Help! (1 Viewer)

[Nina]

We are building a new house. They are in the stage of doing wiring right now. I do not know anything about equipment or wiring, and am complete new.

I have a second-floor finished room over garage (FROG) 17 3 1/2' X 11 7 1/2' that we plan to set up home theater. I have no idea what I should do regarding wiring, what kind of equipment. e.g., how many speakers, what is appropriate watts in that size of room?

I also plan to install some speakers downstairs in the kitchen area. Do you think I should buy a separate center for that? Somebody in Radioshake told me that buying a separate center would allow me to play music while somebody is upstairs playing TV. What do you think?

I have budget around $3-4k for TV, speaker, and subwafer combined.

Please help me craft a plan. Thank you very much!

 

[Mike SJ]

I had typed up a whole list of things to tell you and then my computer crashed :frowning:

ill try to remember- here goes:

first off, welcome to the HTF!!!

a. what equip do you currently have?
b. what are your priorities? (asthetics, quality, loud, quiet, cool enough to impress friends) many good HT's meet all these but you need to prioritise what you want.
c. tv around $800-$2000
d. receiver around $700-$1500
e. speakers around $600-$1800
d. sub around $500-$1000
mix and match with your spouse? and begin to list musthaves, then maybehaves, then the dontwannahaves. then start brand searching. just see whats out there online and retail. pick out the ones that meet your criteria then break them down into pricing. after a while youll get a much better picture of what you can afford and what you will end up with.

hope this helps. please keep us informed and remember, the "search" option here at HTF is an amazing source for info!!!

MS

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Usually, receivers with "Zone 2" capabilities allow you to have the theater running in one area and music in another (provided you're not trying to play a movie with the DVD player and also using the same player to play a CD.)

As a starting point, look at the Harman/Kardon receivers which have the Zone 2 capabilities that I'm speaking of. H/K also has the "A-Bus" connector on some of their receivers where you could wire additional "A box" control switches in rooms of your house to control the audio.

Plus, there are other receivers that do have Zone 2 capabilities. H/K was just mentioned as a starting reference.

 

[DanielKellmii]

Here is the link:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=120328

Unfortunetly, we can't tell you what to do. You will have to spend a few hours just doing some research.

 

[Drew_W]

Well, you shouldn't be shopping H/T at RadioShack (perhaps except for getting an SPL meter, which would be a worthwhile investment no matter what direction your system takes).

Why not spend a day crawling local audio shops? See what their setups are like, listen to some systems, gather ideas. And absolutely, do as much research as possible. Knowing your stuff cold opens the door to better deals via stronger negotiating tactics when buying.