Home Theatres

“Here is a photo of it: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2585/4112297166_7dfa962745.jpg

There is a cabinet on each side, actually two to the left and one to the right. No hole to be cut.

The only thing I can think of is to put the receiver on the top shelf. It is currently on the bottom because that is where all of the speaker wires come out of the wall. Put it up top and cut a hole behind the DVD player so that it will at least vent into that top cubby under the TV. Thoughts?”

“Crap, here it is:

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“You will never get this past the wife, but the simple solution would be to take it out of the cabinet and set it on the bookcase. Another option would be to leave the cabinet doors open when watching TV. That may not be the best solution, but it should help. Another thing that might help a bit is to take the shelves out of that cabinet. It would give it more air volume to heat up, so it might take longer before it overheats. Also make sure that all of the vents (top and bottom) are clear and not being obstructed. After seeing the cabinet, It is almost certainly overheating.”

“I think I will remove that shelf and then look at a fan behind the DVD (right hand gadget below TV). The shelf that the TV sits on is removable so I will have access to everything. The biggest pain will be unhooking everything from the TV to move it and gain access to drill/jigsaw the hole.

Thanks for your help everyone.”

“My cabinet is completely open (no walls) so heat is not an issue. It was purchased purposefully without walls to minimize heat issues. Hopefully that is your problem and you can easily rectify it. It may save you a couple bucks over the long haul too if fans are used less. Good luck. Can't see the before pictures right now, but be sure to post the afters too.”

“The photo is hosted on flickr. The raw link is at the top if that helps.”

“PS, I_ll be dang glad when our youngest is old enough for us to remove those child locks. Damn ugly.”

“We're looking into setting up a simple home theater system but don't want to clutter up the family room and don't need the best sound for everyday use.

Is it possible to use a 5.1 system without the rear speakers (only bringing them out for movies)?”

“yes - just hook them up when you want them

if you want to bother with it (optional) you can select in your receiver to only use the fronts, or all 5, as required
last edited: 12/09/09 5:52:50 AM”

“They do make systems with wireless rear speakers. They are not the greatest quality, but they would work really well if you wanted to only bring the speakers out for movies. If you don't mind doing a little wiring work, in-wall speakers could be an option. You can paint the grills the same color as the walls.”

“Tanks!”

“oops - you forgot to switch trolls”

“If you have above ceiling access you could go with in-ceiling speakers. That is what I did for my four non-center channel speakers. About a month ago I linked the speakers on an issue I was having.”

“Dang, I posted almost exactly what Mocs did, when Mocs did... stupid apostrophe problem!”

“I didn't go with the inwall speaker option in my answer because of his question.

We're looking into setting up a simple home theater system but don't want to clutter up the family room and don't need the best sound for everyday use.

From my days as an electronics salesman I gather from this he isn't looking to spend time, or money, on his solution. Could be wrong of course.

If you're willing to make the holes and run the wires and spend a bit more than "basic" speakers then this is the best option for saving space.”

“I was talking about the wireless option. Pull them out, plug them in, no playing around with hooking up speaker wires (always a pain in the butt). Then put them away when done.

One thing I had in my lost post that hasn`t been mentioned yet: make sure you buy ones that can do stereo. Some cheaper models are single-channel mono.”

“Good point. I thought it would be a snap, maybe a few hours. It took me a few days. The hard part was drilling a hole in the attic wall plate, a hole in the floor plate, and then hitting a fish tap from the attic, through the main floor, and down into the basement. Good times.”

“I hate fishing wire. Happily the house I have now was easy - it was already wired by the prior owner before I moved in, and he left his rear channel speakers. They are ugly and aren`t in-wall, so eventually I need to replace them.”

“dayhiker - Wow, and aren't you like an expert at construction projects? I would be hiring somebody to do the job. Come to think of it, my dad tried to do it himself and ended up calling in the pros.”

“I had the house pre wired for sound but didn_t know enough to give direct as to what I wanted. I wound up not using any of the wiring. The area over the living room is my daughters BR. Luckily, I have access to the spaces between the floor joist from an adjacent attic. I was able to feed down from the receiver, over the a wall accessible from the basement, and all the way up into that attic, then back over the ceiling. The speaker is about 10 feet from the receiver, but I probably ran 50 feet of wire to get there. I left line in to pull future wires if need be. I later came back and ran two more to go outside for ourdoor speakers around the pool. The reciever will support two zones which is dang nice in the summer.


Sometimes I am too stubborn to hire stuff. I did freak my wife out on this one though. I cut one of the speaker holes a little two close to a joist. I thought I was going to have to cut about 3/8" of the bottom flange out of the way. She started freaking out about me causing our house to collapse. I said, "Well, you are right, maybe a should call a structural engineer to evaluate this....WAIT, I didn_t just stay in a Holiday Express, I AM a structural engineer." She was not amused.”

“Due to the layout of the room, there's really no place for the rear speakers to go permanently and look nice. One wall is mostly windows and sliding glass - the rest is pretty much supporting structure. The family room is below my bedroom so I'm not real keen on speakers in the floor beneath my bed.

I'm thinking a sound bar just might be the ticket. The SAMSUNG HT-BD8200 looks pretty sweet

but $800 seems a bit pricey, especially since they'll have better models at half the price in two years.

The Philips HTS8100 is much less expensive but lacks the blue-ray and wireless networking capability - something we might use.
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“Good point on the speakers beneath a BR. It limits our use because our daughters room is above the living room.”

“but $800 seems a bit pricey, especially since they'll have better models at half the price in two years.

Must admit I've never researched the "sound bar" market, but generally speaking speaker prices/technology don't change very much. Video, "yes", but generally not speakers. Of course, used models can be found at discounts.”

“The Philips sound bar started at $800 and can be found for under $300 now.

I wish the Samsung unit had integrated the ipod dock instead of making it an afterthought that you have to plug into it (more wires). Also, some reviewers felt the software was a little dodgy. I'd hope those items would be fixed in the next model.”

“I just mean a plain soundbar, like the $800 Samsung you mentioned. If they have other tech in them (blu-tooth, etc..), then that's a different ballgame.”

“My wife and I just got a 52" LG plasma. It's not top of the line but considering we had a tv with an actual tube in it the thing is awesome. I like the fact we can plug the laptop into it and watch netflix instantly.”

“starting to research a little for the speaker components for a home system. Any advice pointers on some things to avoid? i.e. brands, etc?”

“I bought a Yamaha Receiver/Amp and a mixture of Yamaha and JBL speakers. All was bought from Amazon. Seemed to be best price I could find at the time. Sound is great, but I have to admit I've never done much hifi sound stuff.

YMMV”

“Depends on your budget. For people on a budget I'd recommend investing most of your money in powerful front speakers. You can put less into the surround speakers. Another alternative to an expensive sub (still get a sub) is to supplement a standard subwoofer with Buttkickers. They are relatively inexpensive and deliver a powerful experience. They also allow you to keep volume lower without waking the rest of the house or the neighbors and still get a good "movie-going" experience.

If you're not on a budget you can of course cut less corners, but I'd still recommend good strong bassy front left and rights.”

“By the way, I have KEF surrounds (the egg looking ones, I forget the model #) and Infinity Beta 50s for front left and right, plus an additional subwoofer (total of 2), plus 4 Buttkickers. The Infinity Beta 50s are EXCELLENT!!!! for a 25' room. The KEFs have superb sound reproduction, but I don't recommend them as stand alones in a theater environment (maybe just for music). It's a big difference to get the large floor speakers.”

“Great info - thanks!”

“I upgraded my receiver to an Onkyo 2 years ago and still love it. Great surround sound.”

“Ran across these today ..

http://specimenproducts.com/amps/littlehorns.html”

“ditto on tech's Onkyo receiver recommend”

“Years ago i had an Onkyo tape deck that I really liked.

My first priority is speakers, no real reason, I just decided to start there. Figured it'd be a good base to work from and a bit more immediate payback in enjoyment based on what we already have in place (giant HD television) :)”

“Anyone want to discuss the various streaming options out there? I keep looking into them and it seems as though it's not quite there yet.

Netflix: They don't seem to have lots of movies up for streaming yet.

Roku: You are tied to Netflix, but can also do Amazon on demand. I like the idea of buying a small box for streaming and that it will probably be updated periodically with new software. Since it's a netflix device though, I bet it never works with vudu.

Vudu: Need to get a traditional bluray player that is vudu enabled. I like that it has new releases and it all bluray.

There's another box you can buy to stream movies. I'm drawing a total blank on the name. It's about $200.

Are there any other optins besides the Apple TV that are worth looking at? Any discussion on the above?”

“Netflix - I'm happy with the content so far. I'm on a 31 day free trial and and barely put a dent in movie watching. The quality is okay, but comparable to DVD which is kind of annoying. I only use it for movies that I wouldn't buy for my collection. Because it's DVD quality, it's pretty dark viewing.

Vudu - What do you mean "and it all bluray"? Do you mean it's bluray quality? I'm not so sure a high 1080p resolution means it's bluray quality. There are a number of other specs to look at besides resolution. I'm sure it looks nice though.”

“Will that work with my Dolby Prologic system?”

“when you say DVD quality, you mean bare bones DVD quality and not the upconverted DVD quality like you get on a player?

I thought 1080p was bluray, so I learned something.”

“we have a large music collection that we're currently storing on an external harddrive. Roughly 500 gigabytes of music from multiple genres.

We're wondering if there is a good tool to use (other than an ipod or Windows Media Player) to make this collection manageable on a home stereo system? wondering what other folks use - we don't really want to dedicate a laptop or somethign to the stereo system.

The ability to segregate into a genre and then just tell it to play random from within that genre would be cool.

Also - a similar tool to take selected portions of the collection intot the car would be really nice - and would likely be the more heavily used tool.”

“when you say DVD quality, you mean bare bones DVD quality and not the upconverted DVD quality like you get on a player?

Yes. The video is not upconverted.

I thought 1080p was bluray, so I learned something.

bluray is 1080p, but 1080p is not bluray. Bluray is the disk. The bluray disks have the ability to hold much more than just the (dots) of the movie.

As an experiment, if you have a bluray (or DVD, or VCR) player with both s-video and composite (or hdmi), compare running the s-video with one of the higher connectors. The s-video will pale in comparison even though it's the same resolution. One reason for that is that the higher connectors can carry much more information (for example, color information) than the s-video.

This is a common problem with printers. People often think "the higher the resolution, the better". That's bunk. Perhaps if all else is equal, but it never is. For example, National Geographic magazine, world renown for their photo quality, prints at a measly 300x300 resolution (at least they did in the 1990s), but their color reproduction is excellent. People with "high-resolution" inkjet printers could not compete with their layouts. Really the resolution only is about the "size" of the image, not the quality.
last edited: 1/25/11 7:43:08 AM”

“Roam - good question. I've recently ripped all of my CDs to high-quality MP3 so I'm curious what others have to say.

HPD - actually s-video only carries standard resolution video @ 480 just like composite cables (the old yellow RCA plug), but it will do it in progressive scan so it is higher quality. But still lower quality than "high def" on component cables (R-G-B RCA plugs).”

“I should have said on a standard (non-HD) television. Thanks for the clarification.”

“so there really isn't much streaming HD content out there then, is that a fair statement?”

“certainly not on Netflix”

“doesn't streaming eat up your up/download allowance?”

“I have a 5 disc upconverting DVD player which I also use to push music to zone 2 outside. If I add a bluray player to the mix, then I really don't have a place to put it because of the zone 2 aspect. This is why I'm interested in streaming plus the comment on the other thread about it being the future. It really sounds like I need to just chill out until the streaming content and infrastructure mature just a little bit and then worry about it.”

“I hit send too quick.

....and until then just use redbox for most of the movies. Heck, getting to watch non-animated movies is still a pretty rare event at my house. I did watch Inception, Iron Man, and Iron Man 2 over the last few weekends though.”

“If quality isn't a concern of yours, redbox is a good inexpensive way to go, unless you watch maybe 5 or more movies then I'd go with Netflix to save on driving and over about 7 you'll save on costs depending on the subscription price.”