Home Theatre
01-06-2003, 01:57 PM
#1
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long story short, christmas gift for me and my wife, $2400 to spend on whatever we want. we decided on home theatre. after much shopping, decided on hitachi hdtv 47" (was up against a comparable sony set), infinitiy 5 speaker with sub (was up against a similar jbl setup), and yamaha 6.1 receiver. guy was trying to sell us onkyo 6.1, but they seemed the same (features and such), and yamaha was more visually pleasing. this was extremely difficult, because we owned nothing else comparable to this stuff, and I had to try to filter the truth and lies from the what the salesmen were telling us. the only thing the onkyo had that the yamaha didn't (from what I could tell) was individual volume control for each speaker, but I figured I wouldn't use that anyway. any thoughts on our choices?
01-06-2003, 02:03 PM
#2
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hitach is a good choice for an HDTV, but check out Mitsubishi while you are shopping. They are the best ranked tv's . I have one and it is quite unbelievable. AS far as the reciever goes, go with the yamaha, the onkyo is better, but unless you are building a real home theater, I.E. staduim seating, and you have someone come to test the acoustics of the room for proper speaker placement, you will nover notice the differance between any good reciever from another. Speaker wise I would reccoment infinity or polk, any thing cheaper will sould like crap through a good reciever, and higer scale speakers will cost more than the TV!!!!
01-06-2003, 02:10 PM
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yeah, we chose infinity over polk...spent quite a while in the listening room at circuit city
the salesman said hitachi made the lenses for most other brand projection tv's, and reserve the good lenses for themselves...don't know if that's true or not, but it looked the best from the choices we had
stores available to us: circuit city, best buy, sound advice (too pricey)
we were gonna get a jvc tv at best buy, but it was on back order, and you know how that can go ("oh, it got pushed back...") it's nice to have a tv with the speakers and receiver.
we already got the receiver from best buy, and are about to get the tv and speakers at circuit city tonight. I have no idea where I'm gonna put it till her parents move out, but it will somehow be set up tonight. :bigthumg:
the salesman said hitachi made the lenses for most other brand projection tv's, and reserve the good lenses for themselves...don't know if that's true or not, but it looked the best from the choices we had
stores available to us: circuit city, best buy, sound advice (too pricey)
we were gonna get a jvc tv at best buy, but it was on back order, and you know how that can go ("oh, it got pushed back...") it's nice to have a tv with the speakers and receiver.
we already got the receiver from best buy, and are about to get the tv and speakers at circuit city tonight. I have no idea where I'm gonna put it till her parents move out, but it will somehow be set up tonight. :bigthumg:
01-06-2003, 02:46 PM
#6
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buying a component video cable for the dvd, 100' of speaker wire...roughly $60, as suggested buy circuit city man (sub comes with wire). he said that if we were gonna do fibre optics for everything, we'd be looking at near $200 on cables alone. that can wait.
01-06-2003, 02:50 PM
#7
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Alright!! My subject!! I am not sure Hitachi makes a 47 HDTV. I did have a chance to own their cabenet 43 inch though for about a month. Then I upgraded to the 57. Mitsubishi is great I have to admit had one of those too. But for the money Hitachi is best. Second..I prefer polk over infinity. I like them alot but POLK just puts out sound. Circuit city doesn't carry the POLK speaker that Iwanted though. As for the reciever 6.1 doesn't mean anything. I only have 2 DVDs that even have that. For the same price range you can get a Harmon Kardon which is what I have. Your ears will not get tired of listening to it. Stick with Circuit city if you want good stuff. Best buy really isn't great and please don't waste your money on BOSE!!!! . Cabling is also important. ALways save money for that. Buy MOnster cables or if you want to dish out more then get "Bettercables"(thats the name of them). And if you do get the yamaha for the 6.1 make sure you don't need a seperate amp for the 6th channel. The harman kardon has 7 channels but you need amps for the 6th and 7th. If you have any questions I know alot about this stuff since I have installed many a home theaters.
01-06-2003, 03:24 PM
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what's funny is that everywhere we went, all the guys dissed bose, even if they sold it. we didn't like the harmon kardon because when he tried to demo it, it kept shutting off...first impressions last...and the guy kept getting frustrated, and said "this is why I hate harmon kardon! it has a tendancy to heat up..." left a bad taste in my mouth (we were looking in the $500 range for receivers, the yamaha was like $474)
I might be a little off on the tv, I let my wife deal mostly with that.
the speakers we were looking at were the sets in the $600 dollar range, and in that range, the infinity sounded better to us...it had better highs and mids in the satellite speakers, whereas as the polks had a better sub, but not as good highs...we don't really thump the speakers at home, so we preferred the better high and mid range.
circuit city also had a good sounding deal where you could trade up within a year, and pay the difference...even though the salesman said it would be worth it to buy towers later on, and keep the smaller satellites for another room....I'm telling you, we spent hours in that store
I might be a little off on the tv, I let my wife deal mostly with that.
the speakers we were looking at were the sets in the $600 dollar range, and in that range, the infinity sounded better to us...it had better highs and mids in the satellite speakers, whereas as the polks had a better sub, but not as good highs...we don't really thump the speakers at home, so we preferred the better high and mid range.
circuit city also had a good sounding deal where you could trade up within a year, and pay the difference...even though the salesman said it would be worth it to buy towers later on, and keep the smaller satellites for another room....I'm telling you, we spent hours in that store
01-06-2003, 03:59 PM
#10
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WHoa...satellites??? ummmm....stay away from those. Unless you plan on getting an awesome sub. My advice mix and match. Harmon Kardons don't heat up...the show room guys don't know anything about them. They are hand made and I have never had mine go out. The reason those go out are because they have strange wattage rating and handle different OHM loads. PLus they are hooked up to like 20 speakers hince why it goes off. the sound is great though. I agree with the speakers get infinity if you are staying under $600. Polk gets good around the $900 range. Just dont buy sattelites I cant warn you enough. They sound great in the show room because it is most like small and only has one opening(the door to go in) if you are putting it in a living room you will have no mids or bass. Everything will be high pitched and you will get ear fatigue really bad. So far you have a good set up. Stick with the HItachi though I love it...its my 3rd. 1 big screen....1 43' that was a loaner ..and then finally the one I have now. The 57. Youll love it!!