My HT Quest

[ragged]

Looking for a new universal remote as well, Found these searching, pretty awesome.

http://us.marantz.com/Products/519.asp

http://www.consumer.philips.com/consumer/catalog/catalog.jsp?activeCategory=HOME_AUDIO_VIDEO_GR_US_CONSUMER&fhquery=fh_location=//consumer/en_US/categories<catalog_us_consumer/categories<home_audio_video_gr_us_consumer/categories<{home_control_systems_ca_us_consumer}&clickEventData=fh_location=//consumer/en_US/categories<catalog_us_consumer/categories<home_audio_video_gr_us_consumer/categories<{home_control_systems_ca_us_consumer}&fredhopperpage=index.jsp&language=en&country=US&catalogType=CONSUMER&proxybuster=XIQSNNWVTLMATJ0RMRCSHQFHKFSESI5P

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=sima+universal+remote+control&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=ff&oi=froogler

I currently have this one
http://froogle.google.com/froogle_cluster?q=sima+universal+remote+control&pid=1886608331041212235&oid=15207091523659847241&btnG=Search+Froogle&oi=froogler&lmode=&addr=&scoring=mrd&hl=en

I still think it's a great remote, but want a color touch screen. Programming macros is easy. It will learn just about any command. You can add or change button layout for any device, or pick and choose buttons for various devices to create your own custom layout. eg. power for tv, volume for receiver and channel,menu,guide for cable box, or assign any command to a blank button. You just have to remember what that blank button does

Not as cool as the Philips RC9800i though! View pictures form your pc, access music and video via wifi. All from a remote, pretty awesome if you ask me.

 

[wilkenboy]

Those are some sexy looking remotes. I looked long and hard at the LCD-touchscreen remotes. I eventually decided against it b/c I found them hard to use without looking at. So I ended up going with a remote with a mix of hard / soft programmable buttons.

That and the outstanding database / product support was what tipped me toward the Logitech Harmony.

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Yamaha 2500

Holy crap. Just pulled the trigger on the Yamaha RX-V2500 over at Ubid. $495 shipped. That's an amazing steal. I couldn't pass it up.

Ubid warranty only. Biting finger nails.

Hard decision... Pioneer 1015 at $450 vs Yammy 2500 with no warranty at $500. Thats over 50% off of retail.

I had played with the 2500 at a local Tweeters and fell in love with its HT sound, but the $650 street price was just a little bit out of my range.

Oh man, I hope I don't regret this. Too late!

~Josh

 

[kia303]

Josh,
Newegg does not show the rebate on their website today, I also checked the deals forum here and the link for the other retailer no longer shows the rebate anymore. I really want to grab this remote for the bedroom system so my wife and daughters can run everything when I am not home. But do not really want to spend $116 for a second universal, I already have a MX-700 for the HT.

 

[wilkenboy]

Josh,
Newegg does not show the rebate on their website today, I also checked the deals forum here and the link for the other retailer no longer shows the rebate anymore. I really want to grab this remote for the bedroom system so my wife and daughters can run everything when I am not home. But do not really want to spend $116 for a second universal, I already have a MX-700 for the HT.

Rebate doesn't end until 4/25. Here's the rebate form:

Enjoy-

 

[wilkenboy]

Found out this AM that the 2500 I ordered off of uBid does NOT come with the YPAO mic. No biggie - I have the Ratshack Analog SPL meter and can do most of this manually through massive button pushing...

...but just in case called Tweeter (local authorized dealer) and they pointed me to:

tweeter.partsearch.com

Where I can pick up this mike for around $35. A minor annoyance in the scheme of things, but still an annoyance. In retrospect I'm pretty sure I would have done this deal anyway.

As of this afternoon the unit is still in the uBid wareshouse. After the projector and remote purchases I'm starting to get familiar with this land of delayed gratification between purchase and receipt of said purchase.

The land for me has been filled with lots of after-purchase review re-reading, manual downloading and reading, and checking UPS / Fedex tracking info. That and coffee drinking. Not a happy place per se. Your run 'o the mill obsessive behavior.

How do you fine folks fill this time?

~Josh

 

[kia303]

"How do you fine folks fill this time?"

By listening to music and movies on the old receiver that you will be replacing and then listening again after the new one arrives and knowing that you made the right decision to upgrade.

 

[wilkenboy]

"How do you fine folks fill this time?"

By listening to music and movies on the old receiver that you will be replacing and then listening again after the new one arrives and knowing that you made the right decision to upgrade.

THAT is an outstanding suggestion.

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Verizon FiOS TV and Yamaha 2500 on same day

This weekend I finally pulled the trigger on the Verizon FiOS TV service.

180 channels
23 HD channels
Video on demand (for free!) with hundreds of programs rotated every month

I'm getting an SD set for the TV in the family room (27") and a HD DVR for the media room upstairs (projector).

The beautiful part is they are both set to arrive this thursday!

This is going to be one good weekend.

~Josh

 

[westcott]

It sounds like things are coming together.

I hope you do not take my next criticism too hard because your design "looks" beautiful.

If you are dead set on placing your speakers inside an entertainment center, I would suggest you spend this time looking at 2pi speaker designs specifically.

Very few speakers are designed to work inside an enclosure properly. If you look, you will find some that are not 4pi designs.

I would strongly suggest that you reconsider. Even 2pi designed speakers are a compromise and can be expensive to build properly.

Speaker placement is as important as the quality of the equipment you buy so do not let your desire for a beautiful design compromise the experience.

I am glad your receiver has a lip sync feature. You are going to need it.

 

[wilkenboy]

Westcott,

After much deliberation over the last few months I completely agree with you - basically in the design you can scratch out the left and right bookshelves, but leave the filing cabinets they sit on. The speakers will now sit on top of the entertainment center cabinet at ear level - open to left, right, and with about 1.5' clearance behind.

Its a little painful to give up the extra storage space, but I think worth it.

What is a 2pi design? Do you mean front ported? I'm a little in the dark on the details of speaker config terminology.

Thanks for all of the good advice.

~Josh

 

[westcott]

A 2pi designed speaker is usually a monitor speaker that is specifically built to sit flush into the wall or with the wall. Porting is not the deciding factor. Some speakers are designed to sit flush with the wall but that does not always make them a true 2pi design. If the speaker does not say specifically it is a 2pi design, it probably isn't.

Almost all speakers are 4pi designs and are designed to interact with the walls surrounding them, within reasonable distances. You can do a search on the two terms and you will find a wealth of information.

Sounds like you have the bug Josh and that is a dangerous thing. Next thing you know, you will be making room for towers and four subwoofers.

 

[wilkenboy]

Latest design

Wescott,

Here's the new design.

I'm still showing the Ascend CBM-170s but as mentioned before this will get finalized after an in-home review of a few different models.

I've refined the cabinet design just a bit - no changes to outer dimensions.

The two black borders to the right and left indicate poster positions. My sister in law is a graphic designer and is working on a collage of a number of movie posters - each poster will consist of about 16 movie posters laid out in a grid, which I will frame.

And yes, I have the bug in a big way. Fortunately I enjoy the research into components, reading reviews, and discussion of plans almost as much as enjoying the system itself.

~Josh

 

[westcott]

The Visio drawing looks great and your system must really be running nearly on all cylinders now!

Send photos when you are done.

Good Luck!

 

[wilkenboy]

Yamaha 2500 and Verizon FiOS TV first impression

Very happy.

Yesterday Verizon came and hooked up the fiber-optic TV service. Standard def downstairs, high def with DVR upstairs.

High def on a 92" screen should be the standard in every home.

The Verizon service is EXTREMELY nice. No channel change lag - nice DVR setup menus. 180 SD channels and 25 HD channels - more Video-on-demand than I could shake a stick at.

Also received the 2500 yesterday from Ubid. It turned up in factory packaging with "b-stock" clearly marked on the exterior. I had asked Ubid about the YPAO mic and they said it was not included, so imagine my delight when I opened the box and there it was!

I got it hooked up to 4 little logitech 560 speakers for L, R, and L / R surrounds. Using a Yamaha indoor/outdoor as the center channel. No sub yet - I have to pick up the appropriate cordage from ratshack to convert the coax sub-out on the yamaha to the phono sub-in on the Logitech 560 sub. I know, I know, that a pretty sad little speaker set up, but its what I have now. I pulled the trigger on the 2500 early because it was a fabulous deal. The speakers and sub will follow eventually.

I watched some Olympics in HD (drooool), then after the wife went to bed I changed over to the HD concert channel - they were playing a U2 concert. I listened to a bit in 5.0 sound, then hooked up the YPAO mic, sat it on the arm of the chair I sit in (didn't want to rummage through closets to find the tripod yet), hid behind the couch, and pressed the auto setup button.

3 minutes of burps and squawks later it produced its recommended calibration. I quickly checked over the settings and the distances seemed about right - the EQ looked interesting and consistant with my beliefs about the Logitech satellite sounds. So I switched back to the concert in progress and was very pleased with the dramatic improvement in sound clarity. Eventually I'm going to get in and tweak the crap out of this (after the speaker finalization is done), but for the common user the YPAO seemed to do a very good job of cleaning up some of the coloration to sound produced by both the speaker and the room modes.

One thing I did notice during the burps and squawks was just how bad of a flutter echo I have in the room between the left and right walls. There is an untreated window on one side and a double-door on the other, both hard surfaces which set up a real pronounced "flutter" when excited the right way (clapping or the setup sounds). The first step will be to cover that window with some treatments (have to do that anyway for light control during the day) - then I'll work outwards from there. Probably some DIY absorber panels.

The on-screen display the 2500 puts out is very impressive! I've seen the Denon, Onkyo, and lower-end Yamaha setup screens and this one really puts it to shame. Very thoughtfully laid out and attractive.

Lots of processor modes for the sound - I'm a little overwhelmed at this point. Likely I'll set up a standard one based on input type and just go with that - that will take some crititcal listening to figure out.

Only nitpick so far:
The terminals on the back of the unit are pretty closely spaced - my only annoyance so far, and one that I will only have to deal with 2-4 times during the life of this unit so not a big deal.

So far, very happy with the purchase. Mad props to Mac for pointing this deal out on Ubid.

Pictures to follow this weekend. I was pretty embarrased by my wiring, I really just threw it together to get it up and runnning. I'll clean it up as soon as I can stop enjoying it!

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Yamaha 2500 pics

Pics of my incredible equipment rack! Um, wait - still have to build that.

Anyhow, here is a pic of the 2500, my Denon 1710, and the HD DVR Verizon gave me as a part of their FiOS service. Excuse the cable management and general appearance - in my haste to try it out I just "got it done". Obviously I'll clean this all up and get it in a cabinet / rack.

Also, here's a bonus screenie of the on-screen display. VERY intuitive. The nicest I've ever seen on a unit in this price range.

Even with my relatively crappy speaker setup this receiver is paying off big time in surround processing quality and seperation. Last night during the olympics I had one of those moments where the speakers dissappear and you are "in" the sound. With my previous setup (Dolby Prologic) I was always aware of the surround effects as coming from distinct locations.

Can't wait to try some DVD-As!

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

Projector Screenshots

Well, I finally found that darn tripod. Here are some screenshots from the 900u on my DIY melamine screen. Overall I'm extremely pleased with the quality. This is all over the component output of the Denon 1710 set to progressive, through the Yamaha video switcher, into the 900 over a 30' component run.

Camera (Sony Cyybershot DSC-W5) was set to no flash, 5 second delay, auto everything else.

~Josh

 

[wilkenboy]

That's my Boy!

Hi All,

Just wanted to share a little joy from my weekend. This is my 10-month old boy, Aidan. He was whapping the top of the receiver like a drum and having a great time!

No, this was not staged. Kids will do the cutest things - too good not to post here. This also shows why I'm going to put this into fully enclosed cabinets!

~Josh

 

[westcott]

Josh,

It looks like you definately have the bug. I am sure the 900 is making everyone in the family happy. Your family will have a hard time going back to the movie theater. I am sure you have told your wife that this system will pay for itself in a year or two. What does your wife have to say about all this?

P.S. cute kid

 

[wilkenboy]

Josh,

It looks like you definately have the bug. I am sure the 900 is making everyone in the family happy. Your family will have a hard time going back to the movie theater. I am sure you have told your wife that this system will pay for itself in a year or two. What does your wife have to say about all this?

P.S. cute kid

Thanks - fortunately the boy takes more after his mom than me -

Believe it or not I made no allusions as to this thing paying for itself, although I could have (it would not have gone very far). With the cost of a sitter, etc etc etc it really adds up to go to the movies. But the larger factor was that with two kids and a busy work and personal schedule its pretty difficult to get to the movies in the first place. We both really enjoy movies... or at least we did before we had kids and things got busy! Also, in the scheme of things we'd prefer the kids congregate at our place where we can at least supervise what's going on.

Overall I think my wife is pleased with how its turning out. She enjoys the big screen but is anxious to get other things done in the house and is worried about the amount I want to spend (speakers and sub) here balancing with the other home upgrades we want to make in the short term.

She definetly gets the screen upgrade. She's a little more dubious on me wanting to spend another chunk of change on speakers and a sub. What I have up there right now (the mish-mash of a Logitech 560 speakers and sub with an indoor/outdoor Yamaha thrown in) sounds ok, and right now for her, "OK" is enough.

That said, she's finally bought into a color for the room (a medium-dark chocolate). She's also made some good suggestions for seating upgrades, wants to put a mini-fridge for drinks in the room, and would like to add sconces long-term. That all in my mind is a sign of success.

And I'm certainly enjoying the hell out of it.

~Josh