Posts filed under 'Home Theater'
The AV Receiver powers your speakers. While speakers and subs can be a huge money pit in a home theater system, I decided to go the inexpensive route and save mucho dinero. I made this choice for several reasons:
- Speakers are a mature technology
- I am not an audiophile
- It takes a lot of money to get audiophile-quality speakers
Speakers
My home theater plans required in-wall speakers. After looking at several makes and models, I decided to go with Dayton Audio 6-1/2″ 2-way in-wall speakers for my front and rear speakers, and was considering a few other options for my center channel and subwoofer. However, my audiophile friend suggested that I use the same speaker in the center as I had in the front and the rear because, “It helps if you can get all your speakers with the same voicing… that way there’s no audible drop offs between speakers.” I don’t really know what that means, but I followed his advice.
Because the speakers are sold in pairs, I ended up getting six of the Dayton Audio in-wall speakers, so I have one extra if I need to replace one or if I want to go to a 6.1 setup instead of my current 5.1 setup.
Subwoofer
The subwoofer I purchased was also from Dayton Audio, a 12″ 150 watt behemoth. When I ordered it online from Parts Express, I didn’t know quite how big it was. The dimensions of the whole subwoofer are about 15″ W x 18″ H x 18″ D. The added size meant we had to adjust our ideas of the placement of the subwoofer. We had planned on sticking it in a corner under a side table, but because of its size we decided to build it into the cabinet.
Speaker Cables
I purchased a 100’ roll of some RCA 14 gauge, heavily shielded speaker wire. It was probably a lot more heavy duty than I needed, which did cause some frustration when running the speaker wire. It was so thick that it was difficult to feed it through holes and turn corners. However, it does run across some other electrical wire, so the extra shielding will probably help avoid some sound distortion from other electrical interference.
I looked into the Monster brand of cables, but after a lot of reading and reviews, I became convinced that the premium price for Monster products doesn’t go to better R&D or better products, just better marketing.
Connecting cables
I found a few online stores to purchase my connecting cables from. I looked at local electronics stores, but the prices for cables were out of control. I ordered my cables from CablesForLess.com and was impressed with the prices and quality of their products. I would highly recommend them to anyone.
Even though great sound is necessary for a great home theater experience, it doesn’t have to represent a great portion of the budget. You can still achieve great sound if you shop around for speakers and a subwoofer that don’t break the bank. Also, all of your cabling needs can quickly add up if you’re not careful, so shop at places like PartsExpress and CablesForLess.com.
However, even once all of the speakers and cables are hooked up, you’ll find many other crucial components are necessary to complete your ultimate inexpensive home theater.
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- Inexpensive Home Theater: Crucial Components
July 19th, 2007
If the projector is the heart of the inexpensive home theater system, the AV receiver is the soul. The AV receiver powers the thumping bass and multi-speaker surround sound that immerses you when watching your favorite movie or TV show (in HD, of course). Home theater just isn’t home theater without a good AV receiver.
I should offer this disclaimer: I am not an audiophile. The objective of the inexpensive home theater system project is to get the best value for the money. However, in putting together my audio components, I enlisted an audiophile friend who has one of those ears to advise me in all my audio decisions — and for an AV receiver he recommended the Pioneer VSX-815k.
Audioholics’ review of the Pioneer VSX-815k was very positive and extremely thorough. Other places on the net gave similar kudos. The consensus was that this particular model is an incredible value for the money, a solid performer, and easy to setup. The Pioneer fit nicely into my plans so I bought it, and it has not disappointed.
Another great thing I found about the Pioneer VSX-815 is that it is well distributed. You should be able to find it at several local electronics stores or many places online. You can shop around, find a store willing to do some price matching, and really get yourself a bargain.
I used the auto-setup feature of the receiver, which is really cool, to configure my speaker setup. One mistake the receiver noticed was that I had incorrectly plugged in my rear speakers for my 5.1 setup. I had plugged my surround speakers into the rear speakers for the 7.1 configuration, but once I got that figured out, the surround sound sounded great.
One thing that worried me after completing the auto-setup was that my subwoofer wasn’t producing much bass. After a little digging in the manual, I found that I had to change the setup a little bit. Apparently, during the auto setup, the receiver found that my front, rear, and center speakers produced good quality bass, so it was routing most of that sound to those speakers. I manually adjusted the speakers to the SMALL setting which would then route the lower frequency sounds to the subwoofer. I also played with the XOVER setting to get the bass just how I liked it. It worked like a charm.
One of the only negative things about the VSX-815K is the remote isn’t back-lit. Depending on your plans, this may be a deal breaker. Other than the remote, the Pioneer VSX-815K has been a great purchase for my inexpensive home theater system, and produces great sound from my speakers and subwoofer.
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June 14th, 2007
The projector is the heart of the home theater system. Nothing can save your home theater system if your picture looks like garbage; but a nice picture can cover a multitude of other sins.
The projector also represents a large percentage of the overall budget. And, since the objective of the inexpensive home theater is to get a great bang-for-the-buck home theater system, I looked at the price/performance ratio and tried to get the projector that provided the best value.
While creating my home theater plans, I had my eye on one particular projector: the Sanyo PLV-Z4. This was a recommendation from a friend who had recently installed one in his home theater. However, I didn’t have the blinders on — I did plenty of research to make sure it was the right one for my setup.
I researched which display technology (LCD or DLP) would be better for my plans and looked at many makes and models of home theater projectors. Basically, my research narrowed down the choices to two models: the Panasonic PT-AE900U and the Sanyo Z4. The light characteristics of our room and the layout of the system played a role in the decision, but eventually it was the better warranty which pushed the Sanyo PLV-Z4 to the top.
Here is a list of some sites that helped me research home theater projectors:
In hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. The Z4 throws a great picture, and the warranty gives some much needed peace of mind (especially with young kids running about). Of course, the Z4 has now been replaced with the Z5, and I recently read a review of a 1080p projector for under $3000. Technological progress continues marching on.
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May 9th, 2007
The key component to any successful home theater installation is spending enough time during the planning phase. A good plan will save much time and heartache when it comes time to install components, and will also yield a much better home theater experience when you finally are able to sit down and enjoy your first movie.
The best time to plan is while you still have an unfinished room to work with. That way, you can plan your finished room already having the home theater plans in mind. Retrofitting a room to work as a home theater is hard work — it’s much easier to plan the home theater, plan the finished room, finish the room according to those plans, and then install the home theater components.
While planning your home theater, it’s crucial to be flexible. The plans for finishing the room may force changes or compromises in your home theater plan. You’ll need to be flexible.
One of the first things you should consider is the dimensions and special characteristics of your room. While planning your inexpensive home theater you should answer the following questions:
- Are there any windows or other light sources to interfere and compete with your projector?
- What are the measurements of your room?
- Where is the screen going to be?
- What size of screen do you want?
- Where are you going to mount the projector?
- What about the seating arrangements?
- Where are your components going to be placed?
- Will you need any infrared distribution?
- Where are your speakers going to be?
- How many speakers, what type of speakers?
- What flavor of surround sound are you going after?
- What about sound leakage?
- Are there any bordering rooms which will be annoyed by the thumping bass of your subwoofer?
- Where are you going to put the subwoofer?
- Where are the nearest light switches or are you planning on automating those?
Write down the answers to all of these questions, and be prepared with several alternate ideas when you are forced to make changes.
My Inexpensive Home Theater
Much of the work in getting my home theater system installed happened right after the room was framed in. Having the plans finished and a general idea of what to do at this stage saved many hours of frustrating work later.
Room Characteristics
The basement plans we decided on planned for an open downstairs family room. The room does not have any windows and the proposed theater area was only about 180 sq. ft.
The west wall is shared with a room that we had set apart for cold storage. Since one of the weaknesses of a front projection system is usually the fan noise from the overhead mounted projector, I thought it would be a good idea to put the projector in the cold storage room and cut a hole in the wall instead of mounting the projector overhead. This was a revolutionary idea, because it totally eliminated the fan noise and also cut the risk of the projector being bumped and possible damaged by a barrage of balls, dolls, and other kid-propelled flying objects.
Speakers were an easy decision. I decided to purchase in-wall speakers because I wanted the room to be multi-functional and because of the kid-friendly factor.
In the south wall, we chose to install a gas fireplace in a recessed area of the foundation. We were initially looking at that space to put in an AV closet to house the components, but decided on the fireplace because the basement gets awfully chilly during our Utah winters.
Adding the fireplace meant my wife needed to add some sconce lighting for décor on that same wall. I decided to use the sconces as part of the theater room and planned for dimmer switches so those could be used as a controlled light source when using the home theater.
The location of the components was the cause of much concern. I didn’t want everything to be out and cluttering up the room, but I didn’t want to put them so far away that it would be a pain to switch DVDs or to access the components. We had two feet of dead space in the storage room along the west wall. We decided to put in a custom-made cabinet to house all of the components. This was actually one of the last pieces of the puzzle to be installed, but we had to plan the framing and wiring around this critical part of our home theater setup.
Running Cables
Once the framing was done, and while I was doing all of the electrical work I decided to run all of my cables. The first to run was the speaker cable. I ran cables to the front center, front left, and front right speakers. It took about 100’ of speaker cable, and I chose high quality, 10 gauge cables.
The speaker cables originated in the unfinished storage room and traveled along the floor joists above what would be the ceiling of the room. Then I dropped them down to the approximate location of the speakers, leaving several feet of spare cable just in case I needed to move them from the anticipated location down the road. The speaker locations had to be between two wall studs, so I found the center of the room and planned a spot for my center channel and then found the front left and front right speaker locations equidistant from the center where I still had room between studs.
I didn’t need to run speaker cable for the rear speakers at this point because those speakers would be in an unfinished storage room. I could run those cables when I installed my speakers and receiver.
One big question remained, “If all of my components are tucked away neatly in a closet, how are my remote controls going to work? Will I have to get up and open the closet to use my remote control?”
Fortunately, I found out the answer to those questions. Gadgets called IR connecting blocks (also called IR Repeater Hubs) address this specific issue. The IR connecting blocks consist of 3 main parts: a receiver, a connecting block, and flashers. The receiver can be mounted on a wall, inside a speaker, or somewhere else inconspicuous. It receives the IR signals from the remote, so you’ll want to place it somewhere you’d naturally point the remote. The connecting block should be mounted near all of the components (in my case, the cabinet), the flashers plug into the connecting block, and then get glued onto the front of the components where the component would receive the IR signal. All you have to do is get the signal from the receiver to the connecting block, which is done with a simple Cat-5 cable.
So to prepare for the IR system, I ran a Cat-5 cable along with my center channel speaker wire cable. Now that the cabling was complete, I could turn my attention to the home theater projector.
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April 13th, 2007
Potential home theater owners are quickly bombarded with a new set of terminology, an array of acronyms, and specifications and technological details that can be confusing and difficult to keep straight. As I mentioned in my Introduction article, learning home theater technologies can be a great boon to home theater owners.
This article provides a primer on the technologies involved in building your own inexpensive home theater.
LCD vs. DLP
The video source of choice for most home theaters is a projector. A projector is mounted behind a wall or on the ceiling and projects the image onto a screen or flat surface. Projectors use one of two main technologies, LCD and DLP. Again I won’t go too deep into arguing which is better, but be aware of the different technologies and the strengths and weaknesses of both. Projection systems in home theaters are becoming much more popular because of the recent price decreases in HD-ready projectors.
Aspect Ratio
The shape of the screen is often referred to as the aspect ratio. Old school TVs were in a 4:3 aspect ratio. Widescreen TVs are usually defined as 16:9 ratio. HDTV comes in a 16:9 ratio. When you buy a DVD they usually come in either full-screen (4:3) or widescreen (16:9) aspect ratios. If you’re putting in a home theater, you want to put in a screen in the 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio. Full screen is dead; widescreen is definitely the way to go.
Resolution and Progressive vs Interlaced
You will see 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p when looking video specs. These curious numbers refer to the resolution of the image. These numbers are a type of shorthand measuring the number of vertical lines displayed in that image. The bigger the number, the more vertical lines displayed in the image, or to say in another way, the higher the resolution of the image.
The suffix of p or i represents progressive or interlaced. Without getting too technical, progressive means the lines are each drawn sequentially, but interlaced is the old-school way of transmitting video. Interlaced draws every other line of each frame, rotating odd and even lines. Even though it has been around for a while, it does have its place — even the video geeks can’t firmly decide which is better. But, I have my upscaling DVD player set at 720p and I like it.
Cable Types
Video signals are carried to the video source through cables. There are many different type of cables to carry the video signal including HDMI, component video, RCA, DVI, and S-video. Home theater owners should mainly be concerned with HDMI and component video, since these two provide the highest quality and can carry an HD signal.
Audio cables are also very important. In addition to the regular copper speaker wire, you will need S/PDIF cables to carry the digital audio signals between your AV receiver and components that provide your surround sound. Usually these come in optical (TOSLINK) or coax varieties, either of which is suitable to carry the signal required for surround sound.
Networking and power cables will also be crucial in many home theater setups. Knowing a little about Cat 5 and coax cables will go a long way in deciphering functionality and troubleshooting if things go wrong.
HDTV
A home theater using standard definition TV is a horrible waste. Watching HDTV on a home theater is a wonderful experience — the picture is sharp and clear, and the sound is coming through in 5.1 surround. With standard definition the picture looks extremely fuzzy since the larger sized screen magnifies the imperfections that are usually overlooked on a regular-sized TV. The sound from standard definition TV signal only uses the left and right channels. Once you get HD in a home theater and switch to the same TV program in standard definition, you’ll notice the huge difference in quality and be aware of the huge gap between HD and standard definition.
Surround Sound
Surround sound is pretty easy to figure out. There is usually a number associated with surround sound 5.1 being the most common, but you’ll also see 2.1, 2.0, 5.0, 6.0, 6.1, 7.0, and 7.1. The .1 or .0 denotes with our without a subwoofer, respectively. The whole number represents the number of speakers and the general speaker placement. 5.1 includes a front-center channel, a right front and a right left channel, a surround left and surround right channel, and a subwoofer. The sixth channel adds a center rear channel, while the 7 speaker configuration uses two rear speakers instead of just a rear center, one on the right and one on the left.
Again, this was meant to be a simple primer to get you started on your home theater knowledge, you’ll find you have to know more as you go further, but it should be a solid foundation for you to build on. Even a basic understanding these concepts will help you make better decisions as you plan your ultimate inexpensive home theater system.
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Inexpensive Home Theater: Introduction
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March 23rd, 2007
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