Brian.Huep
Agent
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2003
- Messages
- 43
Hello,
Long time reader, first time poster. I really love this forum, and have appeaciated all the great info. It has got me, the bug. I am now constructing a home theater in my basement. I have already started purchasing items. I have many questions, but I think some of these will help others as well.
This is a budget theater, however I already had some good audio gear.
I would like to break this into catagories, and hopefully get help and opinions. I tried to bold some of the important questions, but after typing this long thing, they all are important to me.
Thanks in advance!!
CONSTRUCTION
Normal cement basement 11' wide 15' long 7' high. I got a great deal on some heavy black and some red curtains with theater looking patterns. Cost me about 120 to fully cover all the walls with black and red velvet with the sale at Meijers.
How well will thick velvet help with sound acoustic issues? Will it help the echo much? I am hanging these from 1/2" pvc piping. .77 cents for 10 foot. Interconnects and elbows all fit inside the curtains.
Mynards also is running a sale on dark charcoal carpet with built on padding. Olefin moisture resistant carpet for .37 cents a square foot. This will come out to about 60-70 bucks. Cheap!! 12x15 roll.
SOUND
I currently have a Harmon Kardon av-55 I believe it is. With 2 Klipsch Qartets. (the huge ones, not small ones) Passive raidiator thing in the back makes these hard to place. Speakers really need to be in corners. Which I can, but all the pics I see people have all 3 fronts in a row angled the same.
I have a JBL 12" sub that is fine. But my 3 peice surround is a 6-7 year old pioneer set that only ran about 150 at sears that long ago. What is recommended here? My mains are kinda old, still sweet though, but how do I match a center to them? Secondly, should I also replace the rears? They will be to the sides of the back listeners, no room on the back. SO should I go with multi-directional rears, or normal bookshelf ones?
I am taking this set from upstairs on our 36" direct view TV. I was thinking of replacing it with the $199 Fluance set. The set looks sharp, and I am assuming still sounds a hell of a lot better then TV speakers. But not good enough to replace my downstairs set right? I know matching is important, but could a matched $199 set beat a peiced $4000 set? Not thinking so, but that's why I asked.
DISPLAY
Projector was going to be a panny 200u LCD since I don't want anyone getting headaches from DLP. However I am looking at the 300U for a few reasons, but want to make sure what I am thinking is correct.
Can the panny 300U do both 4:3 and 16:9 correctly? Is there a switch or something? I am making a 52x96 I think it was, 16:9 using blackout cloth and 1x2's from home depot. Would this projector also allow me to use a pull down screen in front of my fixed 16:9 to display 4:3 larger without moving the projector?
Also, will the 300U play dvds cleaner then the 200U? I heard the 300U is slightly higher res and would have to downsample a dvd res. /shrug I will be watching almost 100% dvd movies, but was thinking since I have to buy a new dvd player for progressive scan, should I get one with DVI and use the 300U's DVI input? Is DVI-DVI going to be so much more noticable then componant-componant that I should spend $2100 instead of $1200? Almost double.
I will not be watching hdtv, but I would like to game occasionally on it. However it seems the xbox can do widescreen, so I might be set, unless DVI is that good. The other issue is that I am a computer freak, so I do have dvi out on my main computer. Would be nice to have the 4:3 dvi-dvi on the 300U.
OPINIONS
Basically all I need is a projector and progressive dvd player. I would like to keep everything under $2,000 which if I went with the 200U, sony 715p dvd, and a decent center/2 rears I would get out for around 1500. Going to the 300U and a dvi dvd player would run over 2k alone. Not counting any speakers. Opinions please? Very close to ordering.
I will check this often, please help me with any info you can. I know I asked 100 questions, but after months of reading, I still had some questions.
What a book!!
Long time reader, first time poster. I really love this forum, and have appeaciated all the great info. It has got me, the bug. I am now constructing a home theater in my basement. I have already started purchasing items. I have many questions, but I think some of these will help others as well.
This is a budget theater, however I already had some good audio gear.
I would like to break this into catagories, and hopefully get help and opinions. I tried to bold some of the important questions, but after typing this long thing, they all are important to me.
Thanks in advance!!
CONSTRUCTION
Normal cement basement 11' wide 15' long 7' high. I got a great deal on some heavy black and some red curtains with theater looking patterns. Cost me about 120 to fully cover all the walls with black and red velvet with the sale at Meijers.
How well will thick velvet help with sound acoustic issues? Will it help the echo much? I am hanging these from 1/2" pvc piping. .77 cents for 10 foot. Interconnects and elbows all fit inside the curtains.
Mynards also is running a sale on dark charcoal carpet with built on padding. Olefin moisture resistant carpet for .37 cents a square foot. This will come out to about 60-70 bucks. Cheap!! 12x15 roll.
SOUND
I currently have a Harmon Kardon av-55 I believe it is. With 2 Klipsch Qartets. (the huge ones, not small ones) Passive raidiator thing in the back makes these hard to place. Speakers really need to be in corners. Which I can, but all the pics I see people have all 3 fronts in a row angled the same.
I have a JBL 12" sub that is fine. But my 3 peice surround is a 6-7 year old pioneer set that only ran about 150 at sears that long ago. What is recommended here? My mains are kinda old, still sweet though, but how do I match a center to them? Secondly, should I also replace the rears? They will be to the sides of the back listeners, no room on the back. SO should I go with multi-directional rears, or normal bookshelf ones?
I am taking this set from upstairs on our 36" direct view TV. I was thinking of replacing it with the $199 Fluance set. The set looks sharp, and I am assuming still sounds a hell of a lot better then TV speakers. But not good enough to replace my downstairs set right? I know matching is important, but could a matched $199 set beat a peiced $4000 set? Not thinking so, but that's why I asked.
DISPLAY
Projector was going to be a panny 200u LCD since I don't want anyone getting headaches from DLP. However I am looking at the 300U for a few reasons, but want to make sure what I am thinking is correct.
Can the panny 300U do both 4:3 and 16:9 correctly? Is there a switch or something? I am making a 52x96 I think it was, 16:9 using blackout cloth and 1x2's from home depot. Would this projector also allow me to use a pull down screen in front of my fixed 16:9 to display 4:3 larger without moving the projector?
Also, will the 300U play dvds cleaner then the 200U? I heard the 300U is slightly higher res and would have to downsample a dvd res. /shrug I will be watching almost 100% dvd movies, but was thinking since I have to buy a new dvd player for progressive scan, should I get one with DVI and use the 300U's DVI input? Is DVI-DVI going to be so much more noticable then componant-componant that I should spend $2100 instead of $1200? Almost double.
I will not be watching hdtv, but I would like to game occasionally on it. However it seems the xbox can do widescreen, so I might be set, unless DVI is that good. The other issue is that I am a computer freak, so I do have dvi out on my main computer. Would be nice to have the 4:3 dvi-dvi on the 300U.
OPINIONS
Basically all I need is a projector and progressive dvd player. I would like to keep everything under $2,000 which if I went with the 200U, sony 715p dvd, and a decent center/2 rears I would get out for around 1500. Going to the 300U and a dvi dvd player would run over 2k alone. Not counting any speakers. Opinions please? Very close to ordering.
I will check this often, please help me with any info you can. I know I asked 100 questions, but after months of reading, I still had some questions.
What a book!!