My HT Quest

[wilkenboy]

Locking in a receiver decision

Time to start thinking about locking in the receiver...

My basic requirements:

• <$500
• 7.1
• Can drive speakers with 89 dB sensitivity
• 5.1 direct in (for DVD-A, SACD)
• Pre-outs (for possible later upgrade to seperate amps)
• 3x component inputs, 1x component output (HDMI a plus)
• conversion from composite and s-video to component (HDMI a plus)
• Auto / manual Calibration and equalization
• I'm not scared of b-stock or refurb as long as I can get from an authorized dealer.

here are the current contenders in no particular order:

• Pioneer 1015tx
• Denon 2805
• Denon 2106
• Denon 985S
• Denon 886S
• Onkyo TX-SR603
• Onkyo TX-SR702

I would REALLY love to put a Yamaha 2500 or 1600 on this list, but they are just a tad outta my range with a warranty.

I'm going to do some hardcore spec comparison, but in the meantime, anyone have comments on their experiences?

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Projector Purchased!

My first major step toward completing my home theater (outside of the pre-wire) is complete - this morning I jumped on the Audioholics deal on the Panny 900U over at Visual Apex.

After $400 in mail-in rebates from Panasonic this will amount to $1548 with no tax and free shipping, which is a great deal by itself. In addition to that, there is a free 1 year extension to the warranty for a total of two years, usually worth $150. And in addition to that the projector comes with a $300 Blockbuster card, so its basically $850 in freebies.

Given all the very positive reviews of this unit that deal is just too sweet to pass up. I would be hard pressed to find a 700u with warranty for that amount!

I've already recieved the confirmation email from Visual Apex as well as a follow-up email from the sales associate who I spoke to over the phone yesterday, Candace. She was extremely helpful in some of my questions about the unit and process. And she owns one herself! If the level of attention I've received so far is any indication of their continuing level of service I'll be a very happy customer.

Let the incessant checking of order status begin!

~Josh

 

[westcott]

My first major step toward completing my home theater (outside of the pre-wire) is complete - this morning I jumped on the Audioholics deal on the Panny 900U over at Visual Apex.

After $400 in mail-in rebates from Panasonic this will amount to $1548 with no tax and free shipping, which is a great deal by itself. In addition to that, there is a free 1 year extension to the warranty for a total of two years, usually worth $150. And in addition to that the projector comes with a $300 Blockbuster card, so its basically $850 in freebies.

Given all the very positive reviews of this unit that deal is just too sweet to pass up. I would be hard pressed to find a 700u with warranty for that amount!

I've already recieved the confirmation email from Visual Apex as well as a follow-up email from the sales associate who I spoke to over the phone yesterday, Candace. She was extremely helpful in some of my questions about the unit and process. And she owns one herself! If the level of attention I've received so far is any indication of their continuing level of service I'll be a very happy customer.

Let the incessant checking of order status begin!

~Josh

Once again, I am jealous!

I can not beleive the price you paid and the extras. That is less than I paid for the 700u at the end of its mfg cycle. What a deal!

Now you just have to find a place to wire your jaw shut after you have viewed your new display system.

P.S. I am a Denon man after owning a Technics and listening to a Harman Kardon for many years. I am very happy with my selection. Get as much power as you can possibly afford. It does make a difference. DVD audio can be very demanding at times.

Once again, Congratulations!

 

[wilkenboy]

Once again, I am jealous!

I can not beleive the price you paid and the extras. That is less than I paid for the 700u at the end of its mfg cycle. What a deal!

Now you just have to find a place to wire your jaw shut after you have viewed your new display system.

P.S. I am a Denon man after owning a Technics and listening to a Harman Kardon for many years. I am very happy with my selection.

I really am kind of in shock on this price as well. I expected to pick it up through some very careful deal hunting for around $1700 with no extended warranty.

I get the feeling the next 7-10 days are going to seem very slow...

The receiver is the next big decision point. I'd love to go Denon and am fairly certain that I'll find one at the right price point when the time comes to buy, but if that doesn't work out the Pioneer 1015tx looks to be a nice and a great value for the money. Its also heavier than most of the competition. Light receivers make me nervous - how do they pump that power without weight?

I wish there were a place to side-by-side these two, but Denon and Pioneer are never at the same outlet. And I don't trust my audio memory that long. I do know that both sound nice and seemed to pump adequate power, but that was with different speaker setups. I'll have to take my "winning" pair of speakers around to different shops to get the final verdict.

~Josh

 

[Matt34]

Josh, regarding your question about which sub. PM Dukester here on this forum, he may be able to hook you up with an excellent sub at an excellent price.

 

[wilkenboy]

PM Dukester here on this forum

Couldn't find a "Dukester"?

~Josh

 

[Matt34]

Couldn't find a "Dukester"?

~Josh

replied to your PM>

 

[wilkenboy]

Projector Shipped

I received the invoice from Visual Apex and a UPS delivery estimate of this friday, Feb 3rd. Counting the hours!

Until I get the receiver / DVD player, etc I will be running this projector with a laptop via the VGA output/input. I may also take my Denon 1710 DVD player from the downstairs family room and plug it in, we'll see.

After my initial setup and running through a few "key scenes" I'm going to run some basic test patterns via AVIA (or others?) to ensure I have a good unit as it relates to some of the common projector "gonks" - video banding, convergence, SDE. I'll also take this time to perform some basic calibration / tweaking.

If all looks good, I'll pull out all of those screen samples I got from Carada and Da-Lite and compare them vs. my DIY screen. Expect some pics and my impressions here on that.

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Matt,

I see you have the Pioneer 588 that I'm thinking of, as well as a Harmony remote.

What are your thoughts on these two components?

Thanks,

~Josh

 

[Matt34]

Matt,

I see you have the Pioneer 588 that I'm thinking of, as well as a Harmony remote.

What are your thoughts on these two components?

Thanks,

~Josh

The 588 is a excellent(and cheap) universal player, audio is phenomial but it does lack a DVI output that you might want.

The 676 is a godsend for me and the wife. Took me 10 minutes max on there website to set it up and works great if you have a tivo unit. One of my favorite purchases so far.

 

[wilkenboy]

The 588 is a excellent(and cheap) universal player, audio is phenomial but it does lack a DVI output that you might want.

Good to hear. I really want to see if there is a difference between HDMI/DVI and component. Some report yes, others no. In either case with HD-DVDs (and players) only a year or so away I won't feel bad spending less than $200 on this player.

The 676 is a godsend for me and the wife. Took me 10 minutes max on there website to set it up and works great if you have a tivo unit. One of my favorite purchases so far.

Thanks, I think I was already sold, but every data point counts! I just ordered this puppy off of newegg for around $125 shipped, and found a $50 mail in rebate from Logitech, so I'll net out around $75 for this remote.

Two great deals (the 900U and then this) in a single week. Things happen in threes, right?

~Josh

 

[jaxvon]

I have the 578AS and the only issue I have with it is the lack of bass management on the analog outputs. If you don't plan on listening to SACDs or DVD-As, don't worry about it. If you are, considering getting a different player or, even better, a b-stock Outlaw ICBM.

 

[wilkenboy]

Projector due in tomorrow

24 hours and counting....

And I've had one too many cups of coffee today... bad combo - projector anticipation and caffiene revving.

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

AE900U first impression

Got it in last night.

Set it up.

7 hours of watching later - Blown away.

Wife impressed.

Haven't tweaked yet.

More to follow.

~Josh

 

[westcott]

Got it in last night.

Set it up.

7 hours of watching later - Blown away.

Wife impressed.

Haven't tweaked yet.

More to follow.

~Josh

I am surprised you stopped watching long enough to send us an update.
I would move your DVD player downstairs. It will perform a lot better than your laptop software.

My buddy got me the extended version of Dune for Christmas and so I am going to go watch it on my old outdated 700u and wonder how much nicer your image must look.

Congratulations and keep us posted if you need any calibration or setup help.
Cinema 1 seems to be a good starting point.

 

[wilkenboy]

900u second impressions

So its been a few days - a few days and about 20 hours of watching. I'm still completely blown away by this projector on my 92" DIY screen.

Impressions:

Color reproduction - beautiful out of the box. I haven't even run Avia yet I'm so happy. Popping in the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, LOTR, Pirates of the Carribean, LOST, even XBOX via component produces amazing, lifelike colors.
Black level / contrast - I'm really more impressed here than I expected to be. My wife immediately made the comment that she could see details in dark scenes that she had never seen before, and I concur. One great scene for this is in Finding Nemo when Marlin and Dorey go down into the trench to get the mask. The transition from complete darkness to the piercing light of the anglerfish makes me squint. I don't remember this looking that good in the movie theater. The scene where the whale swallows Marlin and Dorey is just fantastic. Now I've watched this scene this big before with other projectors and it was nice, but with between the color, resolution, and size it amazed me how "3D" this scene seemed as the whale moves slowly toward the camera.


Setup - as you can see in the picture, I've got a really high tech stand at the moment.

In general I took it out of the box, set it up, turned it on, and adjusted the shift lever, zoom, and focus. That was it.

Screen door effect - non-existant. Unless you like watching from less than 3' or so.
Video banding - haven't seen it.
Remote - I had heard of people having problems with the remote and the location of the sensor on the projecor, but I haven't seen it. I didn't realize until about 10 minutes in that I was pointing the remote at the screen, not at the projector. That's nice!
Fan noise - minimal. It is noticable during very quiet passages, but only if you are trying to notice it.

Now for the only hiccup so far- when I first hooked this up to my laptop I didn't have a 1280 x 720 driver mode available - I had to use PowerStrip to create one. Just a heads up for those of you using HTPCs.

I have been lame in getting some screen-shots taken. I've been enjoying it too much so far. I haven't even tacked up my screen samples from Da-Lite and Carada yet.

More to follow as I can tear away from enjoying this unit.

~Josh

 

[westcott]

So its been a few days - a few days and about 20 hours of watching. I'm still completely blown away by this projector on my 92" DIY screen.

More to follow as I can tear away from enjoying this unit.

~Josh

Well, when you return to normal sleeping hours,maybe you can send us photos of the setup.

Let us know what screen you are leaning toward and what the price differences are.

 

[wilkenboy]

Harmony Logitech 676 First Impressions

Ordered this remote off of Newegg with the $50 rebate, total $75 after all said and done. Newegg, as always, delivered a day ahead of schedule.

Since I don't have my main HT set up, I'm trying this out with the family room setup downstairs which consists of:

AVR: Pioneer VSX-455
DVD: Denon 1710
TV: 27" Sanyo CRT
VCR: Panasonic (don't recall PN)

Yeah, its not much, but its good to test the capabilities of this remote on.

Took about 30 minutes to set up via the database, would have taken only 10 but I mis-interpreted one of the source functions on the AVR. After that and some quick troubleshooting it worked like a champ.

So far I'm very pleased.

Wife's reaction: "Wow. How does it do that? We need to get one for my mom... and your dad... and my Grandma... and...". She's insisted I get one for my Dad whose b-day is at the end of this month.

Tested with my 6-year old daughter. She was able to work it with just a little coaching.

Going to test it on my mom tonight - the ultimate non-techie. If she can use it I'm going to declare this product a must-have for any HT owner.

~Josh

 

[The Chukker]

That is one sweet looking remote. Is it easy to program?

 

[wilkenboy]

That is one sweet looking remote. Is it easy to program?

Yep. It comes with some software that you load onto your computer (drivers). Then when you plug the remote into a USB port it automatically takes you to a configuration logon site.

From there on you choose the manufacturer of each component (TV, AVR, DVD, VCR, console, etc) from a drop down list (hundreds on each list, a lot I had never heard of...). Then you enter the manufacturer's model number for each component. The type of products are extensive - you can include dimmer switches, HVAC controls, appliances, almost anything with an IR capability is here. I'm looking forward to adding a dimmer switch in my HT!

At that point the software asks you a few questions - such as, when you watch a DVD do you control the volume through the TV or the AVR? Through this list of questions it determines which component to control when you press the volume, channel, FF, etc buttons.

After that, it updates the program / macros in the remote and off you go. If you have problems with controlling something the remote will attempt to solve it on the spot via some yes/no questions, and if that doesn't work then its fairly easy to hook back up to the web and go through the troubleshooting there to fix the issue.

Like I said, 30 minutes to fully program, would have taken 10 if I had interpreted my AVR source buttons correctly.

I could see if someone was a little less literate about computers or thier components how they could get led astray - the system is not foolproof. But for someone who can hook their stuff up in the first place this should not be a problem.

By the way, my mom managed to get the TV on last night with no help. Previously this had been a 5-minute tutorial with multiple remotes.

Hope that helps-

~Josh