any idea on upgrading or tweaking my set up (1 Viewer)

[fattkt]

Here is what i have, un55c7000 Samsung led 3D tv, Onkyo TX-NR708 receiver, Samsung BD-D5500 3D Bluray player, and a nintendo wii for a gaming system. As for speakers I am running Yamaha Ns-777 towers for fronts, A Yamaha Ns-c444 for a center, A pair of Yamaha Ns-333 bookshelf speaker for surrounds. I have two infinity PSW-212 subs using RG6 cables to hook them up. As for HDMI cables im running v1.4 high speed radio shack brand. Oh and I also have the samsung 3D glass's too.

Its set up in 5.2 right now and the subs are placed in back do to the badly designed living room I have. Sooner or later I will be getting a house with a basement to set this all up, but until such time this is what I have to deal with.

As for tv setting I played with that tell I found a forum site that had the prefect setting for the best picture, and it looks awesome now. The only thing I would like to find is some better settings for the 3D veiwing. Other than that I love the tv great pic.

I dont have great speaker wires right now and are pretty small gage wires, would getting thicker gage wires and banana clips help things out. All my speaker are 6 ohm speaker so maybe this will help.

Im pretty new to all this home theater stuff, Ive just started bluiding this in the last 2 yrs. Hoping soon to do some speaker upgrades. Not a big fan of the yamaha speaker so much anymore. They were just in my price rage at the time. Any suggestion on speaker choices?


Thanks for taking the time to read and any input would be helpfull.

 

[Jason Charlton]

Speaker wire thickness has very little effect on how your system sounds. Only if you're using really thin stuff (18 gauge or higher - think the stuff that comes with the receiver) would anyone suggest stepping up to 16 or 14 gauge wire. 12 gauge is about as thick as anyone really uses, and the benefits of it over 14 or 16 gauge is miniscule and are rarely enough to warrant the extra price.


Regardless of the gauge of the wire, don't spend $$ for expensive wire. Wire is wire. In the case of speaker wire, it's simply an electrical conductor - get spools from www.monoprice.com or check your local Home Depot to see what they charge per foot of speaker wire.


Overall, your system seems pretty decent. No need to update any of your components, IMO. I haven't checked the specs on the speakers, but my guess would be that when you move to a larger room, you may want to consider revisiting your speakers. Yamaha is not really known for their speakers.


You could also consider replacing the two subwoofers with a single, higher-end model from SVS. Your current models extend down to 25 Hz which is good, but a nice SVS will get even lower. Many feel that one really good subwoofer is better than two decent subs - of course that depends on your goals, everyone has different preferences.


You've come a long way in just 2 years! It took me about 10 years to get to my basement "dream theater". It's a fun journey.

 

[fattkt]

Thanks for all the info, as for my speaker wire im pretty sure its 18 or 20 gage. So that is one thing im going to be replacing soon. It was the speaker wire that came with my first pioneer home theater system in a box, that i bought at walmart. Im not proud of that but after buying that it kinda planted a seed to get something bigger and better.


So I went from haven a 27'' phillips flat screen tube style tv, a cheapy wal-mart dvd player, a pioneer box home theator system, and a polk PS-12 bought on online too what i have now. I went threw two different tvs and this is my 3rd receiver witch Onkyo is replacing this one already due to some issues with it. I had a 42'' samsung flat pannel plasma that I bought at walmart in mid 2009 before I bought the 55'' samsung led (NOT A WAL-MART BUY)LOL, witch i just bought about 2 weeks ago, same with the Onkyo receiver. The Onkyo replaced a yamaha receiver (HTR-6140) that was also bought in 2009. The infinity PSW-212 subs were purchased to replace the polk sub and those were bought last yr.


I still have the polk sub and the yamahe receiver, I also have the ipod docking station for the yamaha too. I thought about making an audio system in the garage but my new receiver has 2 zones so I really dont need these anymore. I was thinking of selling them now.

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What im thinking of doing now is taken my receiver bluray play and wii and putting them in a rack in a different room and getting a ir system to still be able to use my remote to control them and wall mounting the tv. Then I could get rid of the big tv stand I have that holds everything. This would free up more room in my living room and might be able to move the subs around. Just a thought.


I might even just sell the 2 subs and buy one nice svs like you were saying in your post.


Thanks for the ideas and if you could point me in the right direction for a good but fairly good priced ir. system that would be great too.

 

[fattkt]

I also have another question? I have TONS and I mean TONS of dvds and blurays and they take up alot of space! What do you think about a person buying a really large hard drive to store them all on.


The reason I have so many dvds and blurays is because I can get cable were I'm at. Witch is bull because everyone down the road and on the other side of the road have cable. The cable company told me, we can get you cable, you just have to pay the $5000 it will cost to string it cross the road to you!!! F that and the other option is to get satilite tv witch I really dont wanna do.So I buy maybe 2 movies a week for the most part,the wife doesnt mind but I think she getting tired of all the space they take up. I an lucky to have a wife like I do, she doesnt complain about me spending money on this home theater or all these dvds and bluray, but I know all good thing will come to an end and she will start complaining! LOL

I was think that if I could put them all on to a hard drive I could also save so room too by packing the movies away but still keeping them.

 

[Jason Charlton]

I installed an IR repeater system from Buffalo Electronics (all the components are available at parts-express). I used the first three items listed (the IR-100 receiver and power supply combined with an IR-350 "eye" that is mounted in the wall above my projection screen, right at the ceiling) plus 3 or 4 IR blasters. I had to extend the cat-5 wiring from the eye to the receiver which was mounted next to my equipment rack (about 35 feet away and under some stairs) and then have the blasters running from there to my gear.


Back when I installed it, there were fewer options available - that's no longer the case. An Amazon search turned up models from Smarthome, Sanus, Logitech and others. Many of them quite a bit cheaper than my system.


The Buffalo Electronics system is easily expandable - you can daisy chain as many receivers as you need - and it will work with most IR flashers out there (some systems are somewhat proprietary - at least I remember that being the case when I was shopping) but the BE system may not be quite as user-friendly as some of the newer options (i.e. the wiring of the eye to the receiver involved stripping wire. That may scare some folks away).


However, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the newer, cheaper systems are just as effective.


Good luck!

 

[fattkt]

This is my set up as of right now but its going to change. Im going to get rid of the stand,wall mount the tv and move the bluray, receiver, and nintendo Wii in to a closet in my bed room. the closet is right behind the tv in the hall wal of my bed room. I found an IR repeater system tonight on ebay that is only 40 bucks shipped. Going out tomorrow and getting new 14 gauge speaker wire and a flush wall mount kit. Im also going to move all my movies over to my computers hard drive and try and stream it to the bluray some how throught the usb port. Im hoping this all works because this should keep up the looks of my living room a ton. My living room is 12'x 15'







My subs are in each corner, one beside the couch and one behide the recliner. The surrounds as you see are on the wall just about 5 to 10 inches higher that ear level. I think im going to lower them a little bit closer to ear level.


This is going to be the new place for the receiver,bluray and nintendo wii.

 

[fattkt]

Well I got 100ft of 16 gauge wire instead of the 14 gauge, Radio shack didnt have too much to choose from. Got the ir repeater and my hard drive for my movies. Now I just got to get to work on running wire and getting power set up in the closet.

 

[Brian McHale]

If you haven't opened that spool of wire yet, and aren't in too much of a hurry, you might want to take a look at what monoprice.com has for speaker wire:


http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10239

 

[fattkt]

I already have most of the wiring ran now just finishing up the center channel and one surround speaker. But im still going to run about 300 more feet. I figure while im doing all this im going to run my zone 2 out to the front deck and out to the garage. So I could use a deal on some wire and some banana clips. My buddy is going to make me all the cat 5 cable I need for networking and all the RG6 cables I need to run my subs.

 

[Jason Charlton]

If you can find a steal of a deal on banana clips, then they are a nice thing to have, but they really offer no performance improvement over simple bare speaker wire connections.


I find them most helpful on the receiver side of things - much easier to install vs. threading bare wire through the side holes. Adding them elsewhere makes for a nice rainy-day project and helps the speaker connections look better, but that's about it.


Have fun with the rest of the project.

 

[fattkt]

Im just trying to make it simple and easier for me when I go to move the receiver. Plus I thought the install would look much cleaner that way too. The zone 2 that im running out to the front deck and garage im just going to run wall plates to them with the banana clips. That way when I do buy a bigger house with a basement I can just simple unhook them easly and go.

 

[fattkt]

Well Im getting closer to getting done with my project, tomorrow should have power ran in the closet and a couple outlets moved around to hide the tvs power cord after I mounted it on the wall. Then the Ir repeater should be hooked up and going. I also got a really good deal on some banana plugs and rca fitting for my RG6 cable to run my subs.


While doing all this I didnt think to see how deep the Onky receiver was, it ended up be a little deeper than I thought and had to cut the back wall out a little bit in one of the shelfs to make it fit. Everything alright though just had to do some wood work to make it fit. If everything goes good I should had most everthing working by tomorrow night and never to be seen in my living room again including the nintendo wii!!!!!!! LOL


Will post pics as soon as I can just havent had time to take any yet.

 

[Brian McHale]

Just make sure that receiver has adequate ventilation. It will generate a fair amount of heat.

 

[fattkt]

Well heres what I have done so far. Its not quite done yet have to run the cable for the subs and finish running my cat5 cables but its getting closer. After that just need to do a little finish work in the closet and im done. I'm just a first timer at this and not a pro in home audio but please let me know what you think so far