Help me assemble a $2k home theatre system

[sygyzy]

Try Snag-It.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Well, I got a trial of SnagIt so I'm using that...

Main setup screen has all the components I input into it. It had almost everything right for the buttons and assigning things. (Had to work on the input selection on the receiver, aspect ratio control for the projector, and a couple minor things)
Activities are on the right. It goes through really simple questions like "Do you use your receiver or TV to control volume" etc. and sets up things. After it does this, you can add more devices as needed (I'm working on getting my bass shaker receiver into the mix right now).

Auto configures remote for each activity. I didn't change anything on top here, everything looks pretty good.

Custom buttons are the ones that will be on the screen when doing an activity. You can name these whatever you want and have them do a task from any component active for the activity.

Any questions about it? I think I kind of have the hang of it now. It's kind of odd that there are different ways to get to the same places for setup. It's a little awkward, but not too bad.

EDIT: I found snagit before you mentioned it. I guess I got lucky 😀

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Oh, and notes on above:

I know I'm using Internet Explorer. I'm sorry.

That apex is being replaced by a Panasonic S77 as soon as it gets here. (Would have done the oppo, but I'm running component to my projector as I'd need to get an M1/DVI or HDMI adapter to use the oppo as well as a 30 or 50 foot cable)

I don't really have an HK tape deck, that's the thing I used to trick the remote to get my computer input working (I'm sure there's a "non-trick" way of doing it, but what I did worked so I'm not going to mess with it).

Uhhhh... I think that's it.

 

[sygyzy]

Questions:

1. How limited is the LCD screen? Like is it locked into saying certain things? Like for TV, does it have to be displayed at a specific location on the screen and must it show an icon of a TV? Like is that space reserved for TV?

2. Has it been able to find every device you had? It had no problems? Can you submit a request to add a new device, say you have a newly released DVD player.

3. How does the function switching work? Like if you press DVD, do all the buttons change to DVD mode? What if you want to issue a command to the receiver (like Volume Up)? Do you have to press the receiver button, volume up, then back to the DVD mode? This is actually a general question I have with my HK remote. When I switch to DVD, for example, are all the commands in DVD mode?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

1. The icons can be moved around. I just switched movie and computer to check, and they did switch places.

It only takes up as many areas as you're using. I started off with just the default activites and have added computer.

I know you can make your own custom backgrounds and icons for channels/stations but I'm not sure if you can make your own "TV" symbol.

2. It found my Pioneer 1014, Infocus 4805, Sony n88, and Apex 2600. I got my Sherwood 2030 off ebay for my bass shakers and I have no idea how old it is. I didn't have ther remote for it either. The Harmony said it didn't have the 2030 in its database and asked if I had the remote for it to learn the functions. I said I didn't, and it selected a newer model (4030) to try to see if those codes worked. The input switching, power, and volume all work fine on it :thumbsup:

Worst case is you'll have to have it learn all your buttons individually on the remotes, but it will work.

3. As you can see in my "Auto configues remote" picture, there's a big grid for each function. You can make each button on the left side (each corresponds to a button on the harmony) do whatever you want it to. If I have it in DVD mode, I could have buttons on it control my DVD player, projector, receiver, or bass shaker receiver. I don't have to do any switching until I want to do another activity. Then the components I'm not using turn off and the new ones I need turn on. Components that are used in both activities stay on (it remembers what's on and what isn't).

In my picture you can see the default settings. (Actually the TuneDown/TuneUp is left over from radio settings)
Most of the buttons are assigned to the DVD player but since I told it I use my receiver to control volume, it assigned volume and mute to the Receiver.

Each of the blue pulldown arrows has the complete listing of fuctions for that device so I could have any button do any fuction from the list of devices on my list.

I took that pic before I added my Sherwood receiver, so now DVD, TV, Stereo Receiver, and Stereo Receiver #2 are on the grid.



Did that make sense?

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: rleemhui

Originally posted by: spidey07

What's even funnier is calling HK "hi-end"

lol

What's funny is that people can't understand that some people consider $600 a lot of money to spend on a receiver.

Can you get a receiver/seperates that cost $5000? No problem. Is it worth the $$$$ for everyone, hell no.

That's the difference though. You are calling HK "hi-end"

"hi-end" is flagship receivers from the big 5 or decent separates. All else is "mid-fi".

I'm a big fan of HK and had many of their amps/integrateds over the years. Good stuff. Not hi-end and the difference between that and "hi-end" is leaps and bounds and plenty worth it to a lot of folks.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: rleemhui

Originally posted by: spidey07

What's even funnier is calling HK "hi-end"

lol

What's funny is that people can't understand that some people consider $600 a lot of money to spend on a receiver.

Can you get a receiver/seperates that cost $5000? No problem. Is it worth the $$$$ for everyone, hell no.

That's the difference though. You are calling HK "hi-end"

"hi-end" is flagship receivers from the big 5 or decent separates. All else is "mid-fi".

I'm a big fan of HK and had many of their amps/integrateds over the years. Good stuff. Not hi-end and the difference between that and "hi-end" is leaps and bounds and plenty worth it to a lot of folks.

Just differing opinions then on what "high end" means.

Call it what you want, my HK 435 is a damn nice piece of hardware for me

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Just got my new DVD player... time to reconfigure the Harmony 🙂

EDIT: Oh, and maybe it's my turn to ask a question now...

In reading up on my DVD player before I bought it, I saw several people mention how the audio output quality on it was nicer than their old players. I wasn't sure if they were talking about the 5.1 channel output on it.

So, I was using optical output on before on my Apex DVD player... now I have the choice of a digital connection of doing 5.1 output through analog to my 6 channel direct input on my receiver. I was planning on just keeping it connected optically to my receiver, but maybe you guys would have input on whether it would be worth it to check out the analog output.

Receiver is Pioneer 1014
DVD is Panasonic S77

 

[sygyzy]

Which one did you get?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
Which one did you get?

Edited above

 

[sygyzy]

Is the Panasonic one of the older models? Does it have upconversion? What is the max resolution supported by your DLP? Do you have available slots to do individual analog connections?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Holy fvck the blue light for the tray is bright. (Hope there's a way to turn that down/off)

It's kind of older I guess... I mean it didn't just come out.

It has upconversion but I'm not going to be using it.

I think it's like the not so little brother of the s97 that you may have heard of.
My DLP is 480p so I'm going to see whether 480i or 480p looks better on it. 480i output definately looked a lot better from my Apex.

Either audio connection is available for me.


EDIT: I was worried for a minute before I found the darker black level setting :thumbsup:

There isn't a DLP projector option for the display type either so I'm playing around with what looks best.

Options are
CRT direct view
CRT Projector
LCD TV/Projector
Projection TV
Plasma

The CRT and Plasma options all look about the same to me.
LCD options look brighter but not as good from what I can tell so far
Projection TV looks really dark/washed out

EDIT#2: oooh, auto level on brightness/dim on front display = tray light turns off after movie starts 🙂

I don't see a progressive/interlaced option yet though... maybe I should read the manual 😛

 

[Muadib]

YOyoYOhowsDAjello, why the S77 if you're not going to upconvert?😕

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Muadib
YOyoYOhowsDAjello, why the S77 if you're not going to upconvert?😕

Down the road might want it. (I am crazy afterall... a super hot deal could have me in front of a new HD projector at any moment)

Also going off picture quality ratings, the s77 rated highly and I was willing to go up into the $200 range. It seemed like the one to get.

EDIT: Scored highly on Hometheater Secrets DVD benchmark for example.

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: Muadib
YOyoYOhowsDAjello, why the S77 if you're not going to upconvert?😕

Down the road might want it. (I am crazy afterall... a super hot deal could have me in front of a new HD projector at any moment)

Also going off picture quality ratings, the s77 rated highly and I was willing to go up into the $200 range. It seemed like the one to get.

EDIT: Scored highly on Hometheater Secrets DVD benchmark for example.

It's a great player, but up conversion is highly overrated. I have the older S97, and the difference when up converting is just about nonexistent on my AE700. I kept the player though because it used HDMI.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Muadib

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: Muadib
YOyoYOhowsDAjello, why the S77 if you're not going to upconvert?😕

Down the road might want it. (I am crazy afterall... a super hot deal could have me in front of a new HD projector at any moment)

Also going off picture quality ratings, the s77 rated highly and I was willing to go up into the $200 range. It seemed like the one to get.

EDIT: Scored highly on Hometheater Secrets DVD benchmark for example.

It's a great player, but up conversion is highly overrated. I have the older S97, and the difference when up converting is just about nonexistent on my AE700. I kept the player though because it used HDMI.

Yeah, I didn't really get it for upconversion as mentioned. I've even read that there are a lot of issues when upconverting in players at this pricelevel due to the deinterlacer chips enhancing the macroblocking problem on DVDs. I know a lot of people have gotten the s77/s97 players and ended up running them at 480i/480p mode due to macroblocking looking bad on their displays.

I just wanted a nice solid player for component output to my projector and set a limit to my spending at $200.
The oppo 971 and panasonic s77 seemed to be the best players in the pricerange. The oppo only seemed to do well in digital output mode, and since my 4805 would need an adapter and I'd need to buy a new long cable to get a digital signal to it, I decided to get a player that was good at component. The s77 seemed to do better than the other players I was looking at.

My apex player sucked beyond belief. It wouldn't even load discs sometimes. Frustrating when company is over... makes me look like a noob if I can't get the movie to start.
I could usually get it to play if I turned the player on, ejected the tray, put the disc in, then turned off the player, waited a few seconds, and then turned it back on. Then it would take the disc in and usually it would manage to get it started.

The fact that this new player actually plays discs when I put them in already makes it far superior to my old one 😉

I thought about just getting a cheap player (like the Phillips 642 etc.) but decided to just go for it and get a nicer one.

EDIT: oh, and do you know if there's a progressive setting on this thing that I'm missing?

 

[sygyzy]

Good choice on a player. I am borrowing my ex-roommate's Pansonic X30 and it's pretty cool. He did a lot of research on it and wanted to avoid the macroblocking (sp?) issue. I didn't know or care what it was since he was more of the AV guy around the house. Now I run the show.

On related news: I got the center channel mounted. It's sweet. Right over my TV.

I ran EZSet and it got the speaker distances all correct except my SR was really off. SL was set as something like 4.3 feet while SR was set like 15.8 feet. So I manually corrected it.

It set all the speakers to large with 40 hz crossovers. I re-set them plus LFE, all to 80.

Can anyone explain why these are so off/wrong? And is it safe to assume that if I change any settings that EZSet has done, that it basically nullifies or turns off EzSet?

Thanks.

 

[PurdueRy]

Yes, its ok to reset the settings, there are many guides on AVSforum for this. You I think set them to small manually then rerun part of the setup if its setting yours to large. Just check some of the HK threads and you will see the steps. Also, run the EZset at -28 instead of what the onscreen instructions setting

 

[sygyzy]

How about where to point the mic? I read a thread by you and the people say point it at the speaker. Does that mean I stand holding the mic (on a rod) and rotate and tilt it as I go through each test? That seems like not a great idea...

 

[JME Fidelity]

For a home theater on that budget id definatley go with a Harman Kardon receiver. Great sound quality, bass control, and dynamics. Its also very musical. And yea the Ascend speakers would be amazing. For a home theater subwoofer definatley go SVS. Dollar for dollar they just can not be beat for impact and depth.

And yea as someone else was saying, no compoenents in this system are going to be high end, or even mid end. High end = ~$10,000 and up for a receiver. Or 5 monoblocks.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
How about where to point the mic? I read a thread by you and the people say point it at the speaker. Does that mean I stand holding the mic (on a rod) and rotate and tilt it as I go through each test? That seems like not a great idea...

What I did for my mic (Pioneer 1014) was to have it oriented with the front towards my center and at about ear level and then left the area and let the tests run without moving it around.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: JME Fidelity
For a home theater on that budget id definatley go with a Harman Kardon receiver. Great sound quality, bass control, and dynamics. Its also very musical. And yea the Ascend speakers would be amazing. For a home theater subwoofer definatley go SVS. Dollar for dollar they just can not be beat for impact and depth.

And yea as someone else was saying, no compoenents in this system are going to be high end, or even mid end. High end = ~$10,000 and up for a receiver. Or 5 monoblocks.

I think it depends on your scale of "ends"

If you went with

crap-end ($100-$500)
low-end ($500-$1500)
mid-end ($1500-$4000)
high-end ($4000-$10000)
very high-end ($10000-$25000)
insane-end (eleventy billion dollars)

Then this would be mid-end 😉

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
How about where to point the mic? I read a thread by you and the people say point it at the speaker. Does that mean I stand holding the mic (on a rod) and rotate and tilt it as I go through each test? That seems like not a great idea...

You should use a tripod, not just stand there.

I would point it straight at the speaker, but you have to find the best distance and such for your speakers. There are alot of cancellation nodes and such which can severely affect the end result

 

[mindmaniac]

YOyoYOhowsD Ajello, what's your opinion on the Dayton Subs, that you had listed in HOT Deals? I beleive they were a 10" sub for under $100.

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: rleemhui

Originally posted by: sygyzy
How about where to point the mic? I read a thread by you and the people say point it at the speaker. Does that mean I stand holding the mic (on a rod) and rotate and tilt it as I go through each test? That seems like not a great idea...

You should use a tripod, not just stand there.

I would point it straight at the speaker, but you have to find the best distance and such for your speakers. There are alot of cancellation nodes and such which can severely affect the end result

So which is it? Point it at the speaker (5 different speakers in play here, requires moving it for each test) or point it at the center channel (like YoYo said)?