actually set up home theater I have ever worked on and I was impressed. I was considering the EMPTek's for myself a while back, but had pretty much written them off. Well after that display they are back on my "to buy" list! I wish he would have gotten the larger center, but sometimes you have to compromise I guess. The SVS is pretty large, and he didn't get any friction on that so I cant blame him too much for not pushing his luck
Speaking of the sub, it did a great job filling the room. A second one would definitely help make sure you feel the bass, but again you cant get everything you want all the time.
As I said, that install is beautiful. He is an electrician by trade, so we had no problems opening walls and running wires to make a nice, clean, professional install. As soon as everything is painted and in its final location I will be getting a lot of pictures of it all. It is my proudest home theater achievement, until I move into a house anyway
Anyway, just wanted to brag a little about helping some people more thoroughly enjoy their home theaters. I apologize for not having pictures, which is even worse since I am bit of a photographer, but I promise they will come once both systems are more complete.
Sean
