My Home Theater Page (2 Viewers)

[Dave Moritz]

Update: March 23rd, 2010
I will be so glad when I can actually finish my Altec Lancing A-7's. These have been in the family since aprox 1982 when my father purhcased two pair of these speakers and used them for his mobile DJ service. He later sold off one pair and used the remaining pair of A-7's for watching movies in his den. He used to power them with a Yamaha Professional Series power amp that was rated at 300 watts per channel RMS, stereo. These speakers had a 50" CRT rear projection big screen between them and they worked very well. Around 1987 I purchased them from my father for $400 for the pair and have had them ever since. They have been used in two channel applications, then a prologic application and now a 5.0 (7.0 Speaker Cofiguration). One of the things this configuration is lacking is a subwoofer which I will add when I can. I am hoping that once I add a good subwoofer and a updated surround reciever with Audyssey the over all dynamics and sound quality will improve. I also know I need to replace my current center channel and match it to some new rear channel speakers.

Altec Lancing A-7's 1995 (Whittier, California)

Another photo of Altec Lancing A-7 1997

Project Altec Lancing has begun in 2003 a little prematurely before funds where available to professionally refinish cabinets!

Altec A-7 in North Phoenix, Arizona 2009

Altec Lancing A-7's back in Whittier, California 2010
Will try to find pictures of Altec A-7's from the 80's if I can find any?
March 31st, 2010

 

[Brandon3212]

I would also add a sub. I would bet that it would really bring your theater to life. I run an RCF 21" subwoofer and love it, very reasonable price to. By the way I lave those Altecs, always heard great things about horns.

 

[Dave Moritz]

The Altec's take up alot of room but it is hard to replace them with something else with as much dynamics and are just as clean without spending a boat load of cash. The hard thing is to find other speakers that perfectly match the Altecs without spending alot of money and unfortunanly money is hard to come by right now. My entire upgrade plan for my h/t has hit a brick wall for now and for the forseable future. I am still dying for a reciever upgrade, subwoofer, new center channel speaker and a updated bluray that can do 3D and load discs faster than my 1st gen bluray player does. At least I have not gotten to the point where I have to sell any of my a/v system so I can not complain to much!

 

[Dave Moritz]

Like many others here the economy is really sucking the fun out of our hobby! I tell you I am tired of not having the cash to add Blu-ray movies to my library and more importantly to upgrade that old Yamaha reciever to a new Denon with hdmi 1.4 and later on a Denon Bluray player.

Come on economy, I need to get back to full time hours at work so I can have some spending money for the A/V addiction.

 

[Parker Clack]

Dave:

I am a huge fan of the VOTs. A good friend had a pair of them that he built from a kit back in the mid 70s. You could buy the woofer and horn along with the crossover by themselves and they gave you the instructions to build the cabinets. So we built a pair. Then we took your Garrard turntable you have in first picture from '08, hooked that up to a Dynaco preamp and Heathkit poweramp and ran about 15 watts RMS into them playing Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. A guy came down the street to our garage where we had this set up and wanted to know where the live band was. He had been inside watching football.

I have yet to hear anything that sounded like the VOTs. Those horns are something else. And their efficiency is legendary. When you consider most theaters at the time just used 3 of them across the stage in a movie theater to fill the room. And this was done when power was at a premium. I have been checking out sites over the years that offer these speakers for sale from ebay to Altec and they average over $5,000 each new.

You have some fine equipment and even though you can't get what you want right now what you do have a lot of people would kill to own. I hope that things will turn around for you in the near future so you can add to your already great setup.

 

[chuckg]

I know where I can lay my hands on a pair of VOTs. Would anyone here be interested? I'll post some details, and see if I can start the OK to pry them loose from the college inventory.

 

[Parker Clack]

I would sure get a pair if I could afford them. Shipping alone would be very expensive.

 

[cybernco]

Check out the Pioneer VSX-1120-K Receiver. It seems to be a great buy for the money.
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Products/HomeEntertainment/AV-Receivers/PioneerReceivers/ci.VSX-1120-K.Kuro?tab=B

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Parker C.,

Thank you for the complements on the gear, very much appreciated.

Hey Gregg J.,

Thanks for the recomendation on the Pioneer VSX-1120. I looked at that and it didn't fit my needs and or expectations. I promised myself that if I couldn't get a true upgrade from the Yamaha RX-V995 and when I say that I mean. From the sense of moving up not only in quality, upgraded inputs, decoding, very good quality amplifier section, clean and dynamic sound but also needed to be further up the chain than what I have now. So I look at where my old 995 would sit in the chain in today models and move up from that. I told myself I would just hold on to the old Yamaha till I got exactly what I wanted. There are just to many things to upgrade and add to the home theater system, so I honeslty can not afford to buy something that I might end up replacing in 2-3 years. What ever I get it will have to last at lest 7 years minimum, maybe even 10 years. And while I do not make alot of money I am kinda stuborn and am not willing to settle for gear I know I will not be happy with. That's what I get for growing up with a father that allways worked his butt off for really good equipment.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I need to find a repair place that can be trusted to fix my JVC QL-50 turntable. If I had the money I would most likely get the best new Denon turntable that is available right now or the next step up from that would be a german build Clear Audio turntable! But I have to get a qoute for fixing the JVC and see if I can get it fixed unless it cost to much? The turntable starts making a grinding noise then it physically speeds up. I have no idea why it does that or what caused it to happen.

Picture of turntable is in post #13

 

[Celebration2011]

Hi - not sure if this is the right place to ask... but I am just getting back into fixing up my home theater...
It dated, but like everyone, I cant just replace everything, and need your advice.


It started putting this system together back in 1987 and kept up with it until 1995 and stopped upgrading... here is what I have so far, and please tell me what I need to do to replace my AV/Receiver so everything works the best:


Fronts: Polk Audio SDA SRS 1.2
Center: a pair of Kef C-15s
Sides & Rears: TruAudio LCR.1 ( just got these to make my system a 7.1 system)
Denon AVR-3000 ( Very old, outdated... NEED a new AV Receiver - please recommend one to work with current power amp & current speakers)
Adcom GFA7500 Power Amp
Sub: Energy 12" AVS-90 ( I think this is too weak,... but maybe just dont have a good AVR?)


So my real question I am asking is, what AV receiver should I get to replace my Denon AVR-3000 and get all these new bells & whistles in Audio & sound...that will work with my power amp and current speakers I have?

Any other suggestions? ( I am on a budget like everyone)


thanks gang!

Rio.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Well it turns out I could have got a better deal than what I paid for my Pioneer Elite SC-05 but we live and learn! I just picked up a used Pioneer Elite SC-05 that had enough of the features I needed to make it worth upgrading. I have been talking about wanting to upgrade for years and I had enough money finally saved up. Not for what I really wanted but good enough to get the job done and with all the inputs I could want and the audio decoding so oh well. If money improves and I am working full time again and can afford a good upgrade in 4-5 years then the Pioneer Elite SC-05 will get upgraded! This receiver should be a decent upgrade and I realize that maybe after the fact that I didn't get the best price on it but I could have done worse at the same time! I think I would rather have this SC-05 over a Sony ES any day! And so far I like the surround processing better than my old Yamaha RX-V995. It is nice to be able to switch all my sources both audio and video through the Pioneer Elite instead of running audio to my receiver and video to my rear projection Sony 50" HDTV 3 chip LCD. That is another thing I need to upgrade, to ether a Panasonic or Samsung 1080p flat panel HDTV!
Next upgrades to go with the new/used receiver! Now that I have this SC-05 I need an updated blu-ray player that can bit stream lossless audio to my receiver and a subwoofer for movies, something I have been lacking for years!
If anyone has suggestions for upgrades that are not pricey but perform extremely well please feel free to post them!
Bluray Player
Denon DMP-1611UD 3D Blu Ray SACD DVD Audio Player 24 Bit 192k Burr Brown DAC
Sony BDP-S470 3D Blu-Ray Disc Player with USB Inpupt
Subwoofer
Tannoy TS2.10 http://www.whathifi.com/review/tannoy-ts210
[ATTACHMENT=245]IMG_1803.JPG (3,140k. JPG file)[/ATTACHMENT]

 

[Dave Moritz]

 

[Dave Moritz]

 

[Dave Moritz]

Pioneer Elite SC-05 Surround Receiver
130 Watt - 8 Ohm - 20 - 20000 Hz - THD 0.09 % - 7 channel(s) ( Surround )
THX certified
Response Bandwidth - 5 - 100000 Hz
Signal-To-Noise Ratio - 103 dB
Additional Features: Bi-Amplifying, THX Select2 certified, Three-zone capability, Sirius satellite radio ready, Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration Circuit (MCACC), XM satellite radio ready
3 Component Video Inputs
4 HDMI Inputs
9 band EQ
USB flash drive playback
Power Consumption Operational - 330 Watt
40.8lbs

 

[Dave Moritz]

 

[Dave Moritz]

Finally the receiver has been updated and now I can move on to other upgrades! The pawn shop called and let me know that he talk to the owner and it didn't have a remote with it so no big deal I will just order one and on to getting a sub woofer and then upgrade the Blu-ray player!

 

[Dave Moritz]

Next Upgrades:
Denon or Sony Bluray Player
Tannoy or ? Sub Woofer

 

[Dave Moritz]

 

[gene c]

Dave, I see 8 pieces of equipment in your rack. What is all that? ...