I'm starting a new thread for planning a home theater tour in Austin during June. By the end of June, many of the HTs currently under construction should be ready to show off.

I suggest we do the meet on June 19 or 26 (preferably the 26th). The guys who have kids should have received and set up their Father's Day toys by then.

So if you've made some changes to your HT and want to show it off again, please post and let us know which day(s) work for you...

[Hank Frankenberg]

Hey, Slim, thanks for gettin' the ball rolling. I was hoping we wouldn't have to wait so long for the next meet. Do you have insider information that a HT or 2 won't be ready until then?

[Nils Luehrmann]

Speaking of HT Tours, I went to the 2004 Showcase of Homes today and I simply can't say enough how terrific this showcase is this year. Not only were the homes full of really interesting architectural touches using some of the most impressive building materials. I was particular impressed with this one wood used for the front doors of the Sterling Custom Home (107 Shore Oaks Ct.). The media rooms were quite nice, especially the one in the Calcasieu Bros. home (108 Shore Oaks Ct.) where they converted what would have been the unattached guest house into a dedicated theater. The best sounding home theater though was in the Sterling Custom Home. Those JBL Synthesis speakers sounded amazing! Of course Scott would be disappointed as there were no Bose speakers to be found in any of the homes.

The Partners In Building home (515 Golden Bear Dr.) used a very cleverly designed sliding pocket door to their home theater. It was a foot deep book shelf designed to look like they were built-in shelves. It made for a very effective sound dampening door as well as a clever way to hide the theater. It reminded me of Chad's wonderful speakeasy-style swinging shelf door in his home.

There were some pretty interesting swimming pool designs, something Linda and I had wanted for our current home, but will have to wait until the kids are reasonably good swimmers.

Besides homes, home automation, and home theater, the tour also offered a nice car show with some of the hottest sports and luxury cars parked in each of the homes driveways. The new Dodge Viper was certainly nice candy for the eyes, as was the new Porsche Turbo and Cayenne Turbo. They had a Jaguar, Mercedes, Lexus, and a few others, but the car that surprisingly caught my eye was the new Nissan 350Z convertible. What a beautiful design, both inside and out. The headlight design was especially interesting.

As a bonus, they had five chefs from some of the best restaurants in the area serving dinner in the garages of five of the homes. Not only were we treated to a multiple course 3 star dinner, but they also had live music!

This was easily the best Showcase of Homes in many years and well worth the visit, and not just for the home theaters!

[Frederick_Falk]

Looking forward to the 26th. I will put it on my calendar and I am looking forward to seeing all the new upgrades and Chad's completed HT.

[Chad Anson]

Completed?! Does that mean I have to finally finish that last 2%?

Unless something unexpected pops up, I'm happy to host a leg of the tour.

[Mark J]

This date works well for me. I am willing to put my theater on the tour. I loved the last tour. "Home theater police..." It doesn't get any better than that!

--Mark

[John Prator]

I would also love to put our HT on the tour, we should be done by then. We are going to install the flooring this weekend, next weekend is the carpet. I'm sure that I will receive multiple tickets from the HT Police but I'm up for it!

[Scott Oliver]

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[Scott Oliver]

Everyone in the group probably recently recevied their Memorial Day weekend 10% off coupons from Best Buy in the mail. However I wanted to make sure everyone knew of an even better deal, starting May 27th Tower Records is starting their going out of business sale. Everything will be 20% off then on June 10th that increases to 30%. The only bad thing about this is that parking sucks around Tower Records.

[Scott Oliver]

**HTF Tour Panning Update**

The last three tour stops are now set and confirmed with approximate times.
The Southern leg of the HTF Tour -

Chad Anson's Lakeway Hillside Theater,5PM-ish

then shoot down 71 to Manchaca and Slaughter area for a listening demo at

The GRisley Den, 6:30 PM-ish

finally a short drive away we will close with

John Prator's HT (no nickname developed yet),7:30 PM-ish

At John's there will be no schedule to maintain, so John says we can hang out for as long as we can tolerate John and his wife. :p) Just kidding, no really!

Also we need to come up with some plans for some food and drinks to have at John's place, since it will be dinnertime.

If you would like to add your HT to the tour please email me by clicking on the button above. However, personally I think we should not add too many more stops, maybe one or two more. More than that and I think the day will get too busy, and the chance of having a great shindig at John's decreases. Also at one of these first stops we could also talk about carpooling if not before then, since gas is ridiculously high.

So again if you would like to be one of these few remaining tour stops please email me.

I would also like to receive an email from anyone and everyone planning to attend this tour with the subject line "HTF tour RSVP", so that I can send out more updates and eventually directions.

P.S. John it was good talking to you today and look forward to chatting with you some more (BTW you should come to the happy hour thing on June 3rd mentioned in the Austin movie nights thread). I was glad to hear that we have another true audiophile, I mean this in the good sense of the word, joining the group.

[Greg Risley]

I can't wait to have everyone over. The theater is really coming together. I just replaced all 6 of the standard can lights with directional spots and a good dimmer. This really changed the mood in the room to the better. Hopefully the new curtains for the side walls will be finished soon.
Hey Nils, I finally broke down and swapped out the projector bulb before she blew. Wow its like a new projector. I think we may have to fire up a little Xbox Nascar Thunder.

Greg

[John Prator]

Scott,
Was good talking to you also. I don't think my system is on the same level as yours(and some others in this group)but it gets me by and my Wife loves it so theres some seriously big points right there!! As for the Happy Hour, it's really hard for us to make anything during the week, shift work and a child, so probably won't make it but I am determined to meet you guys as soon as we get this HT done. When the HT Tour makes it to our house I will have some food, snacks, beer and some "harder" type drinks for you Guys & Gals, some of you will bring your better halves right???

On another note, I ordered some room treatments yesterday. I decided to try out those Real Traps (realtraps.com). I started out with four of his Minitraps and two Microtraps(I don't know where this guy came up with Mini and Micro cuz they ain't small!). They should be here next week. I'll see what they do but I'm sure I'll have to order some more. What sucks is they are going to cover up most of the trim we put up! Oh well, must have good sound or whats the point, right?

[John Prator]

One thing I would like to bring up about our HT/Music room is that it is only a four seater. Room is 17x21 so it's not tiny but as of right now there are only four chairs. Don't know if this will cause a problem or not, hopefully not, there is still plenty of standing/sitting on floor room and the rest of the house is pretty roomy. Well, just thought i should bring this up.
John

[Chad Anson]

Only a four seater? I call shotgun!

I don't think it'll be a problem at all -- most of us are pretty easy to please.

My wife is wary about coming to these events as she's tended to be the only woman present. Says that it reminds her of when she used to visit me at the engineering school in undergrad.