Changes to the home theater I’ve been busy the past couple of weeks. We decided to move all of the components into a closet and save some space in the family room. Man, what a chore. This meant running a LOT of LONG cables under the house. My wife was gracious enough to crawl in the tiny crawlspace. This allowed us to wall mount the plasma, which in-turn gave us the chance to move the projector screen almost two feet further from the couch. Soooo, I HAD to go bigger. Went from a 106” to 120”. It’s huge. Almost floor to ceiling. I also have a new receiver/processor coming Fedex (tracking shows out for delivery!), but y’all don’t care about that stuff. Anyway, here are some pics: Before photo (the stand is going away) Another before shot Bye Bye BDI stand Wall mount and start of cabling More holes in the wall, plus power Crap everywhere and wiring for my future second sub (some day) The closet with electrical being put in Stuff being put out of the way temporarily TV mounted, new screen on floor New 120” screen. Huge. TV peeking out TV Projector Shot Screen closeup
I am in the middle of setting mine up right now. There is nothing worse than running speaker wire because the maker of your house didn't think to pre-wire the living room for home theatre. Right now my plan is to use some channeling to hide it and run it around the edge of the room.
I thought of this thread while reading this article the other day about the nature of happiness, and how to spend money to achieve it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html?_r=1 I've been envying the really nice sets here, but when you get down to it, my overall happiness isn't likely to improve that much if I upgrade the 42" plasma I have now. I think I'm taking the family to Cancun instead.
Yeah running wire, more specifically, hiding wire is a pain in the butt. I got a quote from a company before I decided to embark on this myself, $1800. I thought that was insane.
That is interesting. I’m not sure I buy it though. Sure, would taking the family to Cancun be fun, yep. Would it produce “longer-lasting satisfaction” I doubt it. On top of that it would cost atleast 5X as much as I just spent! Thing is, there will always be something “better” one can do with money. The trick is doing the “right” thing most of the time, while every once in a while just blowing it. Fact is though, in my home at least, we get a lot of satisfaction from this stuff and I get to enjoy them enjoying it.
And if you're smart, and not an impulse buyer, you can get them off of craiglist for not an insane amount of money. My cousin got a projector screen for 5 bucks off of craigslist (in the 'sota). It's "only" 8 feet diagonally. It was barely used, mounts to the wall, and for him works fine. He also bought an older (as in, 2 years old) HD projector (with the 720 native screen doohicky shit I know nothing about) for 200 bucks, with something like 50 hours on the lamp. Plus he told me how you can buy sheets of white paper (that photographers use) that would be 100" diagonally, for 30 bucks. For me, a 15 year old TV that turns on works fine.
My guess is the picture would be horrible at that size. However I subscribe to comcast when the season rolls around.
Good read about why you shouldnt waste your $$$ on expensive HDMI cables. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20056502-1.html?tag=epicStories Best place to buy HDMI cables and anything else you need: www.monoprice.com Thanks Bob for showing me this site! I might post pics of my new home theater set up soon. Still need to finish up a few things.
Great read! Thanks. I cringe every time I see some poor sucker being led to the checkout at Best Buy holding a way overpriced Monster cable. Monoprice is awesome for cables and a LOT more.
I'm finally finished with my little home theater project. All I have left to purchase is a BluRay player and a Harmony remote. MANY thanks to Bob Dobalina for answering 1,000 questions and helping me choose a receiver and speakers. Sony Bravia 60'' LCD TV Onkyo TX-NR609 Receiver 7 Monoprice In Wall Speakers (Center, 2 Fronts, 2 Surround, and 2 Rears) BIC 10'' Sub Impact Accoustics IR Repeater Probably going to get the Panasonic DMP-BDT210's BluRay player and the Harmony One remote.
