home theater questions/recomondations/buying info (1 Viewer)

well my family (and i) are moving end of june. and there is a room for me to make a home theater. i cant spend crazy amounts of cash to make it professional, but i can spend enough to make it enjoyable. what compenets are a must in a new home theater? i think i am going the plasma route over the projector route... smart idea? (the room isnt big enought to justify projector size screen dimensions) anyone know a lot about the newer plama models offered? what should i look for in one? thanks for all your help.

i know not to go for any home theater in a box. here in my school apartment im running a sony 6.1 channel reciever witha 5 disc dvd/cd/mp3 changer and other inputs...

at home:
were looking to spend under 8000 for the tv, plasma prices are falling. what do i look for in these sets?

no more than 1500 on new speakers.

we have a denon reciever and amp now, so i think ill use that - so no need for upgrading that

dvd player - nothing fancy, most likely a good all in one unit (dvd/cd/sacd)

any other compnents a must these days? we havnt done home theater since we moved into our last house, and thats when we spent 1400 on sony's first ever dvd player (who would have thought they would be 69.00 at the grocery store today?)

im just looking for input from people who may have bought some products and really like/dislike them and can offer me some advice.

im most interested in finding out what i should be looking for in a plasma... (thats what my parents are looking for, and they are the budget)

thanks in advance to all that can help. i help do our last home theater, but it was years ago, so i dont really know what to look for this time around!

You might want to ask about plasma panels in the Display Devices section, though with the money you're talking about a projector (or even a high-end rear-projector) is a much better bet offering superior black levels and more performance per dollar.

As for all your other questions, use the Search function in the appropriate sections; you'll find much information regarding component recommendations and user reports that way.

I think some of the current magazines have reviews/lists of Home Theater speaker sets. Run to the news stand for these.

The "TV/Projector" fourm is the best place to look for info on these. My personal interest is in one of the new DLP units from Samsung. These are smaller, lighter, and have no burn-in issues like traditional RPTV or Plasmas.

Make sure your DVD player has progressive-scan output.

I think it's the current issue of Sound & Vision that has a roundup of home-theater speaker suites.