Washington

Help for serious beginner

Would be grateful for some embarassingly basic advice re choosing a home theater.

First of all, I'm in a rented house, living room about 14x18' with a lot of furniture and not much space or obvious places for lots of speakers. Question is, what happens if you don't use the satellite speakers in a 6-speaker system? Will the system work, but not optimally? Or will there actually be certain sounds that are completely missing? I'm not a very demanding listener, but of course there's a minimum...

Secondly, our AV furniture is proving inconveniently small. Can't go over 13.5" deep, so I was thinking of opting for the Pioneer HTZ-77DV or the Aiwa HT-DV90 which both switch depth for height. Anyone any opinions about these machines? One important issue is that I want to be able to hook up a Minidisc recorder - either component or portable.

Washington

Actually, the Panasonic SC-MT1 is also an option, but I can't find any reviews.

Thanks for any advice.

Ted Lee

when you say "satellite speakers" - do you mean the rear speakers?

if you don't hook them up your system will still work. you just won't get any of that cool rear-channel type stuff. if you're not a hardcore ht fan, then it may not be a big deal to you.

as a matter of fact, i don't have my rear channels hooked up right now either. i just moved into my new home and i'm still trying to figure out optimal placement for all my gear.

also, depending on your equipment, you may be able to tell your system that you only have your front speakers running (often called 3-channel mode). the system will then "re-route" all the stuff that normally goes to the rear speakers back up to the front. at least that way you get to hear "all" the sound.

this is my dvd collection. there are many like it, but this is my own ...

Washington

Yup, I meant the rear speakers. Good news, thanks for your reply, Ted.

ChrisWiggles

If you're going to lose the rear speakers, you'll probably get much better performance by picking up a pair of small bookshelf speakers and a simple 2-channel reciever. Paradigms, axioms, whatever, will yield you much better performance.